Son-in-law Adam and I signed on with Tropical Birding for a private birding tour of northern Ecuador. We engaged in extended email correspondence trying to come up with an itinerary that would include a Cock-of-the Rock lek and 4 bird families I had never seen: Toucan Barbet, Gnateater, Sapayoa and the Mitrospingidae tanager family recently split from the greater Tanager family, Thraupidae. Several weeks before the planned tour, Tropical Birding informed us that there had been terrorist activities in the far northern area along the Columbia border, where we would have expected to find Sapayoa. That area was deleted from our itinerary.
Barbara and I had spent a day with a guide in the Tandayapa area near Quito when we stopped there on our way to a cruise in the Galapagos Islands a few years ago, so I had seen a number of the birds of the area. Nevertheless, this trip produced a grand total of 158 new life birds for me, out of a total of about 320 species. Our guide, Andres, and Adam, saw and heard quite a few more than that, but with my aging eyes, I am unable to distinguish some of the birds, especially those that dwell high up in the trees, or in dark, brushy areas, so the trip actually yielded significantly more than the 320 that I was able to claim.
As the trip began, I told Andres that I would welcome his photography as the trip went along, as neither I nor Adam are adept at, nor particularly interested in, photography. The condition attached to that invitation to take a lot of pictures, was that he would send me his better photos and allow me to use them in this blog. He readily agreed, and the first installment of those pictures “The Hummingbirds of northern Ecuador”, follow.
The Tropical Birding list of potential sightings for the entire trip contains 65 different Hummingbird species. That figure is startlingly large, but the mountains of Ecuador are the Mecca of the Hummingbird family. Compare that to our 1 specie, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, the only specie commonly seen anywhere east of the Rockies in North America. Of the 65 potential Hummingbirds, I was able to see and identify 42. Of the 42, 15 were new life birds for me. The 7 that Andres chose to send to me for inclusion in this blog are:
Buff-tailed Coronet
Collared Inca
Long-tailed Sylph
Purple-throated Woodstar
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Sword-billed Hummingbird
