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Chestnut-breasted Coronet (Nick Athanas)
Tropical Birding tour report Southern Ecuador March 2006
Every
tour brings with it different challenges and experiences, and I am not talking
only about the birds. This time it was vagaries of the climate and a trip to the
emergency room. Despite these, or perhaps, because of them, this was certainly a
trip I won't forget for a long time. Taking someone to the hospital in the
middle of the night was something new for me, and something I hope to never have
to do again. Fortunately it turned out to be a fairly minor infection and the
client was able to rejoin the tour a few days later.
Early
this year was the rainiest season that western Ecuador has experienced since I
moved down here in 2000. The rains started a month early and were ferocious. The
early rains hurt us in the normally dry southwest. Rather than birding the area
in peak breeding season, we were a bit too late. Virtually everything had
already bred and had become less vocal and much less responsive. Two breeding
residents, Andean Slaty-Thrush and Black-and-white Tanager, normally quite vocal
in March, were nowhere to be found. Perhaps they had finished breeding and had
become silent and inconspicuous, or perhaps they had even already left their
breeding grounds and were on there way back to eastern Peru and Bolivia where
they apparently spend the rest of the year. Another drawback to the early rains
was that areas that were normally dry, with few leaves on the trees, were
incredibly lush and green with a very dense new understory. Skulking birds like
Watkins's Antpitta, various foliage-gleaners, and Elegant Crescentchest were now
able to hide from our searching eyes much more easily than normal.
On the other hand, despite the weather, we managed to do reasonably well. We lost
hardly any birding time, with most rain falling during travel time or at night,
and we had especially nice weather in Buenaventura. Landslides, which can
seriously disrupt transport on a trip like this, only caused us one hassle, when
a major one closed the road between Cuenca and Guayaquil. Even this cost us
little as we managed to see nearly all the key species in Cajas despite having
only a few hours to bird there before taking a long detour back to Guayaquil. |
