The Birds of Ecuador.

Captain's Log, Day 95: 428 bird species in 82 days. Of these, 317 were "life list" species (birds I had not previously seen in North or Central America). There are nearly 1,700 bird species in Ecuador; which is a remarkable proportion of the estimated 10,000-some species of birds species in the world. It's incredible to me that a country about twice the size of my home state, Pennsylvania, can offer such mind-blowing biodiversity. About as incredible as the realization that there's now another country I feel I could someday call home.

Yarina Amazon evenings. Amaru Andean mornings. Mindo mid-afternoons.

It's hard to convey why certain places (or certain birds, for that matter) leave what becomes a lasting impression--harder still to express how crucial their inspiration is to fueling conservation work. The hours I've spent seeking out the Blue Seed-eaters, Red Barbets, and Dugand's Antwrens are so necessary to the work I do in-between the birding. It's near impossible to explain this necessity if the audience is unfamiliar with that singular rush of reverent wonder. It has been incredibly rewarding to realize that my mentors down here feel the same need to devote time to that primal appreciation of natural wonder. It's a part of our job that's as necessary as all the rehabilitation, research, and education of the public.

People have asked me since I said goodbye to Ecuador (nearly two weeks ago, now...goodness) what my favorite bird sighting was. Well, curious friends, I tried at first to list the ten most spectacular birds (impossible), then the ten birds I felt closest to or had previously worked with (see previous post about birds and conservation in October archives)...before settling on a list of ten birds that I wrote about the most in my journals (realizing quickly I couldn't write about just ten of them, so I beg your patience with this list of fifteen instead).

Even though I wrote about these birds often, I can't really call that a proper theme for this list. These are  really just some of the magnificent birds I met in Ecuador; just a fraction of the species that I'll be grateful to have seen in my lifetime when some of them disappear. Or to dedicate parts of my life to helping keep around.

An anecdote and a (google image found! Sorry my Canon Powershot doesn't measure up) picture of each.

My friend Eduardo pointed out the Great Potoo to me on my first hike at Yarina. The one we saw was snowier: roosting motionless against a Bombax tree with purpling flowers. I saw this bird every single day I was at Yarina, and if you asked me, I may say it was my favorite. A few nights when we didn't have any activities planned, I would sit with my feet dangling off the raised walkway in the swamp pathway across from that Bombax tree, sky darkening, and wait for it to take off. Nightjars have a particular power over me. I love this bird.

It seemed like whenever we were in an observation tower at Yarina, the Gilded Barbets were there, and I was always the first to spot them. Whether we were in the four-story, hilltop tower that looked over two bends of the Napo, sweeping over the canopies full of Dacnises, Flowerpiercers, Euphonias, Tanagers (and the occasional Black-throated Mango), or in Sapo Cocha, Yarina's protected lagoon, they were always there, and I would always get super excited about them.

The Cream-colored Woodpecker. It's so YELLOW. One would think that with eight or nine separate sightings each week at Yarina, I would have seen this one rather quickly.  Not so. It took me until I began learning calls from my Quechua friend Wilson at the end of my second week to realize that there was a little guy in the tree directly behind my cabin each day. We had a good laugh over that one, and I started visiting him daily...when we were no longer nemeses. 

Blue-headed Parrots. My first encounter with a live Blue-headed Parrot occurred on my first day at Yarina as well: 'Azulita,' one of the three resident rescue parrots, lived in the walls of my cabin and peeked through the boards at me or joined me in the shower. Seeing them in flight over the Ecuadorian lowlands and knowing that Azulita would probably never be part of a flock again was unspeakably heartbreaking; arriving at Amaru, where there were two dozen Blue-headed parrots in quarantine, was even worse. They're incredibly expressive, these guys. The joy with which they responded to basic enrichment after being confined without something to do for so long was incredible...the memories I have of them are definitely some of the strongest fuel for the anti-trafficking education efforts I want to make.

There's a Spangled Cotinga named Cory at the Aviary, and a volunteer who's exceptional with birdcalls. His name is George, and he knows the chips, chirps, and songs of every single bird we have at the Aviary (over 200 species)...except the Spangled Cotinga. So when Jaima Grefa called out from the canoe in front of me that there was a Spangled Cotinga calling and that we should stop to look for it, I was ecstatic. I wish George could have been there with us to see the flash of scarlet and neon turquoise through the trees.

Out of the Amazon and into the Andes: the Blue-mantled Thornbills at Cajas National Park. I spent a half an hour at the entrance to the park watching three or four of these little guys chase one another around with their wide black swallowtails. Sometimes they would appear to be sitting on the GROUND, which was absolutely bizarre...really they were getting at some of the low-set paramo flowers. The flash of neon green under their throats when they'd perch and hit the sun coming up over the hills...ahh, colibri magic.

I have a particular affinity for OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD GROUNDBIRDS. This Tawny Antpitta (click here for the xeno canto call), and the Pacific Hornero in Mindo, were just so BOLD. You could hear them from across a windy valley in Cajas; their calls even permeated some meters into the thick Polylepsis woodlands. They are a laugh out loud bird: I can't help but grin or supress snorting laughter when they puff up and yell. A guide at Cajas told me they call them "cha-chaus" for the noise they make. Little cha-chaus. Yee.

This, to Cuencans, is the Chugo. To english-speakers with Birds of Ecuador guides, it is the Southern Yellow Grosbeak, and it is everywhere around Cuenca. These guys would light my uphill trek to Amaru every morning once I'd gotten off the bus. They were such characters: wide eyes, always curious about what I was doing climbing their hill so early in the morning. I miss them. 

This is a bird of pure majesty. Aguila monera, said the members of the Environmental Ministry on the phone to us: a monkey-eating eagle, like the Harpy. This is a Black-and-Chestnut Eagle juvenile like the one we received at Amaru during my time there. The adults are black and chestnut brown with an unmistakable crest: I had the fortune to see one during my journey to Cuenca. The Waorani respect these eagles as minor Gods. If you ever come face to face with one, you'll know why. 

Into the cloud forest. Out of all the tanagers I saw in Mindo (with a quick check of my list, that's twenty-one species), the Flame-faced Tanager was the one that left me the most breathless. There was a particular bend in the cowpath down to Reserva Las Tangaras (aptly named) that was always host to a huge multispecies flock: Red-faced spinetails and Spotted Woodcreepers, flowerpiercers, the omnipresent bush tanagers, brush finches, warblers and tanagers. I'd always take time to seek these guys out in the multitude. Absolutely stunning. 

When I first heard the call of the Club-winged Manakin in Mindo, it reminded me of the metallic yawp of Monteverde's Three-wattled Bellbird in Costa Rica; thinner and more synthetic (listen to it here.) There were two separate leks of these guys on the same Las Tangaras cowpath; the males especially bold in the mid-afternoon, for whatever reason. Manakins are always so fun to watch...the dances and songs and pomp. I made sure to sit on the path and take them in for a full hour on my last day. 

People who hung out with me in Mindo would get sick of me telling people that this was a (same wording each time) "un-be-LIEVABLY massive swift-" that, moreover, "sounds like a PARROT or something." White-collared swifts. They really are massive, and they really DO sound something like parrots. I could see them from my hammock on the second floor of the station; they rose above the porch and the river each day, getting high enough to get us to wonder what they were really up to way up there, imagining that the selection of insects was rather poor at their altitude. Andrew and I ended up finding out where they roosted (or nested) on my last day on the reserve, in a stretch of the Rio Nambillo we wanted to name "The Temple" for its awe-inspiring stillness--tall, even canyon walls and stilled water, strong current leading forward to a waterfall amphitheater. 

I had to have these guys on the list. The Andean Cock-of-the-Rock; birds banded by Dusti Becker and Life Net Nature volunteers for station managers and volunteers to monitor year-round at their daily morning lek. Wheezing, dipping, beak-clapping males of the brightest red, their velvety black and white wings outstretched, yelling for the ladyfolk for hours each and every day. The most vivid images I have of them in memory? The first time I made it up to the lek, I wasn't yet familiar with the heavy wingbeats and beak-clicks; it was before five and still dark, and I didn't realize they were flying between treetops right above me. A few beak-clicks turned into a few wheezing 'yheeeeews' (me, pointing my binoculars desperately at each sign of movement, wondering what the noises could be and how much further the lek was), and through some silent accord twenty minutes later, they all EXPLODED in song, and the dance began. We would see them sometimes in the evening, flying over the Rio Nambillo and off into the forest; there are studies that say that their nests and roosts are almost always less than 40m from water.  They're hilarious, they're captivating, they're strangely wonderful and I am grateful I got to work with them. 

MOTMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! This one will always make me laugh. One of the station managers was under the impression our resident Rufous Motmot at Las Tangaras responded to a high-pitched calling of its name. Maybe it did, or maybe it was just always around. We'd sit on the porch, watching the swifts and hummingbirds at the feeders--the woodcreepers in the trees, and the Motmot preening indifferently on a perch not ten meters away. He was magnificent. 

Finally, I present to you the first out of ten bucket-list birds I have successfully found in the wild: the Lyre-tailed Nightjar. I had to get the advice of three different ornithologists and guides in Mindo, spend six nights walking the hills in the search, and three hours my second-to-last night in Mindo to get a glimpse of that bafflingly long tail moving across the night sky. Such a MYSTERY, that bird. I told you previously that Nightjars have a strange power over me: this one, as the King of Nightjars, has the most. As with all the birds on this list (and in general, really), I feel so incredibly fortunate to have had the chance to see one in my lifetime. Hats off to you, Lyre-tailed Nightjar. The rush of being in your presence is beyond compare. 

This is why avian conservation is my calling. People ask me why I'm so enchanted with birds, and I can't -really- explain, but maybe some of these anecdotes help shed some light. With the unrelenting pace of habitat destruction, the largely unhindered trafficking of exotic species, and environmental shifts brought by climate change, more and more of the birds of Ecuador are disappearing each year, and we aren't doing enough to stop it.

If you're interested in learning more about bird conservation in the Americas, check out the American Bird Conservancy (click here) or the National Aviary. The Aviary and Amaru are teaming up and planning ways to support new avian conservation efforts, such as an Andean Condor breeding, research, and education program. The Andean Condor is one of Ecuador's national icons; despite this, there are now estimated to be less than 30 pairs remaining throughout the country.

Maybe we can do something to change that. 

Whaddaya say, Lurch? (New Andean Condor arrival for the breeding program at the National Aviary). 

Cheers, all. 

-Nikki