Watching Birds in Mindo, Ecuador

We had our first guided birdwatching tour on January 5 in Mindo, Ecuador, with a guide named Julia. I have never had so enjoyable a time birdwatching in all of my existence. It is said that Ecuador has around 1600 different species of birds, over twice as many as can be found in the U.S.A. Mindo, in recent years has become famous for it's birdwatching. Julia met us at our guesthouse at 6:00AM. She handed me some binoculars, (Sugata had his camera), slung her spotting scope and tripod over her shoulder and we began to walk up the road that leads to the waterfalls. The air was alive with the sounds of birds. We started out observing Lemondrop Tanagers and Tropical Kingbirds. But let me not get into name-dropping just yet. 

A panaroma of Mindo from the road that goes to the Tarabitas and the Casacadas where we did our  bird-watching.  You can see the buildings of Mindo along a row in the center-left of the photo

Julia grew up in Mindo and was always interested in nature. Her first job, when she was 12 years old was planting trees for a Uruguyan man who had once owned the property that we were walking through. She planted fruit trees and those trees helped attract the birds. At that time, nobody was really interested in watching birds the way that so many are today. Within her lifetime it became popular and Julia realized she could make a career out if it. When she first started studying there were no bird books with pictures of birds, just descriptions, and she didn't have binoculars either. They don't sell or make binoculars in Ecuador.It is only later that she acquired a book with pictures of birds in it. Now Julia has been working as a bird-watching guide for 13 years. 

You can tell that Julia enjoys what she does. She must have seen many of these birds countless times, and yet you can feel that she is excited with you as you view the birds. She seems to divine the presence of the birds whether they are nearby in the dark shadows, or far off in the distance. To those who are not as practiced as she, it seems like magic. I'm envious of Julia's ability to read the forest, how she distinguishes between the birdcalls, and knows where to expect birds. She sets up her scope quickly and soon you are looking through the spotting scope while she draws your attention to specific aspects of the bird; the tail, the color of the feet, or the markings around the eyes.

Within 15 minutes of leaving the Hostal Sanchez, our residence, she had shown us more than 15 species- dawn is the prime time to observe birds. It was quite an experience to watch a tropical kingbird calmly sit on an electricity wire while chewing on a butterfly- while Julia had already spotted three other species in the near dark of early morning.

I found the toucans quite enthralling. We saw three different species of them: the Choco Toucan, the Chestnut Mandibled Toucan, and the Pale Mandibled Aracari. We watched them flying, sitting on treetops and calling, and holding berries in their mouths. A Laughing Falcon sat on a tree nearby, keeping them both a little nervous and a little busier than usual: how Julia managed to spot this bird is unbelievable because this was perched more than 250m away. She even took many videos of the Toucans singing- which we will post in a separate entry.

An Aracari with food for its babies that were calling out from the nearby trees.

As Julia was training the spotting scope on one of the calling toucans, something bright and blue-green flew in and landed on a tree just near us. "What is that?" I said, "A parrot?" Julia looked up from the spotting scope. "A Quetzal!" she said, and turned the scope toward it. Parrots, apparently, are always calling out when they fly. The fact that something had come in so quietly and that the bright color of it had amazed me, led her toward her Quetzal conclusion almost before she looked up from her spotting scope.

A rare golden headed Quetzal

Also of note was the Common Potoo, sleeping on the end of a bare branch, looking like a headless clump of feathers, until we got the spotting scope on it and could see its eye, half open and the little snip of a beak poking out through its feathers.

A Common Potoo- an uncommon find of this nocturnal bird

In addition, Julia also know about plants, any plant that Sugata and I queried about- she knew, and not just the Latin, Spanish and English names, she knew if it was native or not, and whether the local people used it for any particular purpose: building houses from a local variety of bamboo or using the fibrous leaves for making textiles or shoes.

Julia had the spotting ready and aimed at the bird before Sugata and I  could locate the bird with binoculars or naked eyes.

All-in-all we spent five intense hours looking for and at an amazing variety of beautiful birds that we likely would not have seen on our own. We saw more than 50 species that day, which are noted below. Our notes are not perfect, nor is our spelling, but if any expert birders out there want to make corrections of our list either in terminology or spelling, it would be most welcome.

Thank you Julia for an unforgettable adventure.

1.       Tropical Kingbird

2.       Pacific Ornero

3.       Lemondrop Tanager

4.       Social Flycatcher

5.       Blue Gray Tanager

6.       Banana quit/quet

7.       White Lined tanager female

8.       Shiny Cowbird

9.       Seedeater, semiero, variable male

10.   Snowy Egret

11.   Fasciated Tiger Heron

12.   Ringed Kingfisher

13.   White capped Dipper

14.   Cinnamon Tanager

15.   Carter Egret

16.   Lemondrop Tanager

17.   Black Phoebe

18.   Blue/Gray necked tanager

19.   Bay Headed tanager

20.   Barbet

21.   Silver Throated Tanager

22.   Bronze Winged parrot

23.   Red faced Spine tail

24.   Choco Toucan

25.   Pale Mandible Aracari

26.   Common Potoo

27.   Chestnut Mandible Toucan

28.   Swallow Tanager, female green

29.   Golden Headed Quetzal

30.   Blue Headed tanager

31.   Fawn breasted tanager

32.   Laughing Falcon

33.   Red billed/beaked Parrot

34.   Palm tanager

35.   White Whiskered Hermit

36.   House Wren

37.   Smooth Billed Ani

38.   Tropical Parullah

39.   Oranger Belted Euphonia

40.   White collared Swift

41.   Buff Throated salteador

42.   Golden Flycatcher

43.   Carpenter

44.   Golden Olive Woodpecker

45.   Golden Tanager

46.   Spotted Woodcreeper

47.   Cuckoo- in Spanish- Cuckoo Ardilla

48.   Ornate Flycatcher (male and female)

49.   Strong Billed woodcreeper

50.   Swallow Tailed Kite- a migratory bird from Florida

51.   Rufus breasted average Thrush

52.   Rufus Moth Moth

53.   Black Vulture

54.   Slaty Spinetail

55.   Hook Billed Kite Female- areas of yellow around the eye.