A Trip Planned with 24hrs Notice! – & An update!

When I left for work last Thursday night, the plan for the upcoming weekend was to spend time birding around the Florida Keys, first going to look for the Zenaida Dove that’s been hanging out on Long Key, and then seeing if we could turn up any rarieties of our own. But by the time I got home the following morning, after my night shift at the local hospital, plans had changed completely. Suddenly we were going to Ecuador.

We flew down to twitch a somewhat reliable Banded Ground Cuckoo recently coming in to a moth station. Early morning on our first day, we watched as the nearly chicken-sized bird poked around at the ground around the lighted white sheet. Moth set ups such as this are a fascinating thing. With the birds we saw you might as well have been at an ant swarm. But as Burt Harris told us, another birder who was at the moth light with us and whom we once met in Sangihe, Indonesia of all places, anyone hoping to actually look for moths at this location is going to have to wait because the owners won’t let you close for fear that the cuckoo will see footprints and be scared away.
This cuckoo is a “cash cow” for this lodge and they would hate to give that up! (By the way, the price to see the cuckoo has increased to $60 per person and we’ve heard some stories that the owner is requiring people to also stay there, adding another $200 to the bill. We managed to sneak through on the old price, $50pp. And it’s probably worth noting that San Jorge de Milpé, the location the ground cuckoo is currently being seen, doesn’t have the best reputation amongst the local birding circles for numerous reasons. It’s a shame that such a good bird, wanted by so many, means that the owner, looking only to profit, is going to do just that.

We came for the cuckoo but stayed for as long as we both could. I happened to have a stretch of five days off at the hospital and we used this time to take the short, cheap flight to Ecuador. Honestly, it couldn’t have worked out better for my work schedule and seeing as how we currently live in Southern Florida, it is going to be difficult to keep us away from going to South America on the regular — the flights simply are too cheap for a direct ticket.
Anyway, this was about as relaxing of a birding trip as Ross Gallardy is capable of going on. With only a handful of lifers available, we meandered our way through multiple hummingbird feeding locations and even visited Angel Paz, the man who essentially discovered it was possible to train and feed antpittas. Now all over South America antpittas are routinely fed by adopting his model. Ross first met Angel Paz 17 years ago, when Ross was merely 16 years old and on his first independent birding trip; back when Angel had only just started his bird feeding career. I say career because Angel made a proper living by becoming a bird guide. Seventeen years ago he lived in a small shack and now he’s built a business, a lodge, a large house, and in the process, has met some of the best birders in the world. What he accomplished is truly amazing — all by realizing that antpittas like to eat worms, and will in fact, come out into the open if you teach them and that birders will pay good money to see them. We started our morning with Angel at an Andean Cock-of-the-rock lek, and then watched as he waved a banana at a Dark-backed Wood Quail, only for it to run straight out to him to get fed. We then saw 5 species of antpittas, (Giant, Yellow-breasted, Moustached, Ochre-breasted, & Chestnut-crowned) each coming in for worms, along with a slew of other good birds. For an entire morning Angel only charged $35 per person. This is a guy charging a reasonable rate and doing this for the right reasons.

In case I haven’t made this perfectly clear, a quick, easy birding trip is available to anyone willing to step outside the confines of the USA. Ecuador is safe, friendly, inexpensive, and chalk full of good birds so it’s always surprising to me to hear how many people have never gone on such a trip. Most of the BudgetBirders readers have of course travelled all over the world, but many birders, including many of our birding friends back home, haven’t for fear of XYZ. If any of you are reading this, I double dog dare you to just get your international birding feet wet — you won’t regret it. And Ecuador is a great place to start!

We spent our 4 days meandering around the Western slope of the Andes and edge of the Choco, all for a grand total of $560 for two people!! (This price includes our rental car, staying at nice accommodations, actually eating proper meals, and the ridiculous price of a ground cuckoo!) Let me just say this again, international birding trips are totally affordable!

This was a quick twitch, but don’t worry, I still have plenty to share from our previous trips. I apologize for not getting a blog post published in over two months, but unfortunately my laptop died and although I ordered a new one, it was delayed and didn’t arrive for what seemed like forever! I’m going to blame it on a microchip shortage but I have no idea if that is actually why it took so long for my new laptop to arrive. Now that the new laptop is here I promise to get back to sharing about the remainder of our trip to Gabon as well as about our first ever trip to Costa Rica, which we took just after Christmas and into the new year. Stay tuned!

And here are a few photos of some of the birds we saw on this quick trip to Ecuador!

I don’t normally include logistics in my blog posts, but because Ross does not plan to do a trip report on this whirlwind trip, here are a few more details for anyone interested! Along with Angel Paz, we also visited Balcon Tumpiki, Amagusa Reserve, the Bellavista area, and spot for the localized population of Rusty-breasted Antpitta.
A few notes about these locations for those visiting the area:

Balcon Tumpiki: Located only about 20 minutes from Angel Paz’s place, after taking a fairly steep rocky road you arrive at the small lodge of Balcon Tumpiki. They have a great feeder station with dozens of hummingbirds in attendance and a banana feeder that is visited by Plate-breasted Mountain Toucan, Crimson-rumped Toucanet, and Toucan Barbet. Some of the better hummingbirds include Rufous-gaped Hillstar, Hoary Puffleg, and lots of Booted Racket-tails.

Amagusa Reserve: This amazing reserve at the edge of the Choco is a fantastic spot to see species like Black Solitaire, Choco Vireo, Golden-collared Chlorophonia, Moss-backed Tanager, and Glistening-green Tanager. The two tanagers regularly come into a banana feeding station that the local grounds keeper, Sergio, maintains. There’s also a moth feeder where Zeledon’s Antbird visits, a great hummingbird station where the hummers will perch on your hands, and bananas that are hung for a local flock of Rose-faced Parrots. Sergio knows the birds very well and can be used as a local guide.

Sacha Guatusa (whatsApp +593 968 139 703, also on IG @sachaguatusa): Located about 8 km downhill from Amagusa Rerserve, this small lodge is run by Willie and Claudia. It’s an absolutely fantastic place to stay for only $10 per person per night! They are true homesteaders having built the lodge themselves and they make the majority of their own food including homemade bread, jams, and moonshine! It makes a perfect spot to explore the area and visit Amagusa. We had multiple Choco Screech Owls just downhill from their property and heard Choco Poorwill. Just downhill from here you have the possibility of seeing both Yellow-green Tanager and Scarlet-and-white Tanager. Other highlights we had in the area included Ornate Hawk-Eagle and Rufous-fronted Wood-quail.

Angel Paz (WhatsApp +1 619 919-4985): As mentioned, if you’ve never visited Angel, you haven’t really birded Ecuador. A half day trip with Angel is only $35 per person and will typically net you 5 species of antpitta, Dark-backed Wood-quail, Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, Golden-headed Quetzal, and the possibility of many other great species. Other cool birds we saw with Angel included Rufous-breasted Ant-thrush, Rufous-bellied Nightjar, Common Potoo, Turquoise Jay, Strong-billed Woodcreeper, and Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan.