Towheeblog

Coca, Ecaudor–This birding trips has had its ups and downs.  Weve been up to 12,000 feet crossing the Papallachta Pass in the Andes.  Now we’re down to less than 1000 feet elevation along one of the tributaries of the mighty Amazon.  Tomorrow we boat down the Napo River.  Earlier today we watched Napo Sabrewings bully smaller hummers at the nectar feeders at the Wildsumaco ecolodge on the lowers slopes of the Sumcao volcano.  The lodge stands at about 1800 meters (6000 feet).

This picture of the Napo can not begin to capture the glittering irridescence of this bid in flight, or this bird catching the sun and shimmering, a living jewel.  Hummingbirds are nature’s wildesty artistic endeavor. Form, function and fantasy melded into a tiny living kinetic sculpture.

This second pictutre shows a Collared Inca in flight.  Forever my favorite hummer.  The white is soft, powdered sugar.  The dark reddish-purplish-black feathers are like plush velvet.  And when he bends his head forward that violet crown sometimes catches the light and seems to produce its own vivid lumens. This pictures was taken at Guango Lodge on ther banks of the upper Papallachta River, east of Quito on the Andean eastern slope.

So far our group has seen three dozen hummers, thirty tanager species and over 180 species in three days of birding.  I have added 67 birds to my life list, and over seventy to my Ecuador life list.  There are wintering U.S. breeders down here now: Canada and Blackburnian Warblers for example.  Western Wood-Pewees are now as common here as they are around Ashland, Oregon, in June.  One more fine bird we’ve seen, Channel-billed Toucans: