Ecuador 9: Quebrada Honda

A bit like the day after Angel Paz, today was going to have a hard time living up to yesterday. But we were going to give it a good go anyway.

We spent the morning birding the famous Quebrada Honda trail. It was hard work! A Slate-crowned Antpitta was calling and Mr. Schofield led Rob and Micky in a commando-style slide down a steep slope through the cloud forest in pursuit. I immediately fell over and decided it was a bad idea and besides, they’d never see it… of course, on meeting me half an hour later, Rob showed me his photos and I was then kicking myself for not being braver and joining them.

We heard the rare Chestnut-crested Cotinga but couldn’t get it to show. Other than that it was a very quiet morning with very few new birds – or birds at all, for that matter. Until, that is, we were within 100 yards of the road again, where we stumbled upon a huge mixed flock. Birds were suddenly everywhere! Gray-hooded Bush-Tanager, Hooded Mountain-Tanager and Blue-capped Tanager were all ticked off, but the stars of the show were four beautiful – and rare – Golden-crowned Tanagers. Then I spotted a small, gray bird and got Mr. Schofield onto his first ever Black-headed Hemispingus, thus completing his world hemispingus list.

The morning had been saved! And what’s more, it was lunchtime!

We took a well-earned siesta and did some casual afternoon birding, which largely consisted of watching the hummingbird feeders.

In the evening we had another date with Franko, this time for a dusk stakeout. We headed along a different trail and before long had added antpitta no. 6 (for me – no. 7 for the rest), a fine Rufous Antpitta, right on the trail. After a 20 minute climb we got to our intended location and whilst waiting for the target bird were treated to a few glimpses of a pair of  Bearded Guans, a major rarity, just as they were going to roost. Another Slate-crowned Antpitta began to call but try as I might, I couldn’t get it to show.

The mosquitos started to bite but it was worth hanging on for a few more minutes until it was almost completely dark and then… yes, there it is, a splendid Andean Potoo! Franko had come up trumps again and we all had good looks at this big, funky nightjar as it perched, wide-eyed, on the exact fencepost Franko said it would.

We slipped and stumbled through the mud, in the dark, and eventually found our way back to the lodge for a few welcome beers. Even though it didn’t quite measure up to yesterday, it had still been another good day, with eleven new species: