The last early
breakfast of the birding trip.
As we eat, Andy
scrolls through his phone. I ask about headphones and am told they’re
inconvenient. Fair enough, considering other people is inconvenient. Avoiding
disturbance to other species isn’t exactly convenient either, like so many
other things. The dominance of convenience-seeking people is likely to prove
rather inconvenient.
This time we head higher up, where the weather is better. The mountains rise steeply toward a pale blue sky, paler than the deep blue back home. In places where much of the vegetation has been cleared, you can see just how absurdly steep and inhospitable the terrain is. Conical mounds packed tightly together.
On a narrow mountain river, a pair of torrent ducks is feeding. They take turns diving into the rushing water and popping up again a little farther downstream.
Zuro Loma is yet another place where birds are fed and coaxed into view. Over all the chatter and gadgetry plays a loud recording of a chestnut-crowned antpitta. Two shy brown birds emerge now and then from the undergrowth to pick worms off a mossy log set up for photography. Chickens, essentially, but ones that lay dollars. For hummingbirds and tanagers branches have been carefully arranged so that any bird landing there will make a perfect picture. When one does, there’s an excited cry: “Look, this is a good perch!” Studio shots. Once upon a time, family portraits were taken against painted landscapes. After all, it’s such a nuisance to learn a bird’s habitat preferences and behavior, and then wait for hours in the undergrowth, hoping it might appear, and even perch in the “right” place. Filling out a species list would be painfully slow. By contrast, here customers leave the bird photo studio satisfied, with flawless, uniform images. Another hour, thirty more species ticked. A new anthropological-ornithological twist is the injection of sugar water into (plastic?) flowers hung beside the feeders, for more “natural” photos. When the antpitta takes a break and the recording is switched off, things calm down a little.
We take a coffee break, sitting on a bench outside the restaurant, cups in hand, watching the ever-changing play of clouds and light. When the sun comes out, it’s warm; when it disappears, it’s merely mild. A few hummingbirds chatter in the bushes and feed from real flowers. Andy scrolls on his phone inside.
We walk along a trail on the mountainside. Clouds gather across the valley. The promised bird fails to appear, no matter how much whistling is attempted, and the guide lacks the patience to wait. Still, there are water droplets clinging to grass stems to observe, and the erosion created by grazing cattle. Those who wish can step into a cow pat.
One hour until lunch is served. Since I already have enough zoo-style photos, I insist on retrieving my book from the car. Unfortunately we have to abandon the bench, as inside the building a hysterical sports commentator is competing with disco music from another channel. I spread my raincoat out on the grass instead. Between pages, I keep an eye on black birds pecking at lichen on a branch and on a cloud rolling up the slope.
After lunch we drive back to Quito and the hotel. There was supposedly another birding stop in today’s program, but apparently that has vanished. Just as mysteriously as from previous days a waterfall walk and the fruit tasting also disappeared.
The birding app tells me I recorded 164 species in a week. In the rainforest we saw over 40 more. I hadn’t seen any of them before, and none occur at home. For comparison, 233 bird species breed in Estonia, 213 of them regularly. Including migrants, nearly 400 species can be encountered. In other words, in two weeks here I’ve effectively seen the equivalent of all the breeding birds of Estonia. Ecuador is one of the most bird-rich countries in the world, with around 1,700 species. I saw only a tiny fraction of them.
Quito spreads through a valley between mountain ridges, beneath an impressive dark-purple cloud streaked with pale tufts. The streets are still as steep as in Funchal. Mario greets us like old friends. Once again we get a large, comfortable room, with bedding that is not damp. We immediately drink the cocoa beers we had bought, unfortunately not something you can take along in hand luggage as souvenirs.
This time we head higher up, where the weather is better. The mountains rise steeply toward a pale blue sky, paler than the deep blue back home. In places where much of the vegetation has been cleared, you can see just how absurdly steep and inhospitable the terrain is. Conical mounds packed tightly together.
On a narrow mountain river, a pair of torrent ducks is feeding. They take turns diving into the rushing water and popping up again a little farther downstream.
Zuro Loma is yet another place where birds are fed and coaxed into view. Over all the chatter and gadgetry plays a loud recording of a chestnut-crowned antpitta. Two shy brown birds emerge now and then from the undergrowth to pick worms off a mossy log set up for photography. Chickens, essentially, but ones that lay dollars. For hummingbirds and tanagers branches have been carefully arranged so that any bird landing there will make a perfect picture. When one does, there’s an excited cry: “Look, this is a good perch!” Studio shots. Once upon a time, family portraits were taken against painted landscapes. After all, it’s such a nuisance to learn a bird’s habitat preferences and behavior, and then wait for hours in the undergrowth, hoping it might appear, and even perch in the “right” place. Filling out a species list would be painfully slow. By contrast, here customers leave the bird photo studio satisfied, with flawless, uniform images. Another hour, thirty more species ticked. A new anthropological-ornithological twist is the injection of sugar water into (plastic?) flowers hung beside the feeders, for more “natural” photos. When the antpitta takes a break and the recording is switched off, things calm down a little.
We take a coffee break, sitting on a bench outside the restaurant, cups in hand, watching the ever-changing play of clouds and light. When the sun comes out, it’s warm; when it disappears, it’s merely mild. A few hummingbirds chatter in the bushes and feed from real flowers. Andy scrolls on his phone inside.
We walk along a trail on the mountainside. Clouds gather across the valley. The promised bird fails to appear, no matter how much whistling is attempted, and the guide lacks the patience to wait. Still, there are water droplets clinging to grass stems to observe, and the erosion created by grazing cattle. Those who wish can step into a cow pat.
One hour until lunch is served. Since I already have enough zoo-style photos, I insist on retrieving my book from the car. Unfortunately we have to abandon the bench, as inside the building a hysterical sports commentator is competing with disco music from another channel. I spread my raincoat out on the grass instead. Between pages, I keep an eye on black birds pecking at lichen on a branch and on a cloud rolling up the slope.
After lunch we drive back to Quito and the hotel. There was supposedly another birding stop in today’s program, but apparently that has vanished. Just as mysteriously as from previous days a waterfall walk and the fruit tasting also disappeared.
The birding app tells me I recorded 164 species in a week. In the rainforest we saw over 40 more. I hadn’t seen any of them before, and none occur at home. For comparison, 233 bird species breed in Estonia, 213 of them regularly. Including migrants, nearly 400 species can be encountered. In other words, in two weeks here I’ve effectively seen the equivalent of all the breeding birds of Estonia. Ecuador is one of the most bird-rich countries in the world, with around 1,700 species. I saw only a tiny fraction of them.
Quito spreads through a valley between mountain ridges, beneath an impressive dark-purple cloud streaked with pale tufts. The streets are still as steep as in Funchal. Mario greets us like old friends. Once again we get a large, comfortable room, with bedding that is not damp. We immediately drink the cocoa beers we had bought, unfortunately not something you can take along in hand luggage as souvenirs.
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