Ecuador Photo Tour

The tour starts this evening in Quito, and you will be transferred To Puembo Birding Garden, a nice and cozy place located just a few minutes from the airport. Overnight.

Our first morning of the tour will be truly spectacular and for good reason, as we visit the open grasslands surrounding the enormous Antisana volcano. This is often voted as the favorite site of the tour by many, for the wonderful surroundings in which we will be shooting. The towering peak of the Antisana Volcano itself is impressive, with a large snow-covered top, and dramatic rocky sides.
The páramo (grassland) is interspersed with rocky outcrops and scenic high Andean lakes dotted with high altitude waterfowl. Indeed the scenery itself may be our biggest photo asset. Aside from these breathtaking Andean scenes, the upper páramo is carpeted with Carunculated Caracaras, a striking pied raptor that occurs here in impressive numbers. Black-faced Ibis patrol these high plains as do Andean Lapwings and large flocks of Andean Gulls. It wil be time to try for an enconter with spectacled bear and Andean Condor, but for sure great chances for Giant Hummingbird, lunch at Tambo Condor, simple but great food and late afternoon drive to Guango Lodge.

Arrive today in São Paulo, Brazil, at Guarulhos
International Airport (GRU). No activities are
planned for today so you can rest
up from your travels. The transfer to our hotel
is included; our hotel is about twenty minutes away
and we can organize an early check-in as
an option for those that need it. (Normally rooms
can be available by noon, getting into a room
earlier than that requires additional charges.
Remember, you have at least 1.5 hours to get
luggage and clear immigration and customs; there
is a restaurant and public areas where you can
relax if you don’t want to pay an early room fee.)
This evening we enjoy a welcome dinner ― a
chance to meet your guides and traveling
companions, and learn more about our coming
adventure. Those on our highly-recommended
pre-trip to the Atlantic Forest will be returning
to join you. We invite you to sample Brazil’s
national cocktail, the caipirinha, made with
cachaça (sugarcane liquor), sugar, and lime.
We predict this may be the first of many.
Accommodations at Hotel Matiz Guarulhos (L,D)
*Note: Most flights from the USA originate Sunday,
June 30 to meet this arrival date.

Weather permitting, we will venture into the páramo grasslands of the high Andes around Papallacta Pass; on clear days we can enjoy spectacular views of several snow-capped volcanoes. The high altitude birds that reside there can be remarkably confiding. Comical cinclodes bound around on the páramo, Tawny Antpittas hop along the roads, and with the use of playback, shier birds like canasteros and tit-spinetails can often be brought in close. At lunch time we will return to Guango, where will have the most of the afternoon to shoot hummingbirds, walk the forest trails behind the lodge, or scan the river alongside for Torrent Ducks. In mid-afternoon, we shall pack up and head to Puembo and return
to PBG.

After leaving Quito, we’ll have four nights based in this very nice and comfortable loge, nestled within lush subtropical forest on the west slope of the Andes, an area renowned for its high bird species diversity. This is especially evident in the impressive hummingbird community found right around the lodge that will occupy much of our photographic energies. The lodge feeders attract thousands of individual hummingbirds, with 10-20 species visiting on most days. The most common is usually is the outrageous Booted Racket-tail, the male of which has a strange long tail, with two paddles at the end. Other regular drop-ins are a number of glistening species like the audacious Violet-tailed Sylph, the standout Purple-bibbed Whitetip, and the gem-like Western Emerald., dinky Purple-throated Woodstar and Vevet – purple coronet that normally visit the flowers and feeders around. If hummingbird photography is your goal, you are likely to come away with plenty of shots of over ten species of hummingbird, many of which are hard to photograph  elsewhere. Fruit feeders at the lodge can also attract  technicolor” birds like Red-headed Barbet, Blue-winged Mountain-Tanager, or Toucan Barbet. Other species often come in to eat insects attracted to lights, such as flycatchers, woodcreepers, and more. On its own Sacha Tamia lodge is a unique spot for bird photography, and we will spend a good amount of time shooting around the lodge (with chances for multiflash hummingbird photography); however it also serves as an excellent base to explore numerous other private  reserves in the region. The exact places that we visit on the tour, and the order, will depend on various factors like weather, feeder activity, and most importantly, up-to-date  local knowledge on which places have the best activity at the moment, and which places are best avoided.
Listed below are some of the options we have available, though we will also not hesitate to do something different if we obtain info on a new site or hot sighting.

We’ll depart very early and head to one of the most important bird sites in the area, the wonderful Paz de las Aves Refuge. This beautiful reserve is set within subtropical forest where the moist, moss-covered trees are burdened with bright red bromeliads. Our early rise will let us visit an area deep within the forest where a short time after dawn the bright scarlet forms of several displaying Andean Cock-of-the-rocks will start the day off with a spectacular forest performance. However, what has made this place such a joy for photographers and birders alike is the habituating of several rare and shy species of the forest floor, especially the antpittas. Giant, Moustached, Yellow-breasted Antpittas, Ochre-breasted, and Chestnut-crowned Antpittas are all possible, with usually at least two of them cooperating on any given visit.
Other birds we will be trying to photograph include Dark backed Wood-Quail, Rufous-breasted Antthrush, and White capped Dipper. Later in the morning, we may visit one of the other sites mentioned above, or we may return to Tandayapa for a few hours, before returning to Quito for the final night of the tour.