Ecuador's High Country

The high elevation Paramo grassland is like nothing I have ever seen.  Vast expanses of cold humid grasslands with sporadic shrubs growing at an altitude over 14,000 ft.  We drove up a mountain road to  Antisana Ecological Reserve located on the oriental slope in the Andes Mountain range.  The Andes mountains are spectacular even on a cloudy day.  Each range seems to go on forever.  We saw wonderful birds,  Carunculated Caracaras,  Southern Lapwing,  Silvery Grebes on Mica Lake, Chestnut-winged Cinclodes, and many more.  The most exciting was seeing the Andean Condor soaring over a valley.  After a hike, and more birds, we headed down the road and stopped at an observation platform.  The Andean Condor was across the valley sitting on a cliff ledge.  Two spectacular hummingbirds were flitting in the brush, Sparkling Violetear, and Black-tailed Trainbearer.

Above, a Carunculated Caracara waits in the grass. They were fun to watch.

To the right, the Antisana Volcano comes out of the clouds for a few minutes.

The other high elevation area we visited was the Papallacta Towers, the site of an array of tall antennas in the Pacque Nacional Cayambe - Coca. This ecological reserve has very high biodiversity and includes the Cayambe volcano at nearly 19, 000 ft.  This area is amazing. Tundra plants are not like anything I have ever seen.  Pointed leaf rosettes arranged in dense round mats so thick I could sit on one, and it did not compress under my weight.  We saw Sierra Finches, Stout

 billed Cinclodes, and a small rufous bird that may have been an Andean Tit Spinetail.
     We walked down a steep hillside looking for Seedsnipe.  At the elevation was near 14,000 ft. I had to stop several times to catch my breath walking back up the hill to the road.   I marveled at small flowers and these unusual high altitude adapted plants.
 Photo below.

The views were spectacular despite the oncoming rainstorm.

One of my few good bird photos, a Chestnut winged Cinclodes, a relative of the Ovenbird.

Ecuador Chapter 3

     The Choco region of Ecuador is part of the larger Tumbes-Choco-Magdalena high biodiversity area that starts in eastern Panama and extends south along the Pacific coasts of Columbia, Ecuador, and a small piece of northwestern Peru.  Tropical moist forests,  tropical dry forests, rocky shorelines, and several other ecoregions provide a diversity of habitats for an amazing number of birds.  Ecuador has lost most of its primary forests from deforestation, leaving very few areas of native forest.
      We visited Estacion Biologica Un Poco del Choco, a Nature Reserve and Biological Research Station located in a beautiful area of tropical rainforest. They are making an important contribution to the conservation of the Choco region, education programs are offered, and students are welcome to work on their own research projects. This forest is amazing !  Enormous leaves, brightly colored flowers in unusual places, huge trees with a community of plants, ferns, moss, bromeliads, and more living on the tree trunks. And birds like I have not ever seen before. We spent a few days here hiking the trails and enjoying this very diverse forest.
So many plants competing for space and sunlight on the forest floor.

A community of moss, ferns, and other plants growing on a tree trunk.



This is a Bromeliad flower. The pink blade sprouts from the Bromeliad's center and the purple flowers grow from the edges of the pink blade.

     As we were leaving this area we stopped at another "Hummingbird Haven"  called Alambi.  Many feeders were hung at the edge of a dense hedge, with each feeder numbered.  It was a feast for the eyes, so many jeweled hummingbirds zipping around and sipping from their favorite feeder.  Two long boards with several bananas on each attracted bright larger birds who came to enjoy a breakfast of fruit. 
 

   

A Booted Racketail hummingbird shares the feeder with a White-whiskered Hermit.  I saw 13 species of hummingbirds, and probably more that I did not know their names.  Larger birds included Tanagers with names like Lemon-rumped,  Golden (he is beautiful),  White-lined (he has a cinnamon colored female), and Blue-gray.  A Chestnut-capped Brushfinch was very good-looking.  Photo below is a Buff-throated Saltator enjoying a banana.

Above is a link to a short movie I took at Alambi.