Capuchinbirds and Pink Dolphins

 August 2022: Birding in Amapá and Pará in the Brazilian Amazon

Back to Brazil, with the talented and ever-patient Pablo Vieira Cerqueira, for an almost month-long trip covering multiple states and cities.  I had a bunch of goals for this trip; to finally get to the lowland Amazon (after a dozen trips to Brazil, I'd never seen the Amazon river or a pink river-dolphin), to chase a specific rarity in the SouthEast, and to catch up with friends in São Paulo and Vitoria. 

Saturday, August 6 - Sunday, August 7

Two days in São Paulo.  Rest and recovery, catching up with friends, and a visit to one of my three favorite restaurants in the world, the marvelous D.O.M.

Officially on vacation ...

Monday, August 8 - Macapá

I felt very proud of myself.  I left São Paulo super early, hopped a flight to Brasilia then changed planes and headed up to Macapá where I even managed to negotiate getting an Uber to my hotel (all in Portuguese). Pablo showed up later that day and we jumped in a rental car and headed inland, away from the Amazon, and ended up in a semi-retired mining town called Serra do Navio where a very basic hotel and one restaurant stayed open largely to support the maintenance crews that still worked at the mine. The presence of the mining operation had preserved a decent chunk of forest which would otherwise almost certainly have been lost over the years.  So we had all we needed, the rooms were basic but the food was tasty, and those maintenance guys looked after the trails we planned to bird the next few days.

My first view of the Amazon river believe it or not, after a dozen trips to
Brazil, I finally got to see the Amazon.

Tuesday, August 9 - Wednesday, August 10 - Serra do Navio

Two days on the trails and my first time properly in the Guianan Shield meant I had a ton of life birds waiting for me.  We started along a dirt road through flooded forest looking for Band-tailed Antshrike, a real rarity in Brazil, known only from this one site.  We dipped this time, but I hardly noticed because we quickly racked up a bunch of other lifers for me including Double-banded Pygmy-Tyrant, Todd's Sirystes, McConnell's Spinetail, and Guianan Streaked-Antwren.  Moving on, we worked a more heavily vegetated trail and the birds kept coming, with Guianan Trogon, Brown-bellied Stipplethroat, Todd's Antwren, and (the Hellmayr's form of) Black-headed Antbird all joining the burgeoning list.  Fun, busy, productive birding.

Black-headed Antbird and Brown-bellied Stipplethroat

As we moved down the trail we kept encountering a most disturbing noise, like a tortured cow lowing from the forest.  Eventually, I just had to see one and so Pablo played some tape bringing in a Capuchinbird, a creature straight from the Henson Studios, a truly bizarre looking muppet of a bird.  With its bald blue face poking out of fluffy rich red-brown plumage it truly looked odd enough, but add the cow-like call and it really qualified as just, well, silly.  What a truly bizarre creature ...

Ended day one with try number two for Band-tailed Antshrike, and dipped again.

The next morning gave us Tiny Tyrant-Manakin and a long skirmish with a fast moving antbird flock eventually yielded that superstar of the Amazon, a White-plumed Antbird, definitely one of the ant-things I most wanted to see here.  We also had Rufous-throated Antbird and Common Scale-backed Antbird on this trail, and Olive-backed Foliage-gleaner nearby, then as we emerged into the sunlight we added Caica Parrot and Guianan Toucanet.  In the afternoon we gave the Band-tailed Antshrike a third try and again came up short but we did get Smoky-fronted Tody-Flycatcher as a consolation prize.

Common Scale-backed Antbird

Too soon, our time here was up but there was time for one last crack at the Band-tailed Antshrike.  By this time I felt we'd invested so much time in this bird that to give up now would be foolish.  I'd like to report that fourth time was a charm ... but we dipped again, the bird simply was not there that week.  We did get a very unexpected Sooty Barbthroat though, another species known only from the Guianas with just a handful of records from Brazil, so that was a very nice consolation prize.  Time also for one final trail, which gave us Spot-tailed Antwren and Guianan Puffbird to round things out.

Such a great spot and so many good birds.  I may well have ruined my first trip to Guiana, if I ever get round to getting there, but it did wonders for my Brazil list and a good time was had by all.

Thursday, August 11 - Porto Grande

Back to the Amazon today and a return to Macapá for the next few nights (nicer hotel, better food).  Made a long stop in some dryer habitat on the way back though for two specific target lifers.  Rufous-crowned Elaenia popped up almost as soon as we got out of the car, along with noisy and conspicuous Rusty-backed Antwrens.  We had to work harder for Black Manakin though and covered some ground before eventually chasing down a female bird, declaring victory, and continuing our journey without seeing a male.

Rusty-backed Antwren and Rufous-crowned Elaenia

Friday, August 12 - Santana

Today was a full day of birding along the edge of the Amazon in what looked to me like grubby second growth and cleared fields but apparently contained important relics of a rare flooded forest biome.  It wasn't the flooded forest you see on TV, with dolphins swimming through giant trees, rather a marshy, dense, low scrubby sort of forest that clung on in patches and strips between fields.  We did see a lot of birds though, some of them quite good ones.

Crimson-hooded Manakin and Glossy Antshrike

Among the highlights here were stunning Crimson-hooded Manakin, Scaled Spinetail, and the extremely local White-tailed Goldenthroat, a very good bird for Brazil.  We also took time to stop and listen for parrots and eventually, after covering a lot of miles, bumped into a group of Short-tailed Parrots, not the most colorful of parrot but another life bird for me. 

Saturday, August 13

Mostly a travel day but it was my birthday and I was hoping for a birthday lifer.  Some quick morning birding along local roads did the trick and yielded a Golden-bellied Euphonia, perhaps not the most spectacular or rare bird of the trip but hey, it's nice to get a lifer on your birthday.

Sunday, August 14 - Belém

The flights just didn't work out today so we had a morning in Belém before taking the evening flight down to another mining operation at Carajás.  This set-up was very much active and very much larger than the last, with impressive security, a whole workers' city, and a very nice hotel with expansive buffet dinner and breakfast.  Mixed feelings about the mines, the actual mine here covered a lot of ground, but then so did the protected forest and the latter almost certainly would not be here still without the former. 

I'd been feeling a bit under the weather the past few days and sure enough, by the time I got to Carajás it was pretty obvious that I'd picked up another bout something (a mild COVID or a close cousin).  Had a long night of 'fever-sleep' then spent the next 3 days feeling flu-y (and probably looking, and sounding, like an extra from a low-budget zombie movie) but Pablo and I decided to ignore it as much as we could, keep to ourselves, wear masks in cars/hotel, and press on ...  and overall it turned out to be a pretty mild bout compared to the last time.  The things you do for birds.

Monday, August 15 - Tuesday, August 16 - FLONA de Carajás (forest trails)

Two days to explore the forest of Carajás might have been a little better if I'd been feeling better.  As it was, I felt had no energy and dragged along the trails behind the guides, pausing to look at birds when told to, resting where I could, and generally not enjoying the experience very much.  There were some great birds here and Pablo and the local guide worked hard to get me on then (especially seeing as I wasn't exactly at my sharpest) but by the second day even Pablo has started to adjust the itinerary with longer, more ambitious trails swapped for short walks near the car and a number of possible birds quietly dropped from the conversation.  I should probably have been resting in bed but I didn't want to come all this way and miss the target birds.  In the end it was a bit of a compromise; I did see some good birds but didn't always have a lot of fun doing it.

The star bird here was definitely the White Bellbird a big white cotinga that sits on the top of trees and belts out a 'zoink' call that can be heard miles away.  We heard one as soon as we got out of the car but it turned out to be surprisingly hard to see in the canopy when viewed from the ground.  In the end it took us a half hour of careful peering and moving around to find a gap in the canopy where we could actually see it.  An amazing creature though and worth a dose of 'warbler neck'.

Among the other good, or new birds we saw were White-throated Woodpecker, Natterer's Slaty-Antshrike, Spotted Tanager, White-crested Guan, Black-breasted Gnateater, Ornate Stipplethroat, Snethlage's Today-Tyrant, Dwarf Tyrant-Manakin ... the list goes on.  A big personal favorite for me was the Wing-banded Antbird, a weirdo among ant-things that reminded me of a Rail-Babbler as it tottered along through the leaf litter seemingly oblivious to us admiring apes.  Also, it was here that I passed another personal milestone which I'd hoped to hit on this trip when Opal-crowned Manakin became my 1,000th species for Brazil (my first 1,000 species country in eBird!).

Amazonian Scrub-Flycatcher

One night we did some night birding, somewhat curtailed because my stamina limited the day.  Still, we did get some great night birds including the recently described (not yet split in Clements) Xingu Screech-Owl, a Black-banded Owl, multiple Pauraques and Blackish Nightjars, a Great Potoo and even a Cryptic Forest-Falcon thrown in for good measure.  Imagine what we could have had if we'd been able to stay out longer.

Wednesday, August 17 - Vila Tapete Verde / Parauapebas (Núcleo Urbano de Carajás)

Still in Carajás but birding some disturbed habitat outside the forest where we got good looks at a currently undescribed form of Amazonian Spinetail accompanied by a chorus of Rothman's Titi-Monkeys.   Later, in the center of town we added Chestnut-headed Chachalaca to my list (almost done with Chachalacas ... one to go ... if they don't split some more).  There were plenty more birds to see here so I'll hopefully come back to the forest one day but we still did end up with a great list and a pile of life birds for me.

Chestnut-headed Chachalaca in suburban gardens.

Brazilians are VERY fond of chocolate.

Thursday, August 18th - Travel Day

More driving, lots of it.  Then another flight that ended up in Manaus, a city I'd long wanted to see.  I still do want to see it though because all we really saw was the airport and the nearby Ibis Hotel ... so another thing on the 'come back for' list ...

Friday, August 19 to Tuesday, August 23 - P.N. de Amazônia

An early flight and another long drive on dusty roads brought us finally to Amazônia National Park and a simple but lovely little guest house on the river that became our home for the next five days. 

The view from the 'bar', we saw two species of river-dolphin here ...

We had five days to work the forest trails here and dropped into a pattern of doing one trail at dawn, coming back for lunch and siesta then hitting a second trail late afternoon through dinner. The weather was challenging, super hot and incredibly humid meant that things got pretty quiet during the middle of the day.  The hotel location was so lovely though that I didn't at all mind sitting at on the river bank during the heat of the day.  Although it was tough birding we did get a lot of great birds, including a number of star-birds that stood out as real accomplishments given the conditions.  Among the highlights here ...

Brown-Chested Barbet in a canopy vine tangle.  (Green-backed) Dark-winged Trumpeters on the trail and Ihering's Antwren in a mixed canopy flock.  

A major target here was the elusive Pale-faced Bare-eye, a really difficult bird to find in the Amazon but our local guide had heard one in a flock along one of the trails.  We spend a full morning working up and down the trail, walked miles, sweated pints, and saw ... well ... very little of note except a few Saki Monkeys.  As so often the way though, we slogged back to the car closer to mid-day in a silent forest and, when we were almost there, heard a fast moving understory flock with calling Harlequin Antbirds.  Now this species is a spectacular ant-thing and was a lifer for me, on any other day it would have been the day's star but today we were looking around them hoping for more, and sure enough after chasing the flock for 15 minutes, a Pale-faced Bare-eye popped up and crossed the tail.  Humidity, what humidity ...

We also spent a full morning on Black-bellied Gnateater, a brute of a gnateater and another really hard to find bird.  Once again the guide had a territory staked out but it still took us most of the morning to get some decent views in the shadows of the forest floor.  The humidity here was truly oppressive and very uncomfortable eventually knocking out my camera, simply overwhelmed by the condensation, and so no photos for me for a few days while everything dried out back at the lodge.

No Neotropical birding trip is complete without a battle with antpittas and, with two target species here, we devoted two full afternoons to games of cat-and-mouse with the mischievous little buggers.  Tapajos Antpitta surrendered relatively easily but Amazonian Antpitta battled us across two days before giving us a glimpse and joining the list.  Standing motionless in a blind for hours in that hear was not a fun experience but least, and the end of the day, we had cold caipirinhas to look forward too and our victory was duly celebrated.

Birds on the sand islands in the Tapajos River . Sand-colored
Nighthawks, three species of martins

One day we did a boat ride on the river, a pleasant break from the sticky heat.  The sandy river islands have some specific habitats, small ephemeral forests between floods, and we were able to winkle out Amazonian Tyrannulet, Blackish-Gray Antshrike and Black-chinned Antbird in these miniature worlds.  We also saw Tucuxi and Pink River-Dolphins and enjoyed a cool breeze on a moving boat.  Luxury ... 

Black-chinned Antbird

On our final day we crossed the Tapajos River again and hiked trails on the other side in search of two specific targets.  Tapajos Hermit popped up pretty quickly along the trail but we had to hike a distance to a specific site and play tape to get a shy Tapajos Fire-eye to break cover and give good views.  The fire-eye was another of the 'hard to see' birds here and we did really well with our targets, getting all the main ones.  Overall a great, if somewhat sticky, visit.  And once again, I'll get a Harpy Eagle and a Jaguar (neither of which I've ever seen) on the 'next' visit.

  

 

Tapirs and COVID

 December 2021: 'Back to Normal' Comes to a Screeching Halt

So after the success of the September Colombia trip, and with the certainty that COVID was under control and in decline, I booked another trip to South America for New Year's 2021.  The big birding tour companies were just starting to get their itineraries back up after a long period of inactivity, and feeling the need to support them (and the guides and lodges they in turn support) I booked two trips ... Field Guides to Ecuador with Willy Perez in December, and WINGS to Honduras with my old mate Steve N.G. Howell in February 22.

As December came around, a new COVID variant called Omicron started to dominate the headlines but, fully vaccinated, it didn't seem like it would get in the way of the December trip.  So off to Quito I went, planning some private birding before joining the group and heading down towards WildSumaco Lodge in the Amazon.

Wednesday, December 29 - Reserva Yanacocha

Up at 3am and meeting a local guide arranged via the local ground agents.  My target for the day was Imperial Snipe and the destination was Fundación Jocotoco's marvelous Yanacocha reserve.  The reserve is situated about 45 minutes from Quito, at high altitude on the Western slope of Pichincha volcano.  It normally opens at 7am but to see Imperial Snipe we needed to be there before dawn and so had sought permission to be there early.  The guide (I honestly forget his name) showed up on time, and other than my having to ask him to wear a mask in the car, seemed like a nice enough chap.  Soon enough we were bumping our way up the entrance road of the reserve and started out along the trails well before dawn and with snipe on our mind.

Imperial Snipe turned out to be quite easy to hear, there were several calling from the dense scrub along the road, but more difficult to see.  After marching back and for along the road for an hour we had managed to catch at least brief views of a couple in the lights as they crossed the road though.  No pictures, but good enough for the list.  Not a bad start.  

Andean Guan

With the target out of the way, I figured we'd enjoy the morning of birding and indeed, the trails were very birdy.  The guide however had assumed that I wanted to see BLACK-BREASTED PUFFLEG, the mega-rarity that the reserve had been established to protect.  I did indeed want to see it, I just didn't think it was likely or even possible.  Many birders look for this species here but few see it and so I'd just assumed it would be unlikely, and not a bird that could be deliberately targeted.  

Walking the trails, we saw plenty of hummingbirds, including Saphire-vented and Golden-breasted Pufflegs and we could hear the twitter of 'pufflegs' from the dense vegetations all along the trails.  We stopped at a feeder set-up, waited a while, then kept pushing along the trail, through a tunnel and further away from the HQ.  From time to time the guide played pygmy-owl tape with some generic mobbing hummingbird twitter, which did cause the local hummingbirds to twitter back and occasionally pop up or zoom by to take a look.  After an hour or so though, the until then largely silent guide exploded into action shouting "the puffleg, the puffleg" and yanking my attention round to a trail-side tree where a small hummingbird sat on a dead twig.  It was a puffleg, the puffs were visible.  It had a seemingly all dark front, a short tail and a short bill ... we'd been watching the other two species of puffleg all morning so this was pretty obviously our bird.  I had bins on it, put them down, swung my 400mm lens around and got the bird in the frame, pushed the shoot button and the autofocus kicked in ... and our puffleg dropped backwards and away from the perch just as the shutter fired.  At first I thought I might have captured an image of some sort, but alas, just a twig.  Oh well ... 

Shining Sunbeam and Buff-winged Starfrontlet
readily come to feeders and are thus easier to photograph

So that was exciting.  I was excited, the guide was deliriously excited both to find the bird and to get his client on it.  The rest of the morning just whizzed by with more birds but also just a great mood in spectacular scenery.  Soon enough though it was time to head back to Quito and so we drove the hour or so back to the hotel with a sense of having had a great morning out.  About half way back I realized we'd forgotten to put on masks and so I asked that we do so and we masked up for the second half of the drive.  Not a big deal at the time but ... as it turns out ... the best thing that happened on the trip (the puffleg) may well have been the moment that things started to go wrong.

Thursday, December 30 - Reserva Antisana and Papallacta 

Having connected with the WINGS group and the charming and energetic Willy Perez, who was going to lead it, the morning started with everyone very ready to go birding.  The night before we'd also bumped into other birding groups including one led by Gary Rosenberg, who I'd travelled with in Ecuador 20+ years before.  Lot of birders back in the field, the sense of normality returning.  As we piled into our bus I remember being really excited that COVID seemed behind us and we could all get back to traveling for birds, the thing we all obviously loved so much.

The day's itinerary was a repeat of a day on my last Ecuador trip but who doesn't love being in the Andes and seeing those spectacular birds every couple of years.  We saw Condors aplenty at Antisana, and picked our way though the full suite of antiplano specialties.  

Andean Condors and Tawny Antpitta

We also made a stop at Papallacta ... hey when it's not cloudy you have to go look for seed snipes right? ... where we were rewarded with Rufous-bellied Seedsnipes after a long-ish search.  Then, icing on the cake, the SPECTACLED BEAR at the pass was visible again, almost exactly in the place I'd seen it a year or so earlier.

Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe and Spectacled Bear

Tired but sated, we pulled into Cabañas San Isidro, our home for the next three days and for New Year's.  I hadn't been here in 20 years but I was excited to visit again (I had fond memories of Oilbirds from my last visit) and catch up with the owner Mitch Lysinger, who I'd birded with in Ecuador a few years before.  It truly is a lovely spot to spend a few days, the perfect place to spend New Year's Eve and to start a new year list.

Friday, December 31 and Saturday, January 1 - Cabañas San Isidro

Where to start, lots of birding, good food, and good company here.  Two highlights come to mind though.

San Isidro has a famous owl.  In eBird it's described as Black-banded Owl (San Isidro) and few people know what species it actually is except that everyone is sure it isn't really Black-banded Owl, a species known from lowland Amazonian forest.  So until someone writes a paper and describes it as a new species, most people refer to these owls as 'San Isidro Owl'.  We didn't see the owl on my last visit so it was a priority for me this time and it turned out to be quite easy ... the owl came to the restaurant building, attracted by the moth lights.  It would sit above the deck where we stood and wait until a particularly large and succulent moth blundered into the lights, then swoop down for a quick kill and a tasty snack.  Lodge guests stood right underneath it, chatted away, took flash photographs, and the owl ... well it just didn't care.  All life birds should be this easy.

The San Isidro Owl being selective about which moths it ate

Another special visitor also came to the restaurant area at night and this one was also a lifer but not a bird.  Mitch had set up a salt lick down the slope from the same balcony and at night a Mountain Tapir was regularly coming to visit for a salty snack.  I'd seen Brazilian Tapir but Mountain Tapir is much harder to see so I was keen to wait up for it.  Initially, after dinner, I had lots of company waiting there too, but over time the group dwindled as it got later and the tapir action proved slow.  By about 9pm, Willy and I saw a shape drift out of the forest and head for the salt lick, spotlights went on but instead of a tapir we saw a Red Brocket Deer, a nice mammal, rare for the lodge, but not the one we wanted.  Finally, by 10pm, I was all alone in my vigil and got rewarded for may stubbornness when the tapir waddled our of the forest at around 10:15pm.  Such a privilege to see this creature close up and, while I know it wasn't a noble or charitable thought, I was secretly quite glad that it had waited to give me a private audience.  Wonderful natural history experience.

Mountain Tapir ... 'back of the camera' shot, I've lost the original it seems ...

I went to bed a very happy camper that day, and totally exhausted ... slept a deep sleep ... almost as though I had a bit of a fever ....

The next day was New Year's Eve and we had a great day of birding with lots of special things.  The day started with White-bellied Antpittas at the feeding station and built up into quite a big list of the local species.   A celebratory dinner was a treat but I was feeling a bit tired so skipped some of the later festivities.   I think I also sneezed a few times ... innocent enough in other times but in the time of the COVID it drew suspicious and cautious looks from the group.

More birding the next day including a jaunt over to Cordillera Guacamayos where Greater Scythebill played hide-and-seek with us.  I felt fine, but had to reluctantly admit that I had a bit of a cold.  At that point I honestly was not thinking COVID as I'd been twice vaccinated and this hardly seemed like the symptoms of a series disease, more an air-conditioner type cold with the occasional sneeze.  I expected to shrug it off over the next day but that night, at Wildsumaco Lodge, I coughed a lot and had a hard time sleeping. 

Long-tailed Sylph

Sunday, January 2 - Wildsumaco Lodge

At breakfast I felt fine, ate heartily, and couldn't wait to go birding.  My coughing during the night had not gone unnoticed though and the group were very much on guard.  For politeness I kept a distance during the morning birding and stood back at the antpitta feeding stations when the Plain-backed and Ochre-breasted Antpittas came in for breakfast.   I also managed to pick up a trio of life hummingbirds with Gould's Jewelfront, Napo Saberwing, Black-throated Brilliant joining the list.  I'd wanted to get to this lodge for such a long time that I was determined to feel fine, tough it out, and keep birding.  By mid morning though it was obvious that my sneezing and snotting was freaking out the group and so I reluctantly headed back to the lodge on my own, went back to bed, and let the group have their morning of birding without me.

When the others returned to the lodge in the afternoon, Willy suggested a COVID test and of course it was positive and, unsure what quite to do in this situation, I opted to return to the hotel in Quito until I felt better.

Monday, January 3 - Tuesday, January 11- Holiday Inn at Quito Airport

The next part is a little hazy and a little sketchy.  The ground agent and the lodge management had arranged for a driver to drive me back to Quito where I was supposed to stay in our original hotel until I felt better.  It was a long drive, I was getting worse, and was close to passing-out by the time we got back to Quito.  Somewhere along the line though the plan had changed and I was delivered to a government sanctioned quarantine hotel at the Quito Airport where I was basically detained for the next 10 days until I could get a negative COVID Antigen test and leave the country.  This was a bit of a surprise at the time, but by the time I got there I basically collapsed unconscious on the bed and was in no state to argue with anyone.  

In retrospect this wasn't anyone's finest moment.  I had no idea what was going on and was basically dropped, close to unconscious, at a hotel in a foreign city where I didn't speak the language.  While folks may have tried to explain what was going on, I did not comprehend where I was going, what was involved or why, and was in no state to understand anyway.  To be fair I suppose, one has to remember the general hysteria people in the pre-vaccine world were feeling about COVID as a threat to others, and few governments or businesses acquitted themselves well in handling the situation at the time.  As it turns out, I was actually quite sick at that point but was lucky enough to pull through after a miserable, fever-wracked, 24-hour period where things could easily have gone the wrong way on me.  I was lucky I guess.

After a day or so I was able to call a doctor in the U.S. to try to work out what was going on (not that she could do very much from there but at least was able to reasure that the worst was probably over).  I also confirmed that I was being detained against my will when I tried to leave the room to get some fresh air and was firmly escorted back there.

So there I was ... stuck in a hotel room with two books, Spanish language TV, and room service.  Three times a day the nice people from the hotel brought me a meal (of their choice) from the room service menu for locals (not the more expensive room service menu for gringos).  The staff would put the food tray on a suitcase stand that blocked the door, knock, then leave quickly ... I never saw them in person.  House-keeping was a bottle of bleach-based cleaner and a roll of paper towels left in the bathroom.  My only in-person human contact was the medical technician, dressed in full protective gear, who came once every day or so to administer the COVID test (still the eye-watering 'little lobotomy' at the time) ... and each day for 9 days, it remained stubbornly positive, even after my symptoms abated and I felt better.

Golden Grosbeak

What saved my sanity really was the fact that I was lucky enough to have a room that overlooked a weedy field next to the hotel. So each day, I birded from the window and it gave me something to do other than read and try to learn Spanish from the soap operas on TV.  On the fourth day I got a call on the phone ... it was Gary Rosenberg and he was, you guessed it, detained in the same hotel two doors down the hall.  From then on we birded together from our respective windows via text ... "Green-tailed Trainbearer heading right!" or "Ash-breasted Sierra-Finch in the dead tree" ... it wasn't much, but it helped.  

On the tenth day I got my negative test ... said goodby to Gary via text (he stayed another three days) and called American Express to get a flight.  Turns out there were no flights available to the US that afternoon and, terrified that my positive test would expire in 24 hours and I'd have to take a new one, I basically grabbed the next flight to anywhere out of the country.  Crossing the Ecuador border on the way to Panama City was a wonderful feeling.  It might be a while before I go back to Ecuador ...

Culpeo or Andean Fox

The Quest for the Spectacled Bear

February 2020: Two days in the Andes around Quito looking for one of my 'Bucket-List' mammals.

Ecuador was the first country I visited in South American, way back in 1994,  I did a 'classic' two week Quito-Guayaquil trip with Steve N.G. Howell, a childhood friend from Wales, hitting all the best knowns spots in the Quito area then driving down to the Pacific and birding along the coast.  Six years later I went back, also with Steve, and spent a week in the Eastern Andes and a week in the Amazonian lowlands at Yuturi Lodge.  Then somehow it took me 20 years before I got back for my third trip ....

The plan was to join Mitch Lysinger and his Field Guides group for a week of birding in the very SouthEast of Ecuador, a trip anchored in a visit to the Maycu Reserve with the hope of seeing Orange-throated Tanager.  The tanager is a bit of a star bird, and historical border disputes in it's limited range, along with heavy military presence, had made it a very difficult bird to see until recently.  For me though, the trip was a bit of a 'low effort' thing ... the schedule worked with mine, the price was right, and I had met Mitch before and liked him.  This was really meant to be a quick trip before a series of more extensive, expensive private trips and rarity chasing in Brazil ... little did I know at the time that COVID was about to change everything and it would be my last overseas birding trip for 18 months. 

I arrived a few days early in Quito, planning for another quest before joining the Field Guides trip.  I had something I wanted to do ... to look for and see a Spectacled Bear, one of a number of big, charismatic, South American mammals that I'd never been lucky enough to bump into.  I'd recently made a bit of a 'bucket list' of most-wanted neotropical megafauna and planned to pay more attention to opportunities to see them ... I'd seen Maned Wolf, Giant Anteater, Giant Otter and Brazilian Tapir but not yet bumped into Jaguar, Puma, Pink River Dolphin, or Spectacled Bear).  On this trip, I'd have two days to try; one on my own with a local guide, and one with some of the Field Guides participants arriving early to bird (or bear) in the mountains around Quito before the trip got underway.   Given the local intel and recent sightings I was feeling pretty good about finally getting Spectacled Bear for the mammal list.

Saturday, February 22 - Reserva Antisanilla and Reserva Antisana

An early start from the hotel and we were off up the mountains to the South of Quito and towards the giant volcanoes of Cotapaxi and Antisana.  The Reserva Antisana wasn't even a publicly accessible area last time I was in Ecuador but had since been brought out of private ownership and opened up a huge area of paramo and related habitat that was now easy to access via a network of roads.  Our first destination was Restaurante Tambo Condor in the adjacent Reserva Antisanilla ... which despite the name does not actually serve condor-dishes but rather serves carcasses to the Andean Condors, part of local conservation efforts to bolster this spectacular but sadly declining species.

Pulling over near a small farm, we entered a field and walked to an observation platform from where we could look across the valley towards the condor feeding area.  From here we could also scan a lot of habitat and the guide assured me it was our best chance to see a bear.  The first things we saw though were hummingbirds, mostly old friends; Tyrian Metaltails, Sparkling Violetears, Black-tailed Trainbearers and a spiffy Shining Sunbeam.  There was also a cooperative Giant Hummingbird, a species really pushing the limits of just how big you can be and still hover, and so I had plenty to keep me occupied while we scanned the distant hillsides.  There was in fact a Condor, a huge black and while lump looking tiny in the distance across the valley, but there was no bear.

Giant Hummingbird

 So onwards and upwards we went onto the altiplano, a vast, tundra-like plain that spread out around the base of the volcanoes and stretched off miles in all directions.  The birds here were all familiar, and mostly, well, brown.  That didn't mean they lacked charm though and many of them I hadn't seen in years so I really enjoyed catching up with them and even getting a few photos.

Chestnut-winged Cinclodes (above) and Stout-billed Cinclodes

Carunculated Caracara and Black-winged Ground Dove

The most obvious birds were perhaps various cinclodes and the patrolling Carunculated Caracaras, but there were also Sedge Wrens (split coming soon), Many-striped Canasteros, Andean-Tit-Spinetails and all manner of small skulking brown jobs lurking in the low vegetation.  The oddest bird of the day though was one you really don't expect to find of vast treeless plains despite it being common and widespread across a huge range encompassing North and South America.  Flushing a Great Horned Owl (a species that breeds near my garden in New York) underfoot in low scrub while stalking Tawny Antpittas was a bit of shock and provided a moment of excitement for us both ... the bird flew to a nearby bank and glowered at us.  Well it wasn't a bear, but at least it was a predator.

Tawny Antpitta and Great Horned Owl

Too soon though it was time to retrace our steps and, even though we spend several more hours scanning likely habitats, there were to be no bears today.  Back to Quito for me, another night in a nice hotel, and 'Round 2' with the bears tomorrow.

How do you hide a volcano ... in the Andes is seems easy ...

Sunday, February 23 - Papallacta Pass and Guango Lodge

A more civilized start today and it took a little longer for the group to get organized and underway.  I'd reconnected with Mitch Lysinger, an American Bird-Tour Leader who's been living in Ecuador for many years, the night before and met some of the tour participants.  Some had spent the day birding the Mindo Road and so had already seen a lot of birds and even a Tayra, and all were excited to go up into the higher altitude of the 'Andes proper' today.  

The 3,300m altitude of Papallacta Pass sounds impressive, but when you're already at 2,800m in Quito, it wasn't really that much more altitude to gain and soon enough we came out of the farmland that surrounds the city and emerged into the higher level grasslands and paramo at the pass.  The birds here were similar to what I'd seen yesterday, but then I wasn't here for the birds and I spent every moment diligently scanning the hillsides for black lumps that might be bears.  The morning session though yielded some look-like rocks and tree-stumps but nothing that could have been a living spectacled bear.  Luck just wasn't with me on the bear front.

After a few hours in the higher country, we dropped down the East Slope of the Andes and spent several hours birding, and had lunch at, Guango Lodge.  This lovely little roadside property had a nice mix of habitat and a very impressive array of hummingbird feeders so I spent a very pleasant time soaking up the hummingbirds ... no-where does hummingbirds like the Andes.

The two most common species at Guango - Fawn-breasted 
Brilliant and Buff-tailed Coronet.

Tyrian Metaltail and Tourmaline Sunangel

Eventually though it was time to tear ourselves away and with our timing drawing to a close, we turned around and started heading back to Quito and our flight to the South.  This was after all just a 'pre-trip' and 'buffer day' and the main targets of our tour lay a plane ride away.  I was, to be honest, just a little in shock that I could bird hard for two days in Ecuador and not get a single lifer but I suppose, after a certain point, it gets harder everywhere and I had visited similar habitats several times before.  Still, I really enjoyed catching up with some birds I hadn't seen in many year and there's no such thing as a bad day of birding.

Starting the descent from the pass down towards Quito, we passed through a wide valley with extensive grassy slopes and a few scattered patches of scrub stretching out above us on both sides of the road.  From any given point here it was possible to see a huge area of grassland and so Mitch suggested we stop a few times on the way down to 'scope for bears'.  Now, after all the trips I've taken, I'm wise to the ways of leaders, those masters of suggesting the possible to keep people engaged, excited and interested on long drives, and so to be honest I had low expectations.  But I appreciated that Mitch remembered my desire for a bear and was willing to keep trying even if I figured the chances were extremely low in a place like this.

A mile or two later we pulled off the road and all got out to scan the slopes across the valley.  There was, between eight of us, only one scope and so other than Mitch, we were all scanning at long range with bins.  It was all very relaxed until Mitch, staring through his scope, casual announced "I've got a bear".  Then suddenly it wasn't quite so relaxed any more and we scrambled to form a line behind the scope for our 'first looks' (in group birding, once everyone in a group has had a quick 'first look' you can go back for more leisurely 'second looks' knowing that everyone has seen the bird, I mean bear).  I was second or third on line and put my eye to the scope for literally a three second 'first look' but right there, in the center of the field of view, was a big, shaggy, white chested, black bear with tufty ears.  The SPECTACLED BEAR, exactly as I'd imagined it (only half a mile away on the other side of the valley) walking towards us in long grass.  I stepped back, allowed the next person on line to get on the scope, and paused to burn the brief image into my memory ... what an awesome animal.  That euphoric feeling of seeing a long sought target started to swell up in me and I was practically bouncing with a sense of well-being and accomplishment, what a great day. 

The next person on line also saw the bear and then the great beast seemed to lumber behind a low ridge.  Mitch gave us rough directions to the sighting and we all scanned with bins, confident that the bear would emerge again, perhaps even closer.  When it didn't, we jumped on the bus and rolled a quarter mile downhill to what we all expected to be a better vantage point, leaping out and starting to scan ... no bear.  Remembering that not everyone had seen the bear, the mood turned tense and we all worked hard to try to re-find it.  How could we lose a great big lump of black-and-white mammal in a background of largely sand-colored grass?  But lose it we had, and despite a diligent search we never did re-find it.  

On the ride back to the hotel, I was of course jubilant but had to hide it with people on board who had missed the bear's brief appearance.  Luckily, they seemed to be good sports, or just not that troubled by missing the animal (I think most were on their first trip to Ecuador and had had many lifer birds already that day) but still, the celebrations were a bit muted.  I was a very happy naturalist though ... I might not have had any new birds but I had a life mammal, and a star one.  Now it was time to head South for a new mission, to see if I could find my 5,000th species of bird.

Somewhere in this photo lurks a Spectacled Bear ...

And here's one I took earlier ... well actually one I took later.  A photo of what was, almost certainly, the same individual bear, taken at the same spot, two years later ...

New Year's in Panama

December 2019: A Few Days at the Canopy Lodge over New Year's Eve/Day

I wanted to go somewhere wild and natural for New Year's Day 2020; it's always good to start the year list somewhere exotic with the prospect of a large list of birds on the first day of the year.  Starting the year in New York is OK I suppose, but American Crow and Herring Gull as the first two birds on the list just isn't all that exciting year after year.  So I always try to be somewhere a bit more exotic these days ... 2019 was Ghana, 2018 was South Africa.  For January 1st 2020 I had planned to be in Brazil but somehow plans were just not coming together.  I worked on options for several weeks and slowly realized that I just wasn't getting anywhere.  Frustrated, I was about to give up when I saw an email from the Birding Tour Company Field Guides offering last minute spaces on a week-long trip to the Canopy Lodge in Panama.  "Why not?" I thought.  Jesse Fagan was leading it, a great birder and a really interesting character who I'd met a few years ago in Peru.  I'm generally not a great fan of group tours but this sounded like it might be just fine ... a low key week in a nice lodge, the chance for a good handful of lifers, and no hassle as Field Guides would take care of everything.  "What the hell" I thought ... I was in ...

Saturday, December 28 - Panama City

Panama really isn't that far away.  A five hour direct flight from New York and you're right there and close to a lot of good birding spots.  I hadn't been to Panama since a trip to the Darien in 2003, a remarkable roadless area where we'd hiked Cerro Pirre for the local endemics and stayed at an old mine camp in a forest thick with life.  A quick look at my 'needs list' for Panama on eBird gave me an encouraging list of 75+ possible lifers but by the time I broke them down by province and season, then further whittled them down in reference to the Field Guides trip list, it looked like I had about 20 realistic possible life birds ahead.  An interesting number though because at the time my life list was 4,980 ... would I make 5,000 on this trip?  It seemed a stretch but it was certainly intriguing.

After meeting up with Jesse at the hotel, or catching up really, we met the rest of the group, all of whom seemed to be professors from U.C. Davis and were traveling together.  I was definitely the odd one out here, and Jesse had been a little surprised to see me sign up for a group trip but I reassured him I was just there to chill, no expectations, I was filling in an open week and happy to see what I saw.  And so a nice dinner, group introductions, and we were ready to start birding early the next morning.

Sunday, December 29 - Panama City to Canopy Lodge

Not everyone on a group trip has made dozens of previous trips to the Neotropics it turns out.  So group trips tend to start slow to give participants a change to acclimatize to the birding conditions, get familiar with the common birds and get into he swing of group birding.  We started out with a very pleasant morning walk in Park Natural Metropolitano in Panama City itself and had 35 species of (mostly) common birds and some Central American Agoutis while we 'worked out the kinks'.  The group wasn't terribly hard core but they were all smart and interesting people and capable and keen birders so I figured the week was going to work out just fine.

The drive out to the lodge actually wasn't that long in the end and soon we'd all settled in to our very nice rooms and were familiarizing ourselves with the local birds.  Some very familiar faces here; Louisiana Waterthrush and Summer Tanager on their wintering territories, but also some decidedly tropical looking birds like Golden-hooded Tanagers.  The lodge grounds are quiet lovely and very birdy, so not a bad place to spend a few days.

Summer Tanager

After dinner that evening, conscious no doubt that some of us were super primed to keep looking at wildlife, Jesse offered an optional night prowl.  In the end only a couple of us took him up on it but it produced some goodies.  I scared the life out of a Central American Woolly Opossum in a tree near the lodge when I turned on my spotlight ... who knew they could move so fast?  We also spent some time with the Orange Nectar Bats that came to the hummingbird feeders are night before taking a UV light and going on a scorpion hunt, ultimately rewarded with a half dozen individual scorpions including a pair involved in some sort of mating activity.


Monday, December 30 - Canopy Lodge and La Mesa Road

Our first proper day at the Canopy Lodge and a relaxed and bird-filled start to the day.  We drove a ways up the La Mesa road and stopped in an area of gardens and fields where the trip list quickly burgeoned with the common forest-edge birds for the region.  Once sated we got more serious and proceeded up to the La Mesa trail where we walked several kilometers along the ridge-line trail, checking each of the forest patches for whatever might linger there.  

The way out produced nothing terribly exciting save for a quick look at a life Emerald Tanager for me, the local guide, and a couple of lucky group members.  The way back however, proved far more interesting when one of the Davis crew, who had been lagging back, described an interesting bird she'd seen hopping around in the undergrowth.  Mindful of the possibility of Black-crowned Antpitta, we circled back and worked our way into a narrow strip of forest between the road and a farm field and sure enough, there it was, skulking craftily in the dense undergrowth and allowing only brief and fragmented views.  But what a bird ... this pittasoma is a dumpy, tail-less, thrush sized bird with a round body, huge bill, and and endearing habit of bounding from perch to perch in the understory.  The black cap is striking, mostly for sitting atop a rich rufous cheek, and the the chestnut-brown back contrasts with pearly-white underparts scalloped with bold back half-moon patterns.  It really was very special bird and one of my key targets for the trip ... a perfect end to the fist morning.

After lunch and a siesta, we headed out again and worked some gardens, fields and woodland at a housing development called Casa Iguana.  Not the most pristine of habitats but it was birding and came with the added bonus of a stakeout Spectacled Owl, a big lump of an owl and strikingly patterned.  I'd seen this species before but I never tire of seeing owls during the day so quite a treat.  The fields and empty building lots also yielded a lifer me me ... Garden Emerald ... not the most exciting of hummingbirds but hey, still a lifer.

Spectacled Owl

Tuesday, December 31 - Altos del Maria

After yesterday's great start we had great expectations for the trip 'up the mountain' to the higher elevation forests at Altos del Maria.  The region seems a popular area for wealthy Panamanians to build second houses and we birded largely from a road network that criss-crossed the forest to accommodate luxury housing on large lots.  The only thing missing were the houses, which for whatever reason had never been built, or at least had not been built yet.  Putting such thoughts aside though, we started to get to work on looking for the various specialties that could be found here, which included a half-dozen potential lifers for me.

First up was a quick stop at a known lek site for White-tipped Sicklebill, a spectacular streaky hummingbird with a remarkable bill designed for feeding on the deeply curved flowers of heliconias.  The bird was exactly where the local guides said it would be so was quickly scoped and added to the lists and we pushed on, ignoring the ominous signs on impending rain, in search of more.

Further up the road another successful forest stop yielded great looks at two shy and difficult-to-see forest birds, both of which were new for me.  The Streak-chested Antpitta sat in the open and allowed itself to be scoped, while after a little more work, a Purplish-backed Quail-Dove allowed itself to be seen peaking from the undergrowth in response to our tape.

Purplish-backed Quail-Dove

So we were on a roll and turned our attention to a new site where we thought we'd heard the enigmatic Rufous-browed Tyrannulet, a tiny bird with an odd, patchy, range stretching from Costa Rica down to Ecuador.  It was a lifer and I really wanted to see it ... and then the rain came.

I admit that I am stubborn, and so quite happy to ignore anything but the most inclement of weather, especially when I think I can hear a life bird.  I was very focussed on the tyrannulet and also on a Snowcap, another lifer, that I glimpsed briefly at the same site.  As the rain got heavier and heavier though, even the most polite and accommodating for my birding companions slowly gave up and drifted back to the van.  When the rain reached truly thundering proportions, and I was standing alone in the deluge, utterly soaked, and quite unable to hear or see much in any case, eventually even I had to give up the ghost and surrender.  There would be no more birding that day (save for some civilized squirrel-watching, beer in hand, at the lodge feeders) and I fretted about how long this seemingly endless rain would last.  We only had a few days and I'd heard or glimpsed two lifers but been denied by the weather, I could feel the chance of 5,000 slipping away.

Wednesday, January 1 - Canopy Lodge (Area)

So what would my first bird of 2020 be?  In the pre-dawn light I could hear a lot of birds, even had some idea of what some might be, but decided to wait on a bird I could actually see.  In the end, Rufous Motmot stole the prize, swooping in to the feeders in the dawn light ... and we were off for 2020!

Rufous Motmot ... my first official bird of 2020.

The next question was what would my first lifer of 2020 be?  And that was answered an hour later on the trail at Cerro Gaital where I saw and heard my first ever Spot-crowned Antvireo.   Not a bad way to start the year and in fact this trail was very birdy yielding nice views of the skulking Black-faced Antthrush, a novelty Brewster's Warbler, and even a Hoffman's Two-toed Sloth for extra measure.

Northern Schiffornis

The bird continued later in the day at Camino La Mesa - Rio Indo with a nice mix of birds including an assortment of 'ant-things' and a spectacular Brown-billed Scythebill.  Then back to the lodge for siesta and back at it for post siesta birding in another area of fields and forest edge to flesh out the list.  

Brown-billed Scythebill in the darkness of the forest

Thursday, January 2 - Bosque del Galicia / Altos del Maria

Started the day back up in the clouds in the higher elevation forest where I quickly added my life White-vented Euphonia among a lively mix of birds that included good looks at Black Guan, Northern Emerald-Toucanet, Spotted Barbtail and even a few friends from home like Blackburnian Warbler.  The highlight as we left though was a perched female Snowcap doing it's best to make up for the terrible views I'd glimpsed of the male in the rain a few days earlier.

Snowcap ... the males are flashier, but this one was cute ...

Leaving the pristine core of the forest aside we paid a visit to a landscaped mini-golf-course area nearby and were immediately rewarded with two lifers for me ... the White-tailed Emerald and the Rufous-browed Tyrannulet ... I guess if you leave the big trees and patches of the native woodland, the good birds can cling on.  

One bird I really wanted to see what the tiny Rufous-crested Coquette ... a very ornate hummingbird that was reputed to visit the flowering trees back at the lodge.  I'd already invested several hours watching those tree when I really should have been enjoying my siesta but with no luck.  Today though, the weather was on our side, and as the sun broke through the clouds and the rain held off, our local guide spotted a coquette sitting out in the open near a small lake and we all enjoyed long leisurely looks.  And I enjoyed an uninterrupted siesta.

The evening birding at Valle Chiquito was kept adding more species and actually took us to a four Motmot day ... Rufous, Lesson's, Broad-billed and Tody ... very appropriate for a tour lead by Jesse Fagan who goes by the nick-name of "motmot" in the birding world.

Collared Trogon

Friday, January 3 - Drive back to Panama City

Friday was a travel day but we took the 'scenic' route back with a number of stops in different habitats to fill out the trip list.  At one of them I got my final life bird if the trip ... Veraguan Mango ... bringing my life list to 4,997 and meaning that 5,000 would have to wait for the next trip.

We ended our birding at a delightful beach stop and picnic near Santa Clara where we added a few loafing terns and sea birds, some lovely views of the Pacific, and got to savor a great week of birding with some good food and a cold cerveza ... who knows, maybe I'll do another group trip one day ...