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 ...