Week 1: Quito, Tandayapa Bird Lodge, Paz de las Aves, Tony Nunnery’s - January 6 – 14, 200

Booted Racket-tail

On Tuesday January 6th the day had finally come. I said goodbye to my family and left Toronto for Ecuador on an early afternoon flight. Aside from one tense moment in the Bogotá airport where the drug sniffing dog took a liking to the sandwich in my jacket pocket everything went completely smooth. I arrived in Quito just after 11pm and made my way to a hostel for the night

Booted Racket-tail

I had to have my visa verified by the Ecuadorian officials before I could head off in search of birds so I spent Wednesday in Quito taking care of that and exploring the city. To my surprise, when I went to the visa office the woman told me that they would need to keep my passport and that it “might” be ready in the morning. I wasn’t too pleased about this situation (especially handing over my passport) – but there wasn’t really much I could do about it. I crossed my fingers and vowed to return early the next morning with high hopes of getting all of the paperwork out of the way

Fawn-breasted Brilliant

It was still early in the day so I figured I would do a big walk around Quito and get a feel for the city. I found a map at a local tourist info center and started to wander. My first impressions of Quito were all very favourable. It is a nice city that is clean, easy to navigate, has a great transit system, and has lots of good bakeries – several of which I sampled during my tour

Golden Tanager

After lunch I decided I would go and check out the Quito Botanical Gardens. I thought that perhaps there might be something to photograph so I brought my 50D and 300mm f/4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter and a flash. Nothing too heavy or cumbersome – but enough to get a decent photo if the opportunity arose.

Masked Trogon

After paying the $3 admission I began to stroll through the garden. It was set up to display the various ecosystem types in Ecuador and was really very nice. I took a few photos of some of the amazing orchids that Ecuador is famous for (4,500 species) and then made my way into the “paramo” (a highland ecosystem type). I heard the unmistakable high pitched call of a hummingbird and spun around to see a stunning male black-tailed trainbearer. What an amazing bird

Moustached Antpitt

I spent the few hours or so trying to get an image that I would be happy with – which was difficult given that I had no tripod and the little buggar refused to come down out of the tree he was perched in. But eventually I got him

While I was photographing the trainbearer I ran into a girl that was going through customs at the same time as me the night before. We got to talking and agreed to meet later on for dinner. A great way to end my first day in Ecuador.

The next morning I went to try to get my passport back and the security guard told me it would be 3 days. Damn it!

Lucky for me there was another girl in the office who was in the exact same situation as me and whose control of the Spanish language was far greater than mine. She did some wheeling and dealing and we both walked out of there an hour or so later with our verified visas. Mission accomplished.

With my passport hassles sorted out I was free to head off. I took a taxi to the Tropical Birding head office to get a ride up to my first destination – Tandayapa Bird Lodge (TBL).

The drive over the mountain pass was amazing. Tropical cloud forests never cease to amaze me. The countryside was very nice and to my surprise there was hardly anyone else out on the roads. After an hour and a half drive we arrived at TBL.

Western Emerald

What can I say about TBL? What words can I use to describe it? I think I will go with – amazing, perfect, relaxing, inspiring, and that this place truly is a nature photography heaven.

When I got here the first thing I did was scope out the infamous hummingbird feeders. They are completely overwhelming. Probably several thousand individuals of approximately 16 species are swarming all around. They are everywhere. I have never seen anything like it. And I could hardly wait to get my camera out and start shooting. So that’s exactly what I did ☺

Over the next few days I continued to focus on photographing the TBL hummers. I also explored a few of the trails and other areas that could have potential for nature photography. There is a blind out in the forest that could yield some photos (although it is really dark). More promising is the “lower deck” that offers canopy level views of anything that might be flying by or passing through. There is also a fairly extensive trail system that I plan to explore more fully once I have a better command of some of the bird calls down here. Right now I feel handicapped because although there are birds calling everywhere I have no idea what species they are or where to start looking. But I am slowly learning their calls and once I understand them a little bit better I should be able to get some good photos.

A few days ago another young photographer from Israel showed up at the lodge and after we had lunch I invited him to join me for some multi-flash hummingbird photography. Dubi and I had a good time shooting together so we decided to meet up again the next day and head to a nearby location that had a few different species of hummingbirds. The next day we headed down to “Tony and Barbara’s” place who have a hummingbird garden that has recorded more species than anywhere else on earth. Something close to 40 species! It was amazing to see and, despite the rain, we managed to get a set-up that produced some good results. That is the beauty of multi-flash hummingbird photography – you can shoot even if it is dark and rainy and still get great photos. This is definitely a good thing as this is the rainy season here and it has rained steadily every day that I have been here so far. Thank goodness for flash!

One other day this week I took a day trip with a few of the other tourists at the lodge to Paz de las Aves where a local man has tamed 4 species of Antpittas (normally incredibly secretive birds) to come when he calls them. We missed out on “Maria” the Giant Antpitta but got “Willy” the Yellow-breasted, “Shakira” the Ochre-breasted and also a Moustached Antpitta whose name I have forgotten.

Well…this has definitely been a long enough ramble for what has been an incredible first week. I promise the rest of the entries will be shorter.

My plan for the next week is to continue to chase after birds at TBL in the mornings (when it is usually not raining) and then keep perfecting my hummingbird techniques in the afternoons.