Wednesday 9/22/21 (Teri)
We headed to the upper black-light sheet before breakfast this morning. This time there were insects on the sheet and we saw some good birds.
We headed out about 7:30 to
the Upper Tandayapa valley. I think this
was the 3rd time we have been in this area during this trip.
We were back at the lodge by noon where we finished packing. Our last lunch was vegetable soup followed by fried shrimp and french fries. We went over the bird list for the morning and left the lodge for the last time at 1:00 pm.
We stopped at a couple of places to bird before getting to our hotel. We stayed at the same hotel and even had the same room as our first night.
Quito is the capital of Ecuador. Ecuador in Spanish means equator. The locals call the equator "la mitad del mundo" – the middle of the world.
The population is a little
over 2 million and it’s the 2nd highest official capital city in the
world.
Tracy (the other lady on the trip) was going to be flying out at 11:00 pm so Tropical Birding had booked her a day room at the hotel. After going over the bird list, she went on to her room to get some rest before her over-night flight back to New York. We didn’t see her again.
We had a light dinner, potato soup (Teri), salad (Mark) and headed to our room for the evening. The hotel was once again loud with two groups singing and playing music. Luckily we could not hear any of the noise from our room.
Wednesday, 9/22/2021 (Mark)
Last day at the lodge! We got up at 5:15 and walked up to the blacklight blind, hoping to see some birds eating insects off of the white fabric. We’d come up here several mornings ago, but apparently arrived too late and didn’t see much. This time we got there while it was still pretty dark, and ended up getting really good looks at a female Zeledon’s Antbird. It was very dark but I managed to get decent images with the camera. Pretty amazing bit of technology.
After breakfast we headed up into the Upper Tandayapa Valley one more time to see if we could find any more new birds. It was slow at first, but we managed to find a couple of mixed feeding flocks and saw Grass-green Tanager and Rufous-chested Tanager. Neither were particularly cooperative for pictures, but I got identifiable images.
We returned to the lodge for lunch at noon, then loaded up the van for the trip back to Quito.
We stopped at a dry scrub forest (Calacalli) on the way
to Quito to look for some species that prefer that habitat. We saw several
Golden Grosbeaks, Tufted Tit-Tyrants, and best of all, an amazing Black-tailed
Trainbearer. This hummingbird has a remarkably long tail and was a real treat
to see flying.
Our last birding spot was the Quito Airport Ponds. We stopped on the shoulder of the toll road next to the airport, crossed to the raised median, and then looked through the fence down at the large pond. Certainly an odd and unnatural way to bird! We did pick up a few water species like Slate-colored Coot, Andean Gull, and Andean Teal. Sort of padded the bird list with some new species at our last stop.
We arrived at our hotel at 4:15, sat with José for a bit doing our last bird list of the trip, and then said our goodbyes. Once again, our “small, quiet hotel” was hosting a couple of large groups for graduation, and there was loud music, dancing, etc. We had a light dinner at 5:30, then retired to the room for the night.
Next time: I didn’t want to
get off the plane, who won “the bet” (I totally cheated!), final thoughts on
the trip, and my souvenir.
Glad your bird sightings seemed successful and you got some new and unusual ones. I'm interested in reading your impressions of other aspects of the trip which didn't always seem quite as successful.
ReplyDeleteOverall it was a great trip. Since we'd been there in 2008 and birded much more intensely, we knew that we would see a lot of new species. But we sure got better pictures this time!!
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