Ecuador bagged lunch

I took so many photos on this trip.  I've always been weak about deleting poor and decent, but duplicate-like, photos.  I'll never be able to repeat the trip experience so end up keeping too many photos.  But when I get home I have to download these photos.  It takes forever and is a boring process.  I've been home over three weeks and am not even half-way through the download.  So, here's a pause post before I can get to the next bird post.

Tamale wrapped in aluminum wrapper, bag of banana chips, pear, peach juice box, plastic container with rice and little pieces of cubed chicken and veggies, already half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich, club social crackers, little square date bar, chocolate bar, napkin and spoon!

The lunch was prepared for us by the Guango Lodge staff and was amazing.  It was so much fun to sit on a rock, look into the cornucopia of food and pull out one thing after another and enjoy lunch.  There was no way any of us could eat it all, so we gave our extras to the Papallacta Pass park guard. Lunch came after my Swarovski bins broke (and now in the repair shop).  Rhoda packed extra bins and loaned them to me for the rest of the trip.

The Guango Lodge was also my favorite place to stay on this trip and we had only one night here.  It was an older lodge as evidenced by our room photo above.  It was small, but beautiful.  I didn't take a photo of the dining/sitting room and regret this.  It was intimate and charming. As I recall, the food here was the best we had on the whole trip.  I recommend Guango Lodge.  Good birds and hummingbird feeders here, too.

The Guango-prepared bag lunch has now spoiled me.  I'll never look at a boxed lunch quite the same again.  Wouldn't it be great if we had such fun bagged lunches at our work and professional meetings?   

No seedsnipe or conebill but 15,000 feet for sure.

But first, the end of our lunch stop after seeing Silvery Grebe and Aplomado Falcon.

Above and below:  Tambo Condor

No trip to South America would be complete without a photo of the ever present Rufous-collared Sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis), here in a pose we will recognize.

Common at this elevation, Sparkling Violetear (Colibri coruscans)

Only at this elevation, Giant Hummingbird (Patagona gigas)

High elevation waterfall at the condor place.  We did see a condor take off from the mountain cliff.  

Rising to 15,000.  We missed the Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe on our first visit, but had a chance to return the next day when we missed it again. On our second try we also missed the Giant Conebill.  It was not so windy on our second visit making the temperature more comfortable for hanging out.  We got to 15,000 by doing some extra walking and climbing.  This is how Rhoda found the sleeping fox.   

Above and below:  Culpeo fox (Lycalopex culpaeus) sleeping in the sun until the sun disappeared.

Me

Above and below:  Endemic Viridian Metaltail (Metallura williami)

Above and below:  some botanicals and the views

This is also where Quito's antenna towers were built.

12,000 to 15,000 feet up

The first couple days of our trip were spent at elevation - around 12,000 feet to 15,000 feet - mostly birding along roads and from the van.  Fortunately, the windows of the van easily opened for some decent photos.  

I've been trying to think of the story that will go with my Ecuador birding posts, and unfortunately for me (not necessarily for you) there is little narrative to go with these photos.  Unfortunately for me only because I like the story and the writing of it.  This should not imply that the trip was not great - because it was - only that the way it unfolded was straightforward and uncomplicated.  There was no definitive Super Bowl of birding day, so to speak, but there were several fine and favorite moments.  I also made some observations about birding in a country with a well-established birding culture and infrastructure. Going forward most of my narrative will likely be comments on my observations. 

In no particular order, the following photos were taken enroute to and in and around Antisana National Park.

Brown-backed Chat-Tyrant (Ochthoeca fumicolor)

Terrible photo of White-crested Elaenia (Elaenia albiceps)

Plain-colored Seedeater (Catemenia inornata)

Great Thrush (Turdus fuscater) - seen and heard everyday

Black-winged Ground-Dove (Metriopelia melanoptera)

Above and below:  female Ecuadorian Hillstar (Oreotrochilus chimborazo)

View of Ecuadorian Hillstar landscape.

Above and below:  Stout-billed Cinclodes (Cinclodes excelsior)

Andean Lapwing (Vanellus resplendens)

Carunculated Caracara (Phalcoboenus carunculatus)

Tawny Antpitta (Grallaria quitensis)

Chestnut-winged Cinclodes (Cinclodes albidiventris)

Many-striped Canastero (Asthenes flammulata)

Horrible photo of Aplomado Falcon (Falco femoralis) - but nice to see.

Antisana Volcano (above) looms over the Artisana NP and was seen from all of our high-elevation birding locations.  Whenever I saw this volcano I couldn't resist yet another photo.

The photos above were taken around an elevation of 12,000 - 13,000 feet.  The landscape was stark, wide-open and very beautiful.  It was essentially a high-elevation desert.  The birds seen here were so different than any seen elsewhere in Ecuador and even very different than any North American birds. 

My next post will be from 15,000 feet where we went twice to look unsuccessfully for Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe (Attagis gayi latreillii) and Giant Conebill (Oreomanes fraseri).   

Return from Ecuador

Unrestrained by snow, snow, snow and more snow, I returned from Eduador less than 24 hours ago.  Going through just under 2,000 photos now - still in the deleting phase - and will be making some posts soon.

Have some running around to do, but more soon.  In the meantime, Dorian Anderson has also recently completed a trip to Ecuador and is writing about it on his blog The Speckled Hatchback.  His  post #129 includes many of the places we visited in the Tandayapa valley, including maps, which I am terrible at trying to do.

For now some photos of a charming little bird we all know and love for which it will be unlikely to find a place for elsewhere.

The photos above and many others were taken at Puembo Birding Garden.  The Puembo Birding Garden has a big on-line presence which I recommend checking out.

Eagle Optics closed

Recently a query for recommendations about binocular selection posted to a list serve I read caught my attention.  In this same query there was mention that Eagle Optics had closed.  Eagle Optics closed?

Turns out to be true.  This was a stunner.  To me Eagle Optics was always the premier birding optics resource with a retail store in Wisconsin (I had never been) and an excellent on-line presence.  Their telephone support was superlative.   If you go to the Eagle Optics website you will read the following:

"After over 30 years as a successful sport optics retailer, it became even more challenging to run a specialized business, and on 12/31/17, Eagle Optics is ceasing all business operations.

As always, Eagle Optics recognizes that without our customers and partners, we could not have been successful in our support of the birding community and bird conservation. We want to thank you and are eternally grateful for the relationships, partnerships, and community we have built together."

It says a lot about the support Eagle Optics provided over the period of time when birding exploded in popularity.  It says a lot that this kind of specialty business can no longer be successful in our current purchasing/retail/commercial landscape.

Just before this past Christmas, I spent a great afternoon with book-loving reading friends.  Their house is loaded with books.  It's so interesting and fun to stand in front of one of their bookshelves and scan over the titles.  My friends live in a university city with a great independent bookstore owned by a young couple.  The store is very successful and my friends mean to do their part to keep it that way. They no longer purchase from Amazon or other on-line sites.

In full disclosure, I do purchase books from Amazon, but my friends have got me thinking.  This afternoon, I'm off to the Barnes and Noble store 3 miles from my house to see if they are carrying a book I want to purchase.  Remember when "big box stores" were the threat?  I recently re-watched the 1998 romantic comedy "You've Got Mail"  and thought it was even better 20 years later.  If the "big box" Barnes and Noble near my house were to close, there would be no bookstore around for miles and miles - not a good thing in a country with illiteracy rising at an alarming rate.

If only the same had been so for birders support for Eagle Optics.  I'm grateful for the spotting scope and tripod purchase I made from Eagle Optics and will always think fondly of my experiences with their business.  They served us well.

So where do we go for binocular information now?  For now at least, there are still on-line binocular reviews of the Eagle Optics Ranger line. One  such review by Optics Reviewer also offered a short history of how Eagle Optics came to be.  Cornell Lab of Ornithology also offers occasional reviews as does Birders journal.