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Revisit to the páramo

In 2019 we took the same route that we did in 2018, even ate lunch at the same restaurant.  We saw a couple of new birds, but mostly we saw the same birds better.

Above and below:  Black-chested Buzzard Eagle (Geranoaetus melanoleucus).  New bird for this year.

Black-tailed Trainbearer (Lesbia victoriae)

Black Flowerpiercer (Diglossa humeralis)

Cinereous Conebill (Conirostrum cinereum)

Above and below:  Streaked-backed Canastero (Asthenes wyatti) an example of one of our new birds and much more difficult to see than Many-striped Canastero (A. flammulata) which we saw well last year. There are two species of streak-backed canastero.  I think we may have seen A. w. aequatorialis - although this is just my guess.

Above:  Male Plumbeous Sierra-finch (Phrygilus unicolor)

Above:  Common at this elevation, Stout-billed Cinclodes (Cinclodes excelsior)

Páramo Pipit (Anthus bogotensis).  Seen much better this year.

Above:  female Plumbeous Sierra-finch

So cute, baby Andean Lapwing

Nearby adult Andean Lapwing (Vanellus resplendens)

Seen much better this year, Black-faced Ibis (Theristicus melanopis)

Also seen much better this year, Andean Gull (Larus serranus)

Answer to last week's quiz photo

Although Matt Hysell gave this away with far better photos in his post on Condors' wings, just to complete my blog loop, here are my much more challenging images.

Barely visible, this is the first Andean Condor we saw, before we found the other, actually identifiable, bird below.

Above and below, after a not very long time perching, they took off to soar together.  The gray overtones of both photos is the heavy mist that plagued us the whole trip.

My next post reveals that the sun did come out for at least part of the day.

Yesterday, return from Ecuador

In the rain and sleet I returned from our second trip to Ecuador yesterday morning.  Upon my 5:00 a.m. arrival in Atlanta it was raining.  For the first time ever in my flying life I was the first off the plane and the first to enter the U.S. customs area of the Atlanta airport. I don't know if it was because of this that I was also randomly selected to be scrutinized more closely by custom officials.  The custom officer was either very pleased, or sorely disappointed, when he ruffled through my scantily packed suitcase of muddy clothes.  He didn't even bother to check my backpack.  Nevertheless, the whole customs process went very quickly - probably because of my extraordinarily early arrival time - and I was able to consider an earlier flight to Detroit.  I arrived at gate A27 for the 7:25 a.m. departure flight and, after thinking about it a little, paid the $75 extra to get on this flight.  Glad I did.  The flight arrived in Detroit more or less on time and saved me a potential delay if I had instead waited for the departure of my originally planned 9:40 a.m. flight.

Thanks to recent inclement weather in Detroit (reminding drivers to go slower) there were no accidents on the I-94 and my cabbie got me home before mid-morning.  Attention to my little cat, laundry, a couple of phone calls and emails later and then I was downloading and deleting photos.

This year I promised myself that I would be ruthless with my photo deletions and I think I have done a pretty good job of it.  On the other hand I took far fewer photos this year, only about a 1/3 of the number taken last year - more about this later - and so the deletion process seemed much easier.

I return to work tomorrow - bracing myself - but I'll be adding my Ecuador blog entries over the next  days and weeks.

Until next time, the above photo is a quiz photo which I'll answer in my next entry.  Can you find the bird in the photo?  There are many hints.


      

Long Reads - beauty and birds

From January 13, 2019 New York Times

Long Reads:  How Beauty is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution