Today was more of a travelling day than a birding day as we
first dropped Giselle off at the airport in the morning as she was returning to
Argentina. Then Lia and I completed a few errands in the city of Quito before setting
off down the Andes to visit a lowland Choco forest reserve that we were
extremely excited to visit. This journey would take five hours, and since we
did not start it until late morning we had already reached the conclusion that
most likely we would not be birding today.
But we made good time on our travels and as such we decided
to call off at the Awa Road, a track that runs through an area of forest that
we planned to visit on our return journey. Since we had time we made a short
visit, although the rain would likely hinder our birding.
The main target here was Choco Tapaculo, a Scytalopus
species that is endemic to the lowland Choco here. Normally these birds and
difficult and elusive, so we were prepared for a difficult time, but as it
happened we found one singing almost immediately and with some playback it
showed incredibly well. Its movements were erratic but it would often reveal
itself before diving back into the undergrowth.
Other birds on the road included Choco Toucan and Purple-crowned Fairy, but once we had our main target, and with rain still coming down, we decided to call it a day and complete our travelling for the day.
Awa Road: Ruddy Pigeon, Purple-crowned Fairy, Choco Toucan, Blue-headed Parrot, Choco Tapaculo, White-bearded Manakin, Tropical Kingbird, Tawny-crested Tanager, Lemon-rumped Tanager, Blue-black Grassquit, Thick-billed Seed Finch, Variable Seedeater,
No comments:
Post a Comment