Strip birding. Because sometimes you have to.

Ecuadorian Ground Doves

After a very cold morning around 14,000 feet elevation we drove for several hours down to sea level to spend the next several days birding along the Ecuadorian coast. I went from wearing knitted stocking cap, gloves and jacket to wanting to tear off all my clothes because it was a steam bath at sea level. This is strip birding at its finest. I constructed a fan with a folded piece of paper I found on my seat and tried to cool off as we passed by field after field of rice, corn, teak, and banana crops.

Most of the afternoon was spent in the van, yet we were able to find a whopping 71 species. The bulk of our time was spent at Manglares (Mangroves) Chorute Ecological Reserve, about 25 miles from Guayaquil. When we got out of the van we poured mosquito repellent into our hands and began slathering it all over our faces, necks and any other parts of our bodies that were exposed. I was walking more steady at sea level and didn’t need my coca leaves any longer. It was a relief to be able to pick up the pace without having to worry about passing out. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with air. Oh, how easy it felt, but I soon felt the drops of sweat meandering down my back. I was running out of clothes to peel off and there were those mosquitos we were warned about by our guide, Jose. “Malaria could be a problem here,” he cautioned.

An afternoon is hardly enough time to spend here. The reserve covers approximately 50,000 hectares of mangroves and dry tropical forests and we just saw a tiny bit of it.  The beautiful Saffron Finch was the showstopper for the day. His name suits him well.

Saffron Finch

Birds we saw here (lifers are in bold):

1. Horned Screamer
2. Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
3. White-cheeked Pintail
4. Great Egret
5. Little Blue Heron
6. Snowy Egret
7. Cattle Egret
8. Striated Heron
9. Black Vulture
10. Turkey Vulture
11. Snail Kite
12. Savannah Hawk
13. Black-necked Stilt
14. Wattled Jacana
15. Greater Yellowlegs
16. Rock Pigeon
17. Ecuadorian Ground-Dove
18. Blue Ground-Dove
19. White-tipped Dove
20. Gray-capped Cuckoo
21. Groove-billed Ani
22. Peruvian Pygmy Owl
23. Violet-bellied Hummingbird
24. Amazilia Hummingbird
25. Ecuadorian Trogan
26. Ringed Kingfisher
27. Black-cheeked Woodpecker
28. Scarlet-backed Woodpecker
29. Pacific Parrotlet
30. Gray-cheeked Parakeet
31. Bronzed-winged Parrot
32. Jet Antbird
33. Streak-headed Woodpecker
34. Pacific Hornero
35. Brown-capped Tyrannulet
36. Southern Beardless Tyrannulet
37. White-throated Tyrannulet
38. Tufted Tit-Tyrant
39. Pacific Elaenia
40. Tawny-rumped Tyrannulet
41. (Pacific) Royal Flycatcher
42. Bran-colored Flycatcher
43. Vermillion Flycatcher
44. Boat-billed Flycatcher
45. Social Flycatcher
46. Tropical Kingbird
47. One-colored Becard
48. Red-eyed Vireo
49. Lesser Greenlet
50. Blue-and-white Swallow
51. Gray-breasted Martin
52. Chestnut-collared Swallow
53. House Wren
54. Superciliated Wren (I began calling this the Super Load Wren
    because his song is super loud)
55. Tropical Gnatcatcher
56. Tropical Parula
57. Blue-gray Tanager
58. White-shouldered Tanager
59. Flame-rumped (Lemon) Tanager
60. Saffron Finch
61. Blue-black Grassquit
62. Variable Seedeater
63. Chestnut-throated Seedeater
64. Plain-colored Seedeater
65. Bananaquit
66. Streaked Saltator
67. Buff-throated Saltator
68. Peruvian Meadowlark
69. Scrub Blackbird
70. Yellow-rumped Cacique
71. Hooded Sisken

That’s 71 species in the afternoon and of those, 29 lifers.