That's why I bird alone...

My uncle Paul came up with the idea we could go to the old Nono-Mindo-Road together, because he had driven this day only a few days before and was overwhelmed by the animals he saw. So we made up a plan and he, my cousin Sharon and I were going to go at 5:00 AM.
My alarm didn't ring for some reason I don't understand and at 6:00 Paul stood in my window and was knocking at it to wake me up. Soon i was ready to start, but Paul brought also his wife and 3 of his children...
I realized that wouldn't be the best birding and i got even more sure, when we made a stop to eat our breakfast. Another 30minutes later...
In the end we finally arrived, but I was confused when Paul drove even farer. Hadn't he said we would walk and watch wildlife?
I asked and soon he stopped, let me, Sharon and Andy down and we started walking. I tried to get a little space between them and me, because music out of the cellphone in the middle of nature isn't what i had thought of. The mist very rather thick and when I found birds they appeared mostly greyish. After 300m of walking we encountered Paul and the others who were waiting near some waterfall with the car... they were watching spider-nets, not the most interesting thing for me, I've already seen soo many of them. Somehow for coincidence my little girl cousin Paulette discovered some stickbugs. You might have already asked yourself, why my blog is named Stickbug-diver. Well that was a spontane idea. My favourite hobby was and still is diving. I'm always overwhelmed by this shear number of species in the red sea and this combined with being in the water is for me like heaven. So when I came to Ecuadors Oriente, the Amazonian Lowlands I soon found my first stickbug. I discovered I had some special talent in finding them and found them everywhere I went. So I mixed these both words and now I have almost 40 of those difficult insects.
My first really interesting bird was a female Green Thorntail high up in a tree, but easy to identifie... Hummingbirds were everywhere around and seemed to be the only birds to "sing". I took a long time until I finally found another interesting bird. Then we went another time with our car, Paul and the others already wanted to go home, Sharon had to do homework^^ We made a short stop for some Turquoise Jays and then moved on. What a bad joke. We made one last halt and I somehow got onto a trail of Bellavista Lodge, where I caught some glimpse of a movement. I got near to it and could see it was green and only had two ideas what it could be. The beautiful Green-and-black Fruiteater or the terrific Grass-green tanager. I soon could ID it as the first one. I'd liked more if it had been the Grass-green Tanager but I think I cannot be unhappy with such a beautiful bird. Walking a little bit further I encountered the incredibly beautiful Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan feeding in a nearby tree. I had already seen it before, but Paul wanted to see this one so I ran back telling him about the toucan and soon we went together hoping it was still there. I arrived a little faster than him, but the Toucan was already gone. But over my head in the canopy a group of four more or less big birds caught my attention. Eventhough light-conditions were very far from good I knew I was seeing the Toucan Barbet, which I had been searching for so long. When Paul arrived they were already gone and we didn't see anything but we could hear some strange noise above our heads. Now I know how Toucan Barbets call and I doubt I will forget that sound! It's only topped by Wattled Guan, which i heard at Tandayapa.
So then we drove on and were already arriving back to the main road, when in a small mixed flock we found birds like Masked Flowerpiercer and Rusty-winged Barbtail. Apart from that a Collared inca got my attention, I had wanted this one so badly but never seen before... Finally I saw it...
Then at 12 o'clock we were done and I had seen some cool birds, eventhough I couldn't enjoy this trip due to cellphone-music and not at all suffcient time. I sometimes to run and was only birding like 1 hour in total.
When you go birding alone you notice how independent you are from others and I loved that feeling... I feel free and can do what I want, to the time I want. Only negative thing is that I can't get to many places and nead other people to bring me there...
But let's see how it is to bird with other birders. Tomorrow I will go to Papallacta with Dusan Brinkhuizen a bird guide and webmaster of the site [url=http://www.avesecuador.com/]Aves Ecuador[/url]...
I'm sure this will be great...
The stickbug was missing two legs...
A waterfall near the road... This time I did not get many good pictures of birds