I don’t only bird alone…

Me standing in the magnificient Polylepis forrest

Last time I told you why I birded alone, because it was just so difficult really to bird being with others, who don’t understand your hobby and have no idea of what you’re doing. But how would it be to bird with other birders, people who have exact the same interests as you do, who know about birds like me or, even more? Now I got the answer. It’s fantastical!!
I talked with Dusan Brinkhuizen, the webmaster of Aves Ecuador, a very good website for birders in Ecuador but birders still not are using the internet very much to tell us about their sightings. Let’s hope that changes in the next time…
So in the end we made up a plan for a birding day together… We would go to Papallacta and search for some highland endemics.
7:30AM we met in Cumbaya, took a bus and went to Papallacta. He had brought his wife a friendly Ecuadorian… The day began for me with a Caranculated Caracara walking on a field. Then we had arrived at the place where we were going to start our day…
The birds were shy and I got only very short views, so short I couldn’t identify a single bird. The first birds we got were some Andean Ruddy Ducks and a few Andean Teals and Andean Coots. We walked on, tried to call a Paramo Tapaculo out his hiding place but failed. The next birds were the uncommon Silvery Grebes and I was getting very sure in something… I knew this site, only from the other side… We were at Laguna Sucus, a place where I had once seen 11 Tawny Antpittas and the display flights of Variable Hawks in just one day!
We made our way through high Paramo grass seeing not much only hearing Tawny Antpittas, Grass Wrens and a far away Rufous Antpitta. Our only birds were Many-striped Canasteros and a high sitting Red-crested Cotinga. Then a highlight of the trip was an adult male White-tailed Deer…
Soon we changed the habitat, as we were getting a little lower and the birds got more. A big flock included birds like a Buff-breasted Mountain-Tanager, White-throated Tyrannulets (bird-species no. 300 for me in Ecuador) and two bird I was going to swear it were Jays. But there are no Jays at these altitudes and so it must have been the Golden-crowned Tanager. But it is still so strange that I should have confused Jays with Tanagers!?
We found another Cotinga, this time much lower and also some Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanagers sang from treetops. After a short pause we went on to see a rabbit standing on its hind-legs giving such a cute picture I had to take pictures of it…
Finally we found another big flock with many new species for me. A few Pale-naped Brush-finches were the first birds we saw before some Spectacled Whitestarts brought us to more White-bearded Tyrannulets, a few Rufous-breasted Chat-Tyrants and one or two Superciliared Hemispingus’. But the best bird was probably the Spillmann’s Tapaculo calling so incredibly close to me, that I even saw it just about 1m away. This skulker is heard far more often than seen.
To end the day we went to Papallacta Lake where I got my last new species the Yellow-billed Pintail. On the drive back I had another two Caranculated Caracaras, so that ended the day with the same species with which it had begun.
A great day, due to fact birding with other people can be very cool and I learned a lot. I hope for another time with them. I got 14 new species on this day, so that I can now go for the 400 species! Thanks to the very friendly Dusan and his wife, who showed me birding with other people can be very nice too
I soon got sure I had seen that place before...
That was a big surprise for all of us. It was really beautiful with his antlers...
Dusan in the highland grass looking for birds...
. The rabbit in its cute pose...
At in the end finally a bird: The cute Spectacled Whitestart