El Cajas & Banos

After this two mekkas for animals my parents and I went to places where there wasn't so much nature... I thought!
We went to Cuenca, an "UNESCO world heritage site" for its beautiful historic city. My parents were in heaven, while I was rather unhappy. I dislike churches, statues and many other cultural things. Houses can be beautiful sometimes but they are all around the world, not like birds like the Andean Condor, which can only see in very few places in this world and only with luck...
It can still be somehow interesting to see other cultures, such as the indigenous cultures in the city or their markets, so I made one day a cultural day, whilst the second day became a natural day in the Cajas Nationalpark...
The scenery there was breathtakingly beautiful, eventhough that animals weren't very numerous. I had booked a trip with a guide and luckily only two other people came with me. We had a nice time, hiking around. I got to see a few birds like Variable Hawk or Blue-mantled Thornbill and in the end we ate trout.
Not a bad day...
One of the most common birds in cities: The Rufous-collared Sparrow
Cuy: Guinea-pig. Well I had hoped it would taste better...
A Llama in the Cajas Nationalpark
A very, very beautiful flower...
The Polylepis forest looks in some way kinda strange...
Me sitting in front of the beautiful scenery in El Cajas...

After that we went to Banos, a very touristic town, where you might maybe find more gringos, than ecuadorians. You can go rafting, bungee (swing) jumping, or vulcano watching... Or just hiking.
An Orchidae in the Cloudforest
White-bellied Woodstars were quite common in Banos
Banos seen from the point, where we tried to see the vulcano...
We went vulcano watching, without seeing the vulcano because clouds covered it. Swing jumping was big fun, eventhough very short... but still an incredible feeling.
And while hiking with my dad I saw lots of birds, for example Cinereous Harrier, Black-tailed Sylph or really surprising were the Orange-eared Tanagers. There were also 3 different species of Flowerpiercer... From where we went we had very good views above Banos and the whole surroundings, like almost always, when you're in the Andes, I just love it...
The butterfly seems to be caught in the spider web, but it wasn't...
But the really cool thing, was our tour in a "chiva", to see the waterfalls of the region (about 20 and most of them really impressing...) At our last stop we were already in Cloud-forest and so I got to see some beautiful birds like the Red-headed Barbets, one of my favourites in Ecuador. I had been looking at every waterfall for Torrent Duck without luck. I had hoped so much for this duck, the only highland-duck I was still missing.
We passed by many, many waterfalls,...

Well there it was. At the last waterfall, where I didn't even look for it. It just sat there and this coolest of all ducks made my day.
... before I finally saw my first Torrent Duck on one of the last days.

A few days after I already sat in the plane and watched Quito fade away. Ecuador fade away. South America fade away.
Having seen almost 500 bird species and numerous other animal species without having had a guide, just birding on weekends with the knowledge I learned by myself. But I know I'll return soon and then I'll bird until I have seen every single species in Ecuador. In the whole world!!!!
Okay, not every species^^

Puerto Lopez; Coast

After a few days in Quito we went on to the coast. This was only the second time I was going to see the Ecuadorian coast and I had big hopes of seeing many shorebirds. Well I had luck with some of them, as there were Frigatebirds and Pelicans all around, but after having been there 5 days I had only seen two Plovers and no other waders...
But I saw many other interesting animals. First of all the impressive humpback whales. We even went a second time onto the ocean, as the first time wasn't enough for us. The first time we went onto the water, wasn't totally dedicated to whale whatching, but also connected with a trip to the so called "Poor Mens Galapagos", the Isla de la Plata.
Eventhough I was unhappy as we didn't go to the Albatrosses, we came very close to Red-footed, Blue-footed and Nazca Boobies, Magnificient Frigatebirds, Red-billed Tropicbirds and a few passerines. I had never been so close to them before, which was a highlight, as where the Red-footed Boobies, which I hadn't seen on Galapagos...
We also went snorkeling and I saw many different fish, but I'm just too spoiled with the fish I have seen in the Red Sea...
Around our hostel were also some interesting birds, like owls, a few hummers, and some little rather unspectacular passerines, like the Parrot-billed Seedeaters. A real surprise were for me the Collared Antshrikes.
Blue-footed Boobie
Red-footed Boobie
Nazca Boobie
Magnificient Frigatebirds
Fish-thief
Magnificient Frigatebirds
Brown Pelicans
Peruvian Pelican
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
Pacific Pygmy-Owl
West-Peruvian Screech-Owl
Lesser Nighthawk
Amazilia Hummingbird
Pacific Parrotlet
Vermillion Flycatcher
Many, many Grey-breasted Martins

Concerning mammals there were some fruit-eating bats and a group of 4 always hung under a bush, where I got some funny pictures. There were of course the whales and in one place there were Grey Squirrels...
Fruit-eating Bats
Grey Squirrel



We got to see many humpback whales, doing cool maneuvers, but I only saw them jumping in the distance...

Reptiles were not very common but I found a few Green Iguanas and even two very young ones and once we were visited by a Boa Constrictor imperator, measuring about 50cm, which came out of the book corner and was brought outside...
Green Iguana
Green Iguana juveniles
Boa constrictor imperator


From fishes I can tell much more, as we went snorkeling twice and saw fish like Angelfish, Triggerfish, Parrotfish and a few others, but the Red Sea will always keep me spoiled concerning reef fish, so I wasn't so impressed. More impressing and also sad was the fish market of Puerto Lopez. They landed tons of manta rays and hammerhead sharks, which they said, were just in reproducing time and therefor everywhere. They caught thousands of them eventhough they are forbidden to be caught. It were just bycatches...
The fish they normally should catch were marlins, swordfishes, dorados, wahoos and other stuff like that, but those weren't caught as numerous, eventhough still in big numbers...
Wahoos
A fisherboat loaded with sharks, mantas and a few normal fish
Swordfish
Blowfish

Samona Lodge; Cuyabeno

I'm jumping my trip to the coast of Esraldas, where I saw a few birds, but only 18 new birds, which is nothing if you consider that I had never been at the coast and was at a completely new habitat. My personal favourite there were the cute Pacific Parrotlets. Also did I see Rufous-necked Wood-Rail, White-throated Crake and Stripe-billed Aracari, but not a single new shorebird could I add to my list. Magnificient Frigatebirds and Brown Pelicans were abundant and a single Blue-footed Booby led me to a colony of sleeping boobies.

But apart from that this trip wasn't dedicated to birding and so I won't write much about it. Oh yes, there were also some Green Iguanas.

But now I'll write about my experiences in Cuyabeno. Cuyabeno is situated in northeastern Ecuador. It has some magnificient lagoons with trees standing in the middle of the water. My parents had come from Germany and we were going to travel through Ecuador. Cuyabeno was our first trip.

I had much fun, since the people were all very nice and I saw tons of new animals. Only the fact that our guide didn't have the eye for animals as the other guides was frustrating. He was quite funny, but I'd liked to have been with Neiser during the trip... He saw everything

But well I saw many things:
Mammals: Pink River Dolphins, Hoffmann's Two-toed Sloth, White-tailed Titimonkey, Yellow-handed Titimonkey, Monk Saki Monkey, Common Wooly Monkey, Common Squirrelmonkey, White-fronted Capuchin, White-lined Sac-winged Bat, some more bats
Although we got to see Squirrel monkeys almost daily, it was almost impossible to get pictures, where the face wasn't hidden...
A White-lined Sac-winged Bat
On the last day we finally saw a sloth!


Reptiles: Black Cayman, Anaconda, Amazon Tree Boa, 2 Anoli and 1 Skink species, Black-and-white Tegu, 1 big lizard they called I think Dracanaea...
This Amazon Tree Boa was the first snake on our jungle tour...
Our first Anaconda followed soon...
Our second Anaconda was much larger, than the first one. Almost 3 metres...
The gigantic Tegu mesured aproximately 80cm!
A baby Black Cayman


Amphibies: Smoky Jungle Frog, various different frogs and toads
A toad, that ressembles the leafs very much!
Another of those toads
Another frog, that ressembles leaves, a glassfrog.
A little visitor to our dining room...


Fish: Arapaima, Red, Golden and Silver Piranha, different smaller fish

Insects and other crawlies: Tarantulas, whip spiders, katycids, spiders, beatles, millipeds and especially butterflies were abundant and everywhere. It was impossible of getting a good picture of the big morphos but I got a few other interesting ones...
During the night we found this gigantic katycid
Also was there this terrifying looking whip spider...
In our dining rooms roof, were at least 7 of these tarantulas...
We ate those larvaes, which tastes like coconut milk, but not too good...
I was told this was the only diurnal moth existing... Looks very pretty for a moth








All those butterflies were just around the lodge...


Birds: Many,many so here's just a list of my favourites: Blue-and-yellow and Scarlet Macaw, Mealy Amazon, Green Ibis, Cocoi Heron,Rufescent Tiger-Heron, Spix's Guan, Anhinga, Hoatzin, Common Potoo, Common Paurauque, White-chinned Jacamar, Ivory-billed Aracari, Chestnut Woodpecker, asked Crimson Tanager, Green-and-gold Tanager, Purple Honeycreeper, Sungrebe and many more...
A White-throated Toucan
The Common Potoo, one of the weirdest birds in the world...
The very beautiful Red-capped Cardinal...
A Green Kingfisher and his very large beak
Hoazins were the favourite birds of many of the tourists, including me...



It was an incredible experience and it was just cool to swim with a baby anaconda, eat while you know, you are watched by 7 tarantulas and watch the monkeys jump. We swam in the lagoons, while the sun was going down and I fished the biggest piranha of the group... It just made fun :-)