Our Guide Literally Wrote the Book

We were met at our hotel by our guide, Andres Vasquez, and driver, Edison. They were to take us to Tandayapa Bird Lodge.

A while into the drive, I asked if he would be returning to Quito that evening. He responded that he would be our guide for three days in Tandayapa and surrounding birding sites. His name was familiar as I had been looking into guidebooks for our trip. I googled and found out that he had literally written the book on the subject, "Wildlife of Ecuador." Andrés Vásquez Noboa works as a guide for Tandayapa Bird Lodge and Tropical Birding Tours in his native Ecuador, as well as in Peru, Brazil, and Argentina. An active promoter of birding and conservation, he has co-written six previous books on the wildlife of mainland Ecuador and the Galápagos. I was very happy at this surprise.

Edison drove up and out of Quito above the tree line to about 12,000 feet and started down the Pacific slope of the Andes. Andres pointed to a small tin roof in a valley below where some old-growth forest filled the surrounding area. Most of the surrounding land was nothing but grass and an occasional farm. It had been stripped of its trees over the past hundred years or more by humans dominating their environment. This was a slice of the pristine natural habitat that the wildlife had thrived in since before people had arrived.

With some wheel spinning in muddy ruts, our van got through the opening in the barbed wire fence, stopping to get out near the top of a steep drop-off to the right. Zigzagging down the narrow trail, you could see a thatched roof over an open viewing platform on the left and what looked like a hunting blind on the right.

Andres said that there was a rare bird that looked like a potato on stilts that may be seen here called an antpitta. The owner had begun coaxing one from the underbrush over the last several months and would try to get one to come out for us and another pair of visitors from Europe. These two gentlemen were obviously very serious about their photography. They had cameras on tripods with three-foot-long lenses.

When we reached the bottom of the trail, we were urged to turn to the right behind a hunting blind-type setup. It was set in a small ravine with lots of tree cover. It was time to coax out the antpitta, a bird that until the last twenty years was so reclusive that some said it was imaginary.

The owner placed little bits of food for the antpitta on a moss-covered log about forty feet in front of the blind. We were told to keep quiet because the bird was coming through the underbrush. Behind me, I heard the buzz of the cameras from the two other guests as they started snapping shots just as I saw the bird for the first time.

The gray and rust bird was indeed shaped like a potato on long stick-like legs. The antpitta seemed calm for such a timid bird. As I took dozens of shots, the others took hundreds. It was interesting and undoubtedly uncommon, but not the most beautiful bird in the forest. Unless you are another antpitta.

With the rare shots in the bag, we all moved over to the large covered viewing area that had feeding stations to attract the bountiful hummingbirds in the area. Our host picked some of the local flowers from nearby and placed them into a clip elevated on a tripod in front of us near the other feeders. With a syringe, he put little droplets of sugar water into the flower to help us get a more natural and beautiful shot of the hummingbirds.

Andres was talking about cameras with one of the other visitors who was reeling off shots of the hummingbirds coming to the flower feeder. Andres is one of the top bird photographers in Ecuador and a representative for Olympus cameras and Swarovski scopes. While my nice Nikon D5100 DSLR takes four frames per second, these guys were zipping through 200 frames per second. The human eye can only see 30-60 frames per second. These guys were way too serious for me. The amount of memory that they used in one day was more than I would use in the whole time I was in South America.

They changed the flowers a few times for variety, and we had hundreds of hummingbirds of at least six or seven types come to them. I was really happy with the shots I got and was looking forward to seeing them on a full screen later and sharing them with my friends.

All good things come to an end, and so we had to move along. This was one of the very few places like this geared towards reclaiming old forest ecosystems and providing the opportunity for birders to see wild birds in the wild. This is part of why I like to travel. I had the opportunity to support this individual and be a firsthand supporter of the conservation of this precious ecosystem.

After more wheel spinning in the mud, we made our way down the unpaved road towards our lodge. On the way, Andres knew of a spot to check for a burrowing owl. It was too far off to get a good shot with my camera, but through his Swarovski scope, we got a good look and even took some pictures using my iPhone.

As we descended from 12,000 feet to the cloud forest lodge at around 6,000 feet elevation, the trees grew taller and became full of epiphytes like bromeliads, ferns, and heliconia. In some areas, sections of the road had been washed out and recently repaired. We were off-road, way off-road.

The final drive into Tandayapa Bird Lodge was a hundred-yard-long triple switchback stone-covered single-lane driveway slick enough for the rear tires of our van to spin the last twenty yards. All we had to do was trudge up another forty steep stairs to the front, and we were there.

There were no other guests at the lodge. The place was all ours. Our room was small with two beds and large windows looking onto the ravine behind us with everything that makes this the cloud forest. An unspoiled wilderness of trees full of moss and vines that looked like a prehistoric movie. You could hear the occasional bird calling in the distance, but seldom saw them, except when they flew from tree to tree.

The dining room had about four or five tables with huge windows on two sides. A large center window, about six feet high, had a window on either side that you could swing open for a better view. These side windows had no screens, and for good reason. When you opened the window, it was for the purpose of getting a picture of one of the spectacular birds perched on the mossy branch only about ten yards away. On this branch, there was old fruit that had been placed there to encourage the visitors.

On the back porch, there was a covered platform with a dozen hummingbird feeders. The sound of buzzing birds was nearly constant while standing there, as a variety of hummingbirds came and went from the forest beyond.

The place was literally built for birdwatching. At lunch, we watched emerald toucanets and motmots come to enjoy the fruit laid out for them. I was grateful for those unscreened windows. I opened them more than once.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon around the lodge. We got more practice trying to photograph hummingbirds on the fly. We also got to check out the orchids growing around the lodge, but were constantly distracted by the birds all over the place.

That evening, I checked out the infection on my thumb and found that the swelling and pain had decreased. I treated it with the leaves from our Ecuadorian chef for one more night, and it was fine.

The next morning, we would move to the lowlands for birdwatching in a different ecosystem. We were getting more than we bargained for, in a good way.