Tropical Birding Trip Report Southern ECUADOR: Nov-Dec 2019 (custom tour) Southern Ecuador 18th November – 6th December 2019 Hummingbirds were a big feature of this tour; with 58 hummingbird species seen, that included some very rare, restricted range species, like this Blue-throated Hillstar. This critically-endangered species was only described in 2018, following its discovery a year before that, and is currently estimated to number only 150 individuals. This male was seen multiple times during an afternoon at this beautiful, high Andean location, and was widely voted by participants as one of the overall highlights of the tour (Sam Woods). Tour Leader: Sam Woods Photos: Thanks to participant Chris Sloan for the use of his photos in this report. 1 www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110
[email protected] Tropical Birding Trip Report Southern ECUADOR: Nov-Dec 2019 (custom tour) Southern Ecuador ranks as one of the most popular South American tours among professional bird guides (not a small claim on the so-called “Bird Continent”!); the reasons are simple, and were all experienced firsthand on this tour… Ecuador is one of the top four countries for bird species in the World; thus high species lists on any tour in the country are a given, this is especially true of the south of Ecuador. To illustrate this, we managed to record just over 600 bird species on this trip (601) of less than three weeks, including over 80 specialties. This private group had a wide variety of travel experience among them; some had not been to South America at all, and ended up with hundreds of new birds, others had covered northern Ecuador before, but still walked away with 120 lifebirds, and others who’d covered both northern Ecuador and northern Peru, (directly either side of the region covered on this tour), still had nearly 90 new birds, making this a profitable tour for both “veterans” and “South American Virgins” alike.