Day 2: Quito to Mindo along the Old Mindo Road
At 6 am we met our birding guide Vinicio Perez. The tiny country of Ecuador has a bird list that tops 1663 species whereas the entire United States only has about 995 species. Vinicio's Ecuador bird list was at 1473 when we met him which is amazing! Vinicio grew up in the Mindo area in Ecuador and also was a bird photographer. His expertise and enthusiasm really increased our interest in bird watching and photography going forward. We can thank Vinicio for getting Gowri and I interested in bird photography which has been a major interest of ours since this trip. In just 3 full days he was able to show us so many amazing species. It also became clear that places with amazing birds are really scenic and contain exotic animals, flowers and butterflies as well. It was good that we had just purchased a digital SLR Canon EOS Rebel. At the time this camera was a real breakthrough. For under $1000 one could get a 6.3 Megapixel camera which could use any of Canon's famous lenses. We also purchased a 300 mm F5.6 telephoto lens. This wasn't a bad setup for most things and it proved to be great for the Galapagos where the animals can be seen at close quarters. It soon became clear that we did not have good enough photo equipment to capture everything we were seeing in Mindo but we did get quite a few nice shots because on occasion, the birds came very close! The old Mindo road is considered one of the best birding roads in the world. It passes through several reserves where one can easily hike and see an amazing number of species. Vinicio tailored our tour so that the hiking would be easy enough for my mother. He also made sure photography was a focus for the kind of lenses we had. Our first stop was the Yanacocha reserve. The diversity in bird species here was mind blowing. There were at least 50 species of hummingbirds itself! However, this is the cloud forest so it was very dark and misty. I had no external flash so I could only get a few good shots despite that fact that many hummingbird came to the feeders that had been set up. There were also many tanagers in the area and these were even tougher to photograph. There were orchids and bromeliads attached to many of the tree. Here we are making our way out to the Yanacocha preserve.
Here is one of the largest hummingbirds in the world, the Great Saphirewing. His wings beat pretty slowly for a hummingbird so I could get a decent shot of him without fancy equipment. Here he is at one of the exotic orchids in the area.
Many other hummingbirds perched among the flowers in between feedings like this beautiful Golden-breasted Puffleg.
Many tanagers frequented the area. The Scarlet-bellied Mountain tanager was the only one I could get a decent shot of.
The Masked Flowerpiercer also took advantage of the abundant nectar. I had never heard of flowerpiercers but they have beaks that allow them to drink nectar. They cannot hover like hummingbirds limiting the number of flowers they can reach.
The highlight here for me was seeing the amazing Swordbilled Hummingbird. I had seen this fellow in a National Geographic special but had no idea I would ever see him in person. Amazingly he is common at Yanacocha despite being very rare in most places. He even feeds from the feeders. His specialty is long tubular flowers. In fact, the swordbill and the flowers have co evolved so that both the bill and flower have lengthened over time so that he is the only species that can pollinate some of the long tubular flowers. This is still one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen!
As we drove along the Old Mindo Road we could see the peaks of Volcanoes covered with glaciers along the way. Despite being very close to the equator, the peaks were still snow capped.
Domesticated Llamas were also a common site.
Bromeliads were also very common. Here is a Spot-breasted Woodpecker right next to one. You can also see that Lichen covers many of the trees in the Cloud Forest.
After just one day we were in complete awe of everything Vincio showed us. We made our way to Mindo and stayed in a cute little guest house that Vinicio owned. There was even a cute internet cafe in Mindo where we could email my father to make sure everything was ok at home.