Bus from Quito to Mindo via Tandayapa Ridge. Birding Yanacocha and Tandayapa Ridge on way to Mindo Midway visit to Tony & Barbara’s hummingbird feeders
Night at Septimo Paraiso (Seventh Heaven) Lodge, Mindo
I was particularly nervous this morning, hoping that my stomach would stay quiet and that I would not embarrass myself. I imagined having to stop the bus in the middle of nowhere to leap off and dash into the bushes. That did not happen, TG.
As we were climbing a four-lane hill out of Quito, our bus stopped dead. The accelerator cable had snapped. Willy and Edgar handled the situation quite calmly, using their cell phones to engage another bus (with a birder for a driver, even!) and calling for a mechanic to fix the bus. The rescue bus—smaller and more like a big airport shuttle bus—arrived after about 45 minutes. While we were waiting I had to make a pitstop. Just an ordinary one, not an emergency one. My Imodium was still working. We were on an urban four-lane with rock cliffs on one side, a sheer drop on our side, and lots of Friday-morning traffic zinging by. What to do? Lynn and Rose Ann came to my aid by holding up an umbrella and a poncho to create a shielded “porta-potty.” Thank you Lynn and Rose Ann.
To make matters worse, I seem to be getting a cold. I have a screechingly sore throat and am sneezing, two signs that a cold is about to grab me big time.
Back on the road again in our rescue bus, we paid a farmer a toll to use his private cobbled road on the way up to Yanacocha. We birded the Tandayapa Ridge on this sunny, clear day before continuing to Yanacocha.
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| I hope that these photos help you visualize Tandayapa Ridge a little. They simply cannot show the height and vastness of the area we were in, but when I write, for instance, "Willy spotted a swordbill approaching across the valley," you may now have an idea of the valley. The bottom two photos show the road cut into the mountainside, the left one also showing a landslide. |
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| Black-tailed Trainbearer; left photo Ecuadorrebel; right photo Dustin Huntington. I included Dustin's photo because it shows the bird flying, more like we saw it, though the tail on the bird we saw was flowing out straight behind it. |
Rose Ann told us that because of its bill, the sword-bill is the third heaviest hummer. To top off our Yanacocha hummingbird sightings, we saw both the male and female Great Sapphirewing the second largest of the hummingbirds. So, we nailed second and third heaviest but never did encounter the heaviest hummingbird species—the Giant Hummingbird—over the course of the tour. But, hey, two out of three was outstanding.
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| Great Sapphirewing; photo, Glenn Bartley |
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| (L) Giant Hummingbird, the largest hummingbird and (R) Bee Hummingbird, the smallest hummingbird and smallest bird in the world is endemic to Cuba |
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| Black-chested Mountain Tanager; photo Glenn Bartley |
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| My photo of three Black-chested Mountain Tanagers. Now you see why I haven't relied on my bird photos to illustrate this blog |
The morning excitement still not over, we called in an Andean Pygmy-Owl that came to investigate what it thought was a rival in its territory but was actually Willy and Rose Ann broadcasting the owl's own vocalization. It sat for a long while, so we got excellent looks at its camouflage feather pattern, which delineated false eyes on the back of its head. Our guides' taped vocalizations also brought in some hummingbirds that harrassed the little owl as it sat bewildered by its inability to locate its rival.
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| Willy originally digiscoped these photos of our Andean Pygmy Owl, but I could not find them in my Ecuador file so have copied them out of my booklet account; thus, they are blurry; the one on the left is looking at us, the photo on the right shows the false eyes on the back of the owl's head |
We also saw a Scarlet-bellied Mountain Tanager and Golden-Crowned Tanager, both seen for the first time on the tour at Yanacocha; a Plain-colored Seedeater seen in the fields on our approach to Yanacocha where it delivered its haunting discordant whistle; and White-browed Spinetail, two of which came in for very close views.
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| Golden-crowned Tanager; photo, Roger Ahlman |
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| Scarlet-bellied Mountain Tanager; photo Stephen Davies |
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| White-browed Spinetail; photo Libor Vaicenbacher |
We’d been on the trail for quite awhile when our driver came looking for us. At about this time, I began feeling unsettled, so decided to walk back to the trailhead where there was a shelter and a bathroom. The driver, bless his heart, dogged my steps all the way back, thinking that I wanted to re-board the bus. Not too long after I returned, the rest of the group also returned and it was decided that we would eat our lunches on the bus and move to another location. I did not dare eat much of my lunch, just nibbled at some of the sandwich bread. Later in our journey, I threw the remains of my lunch from the bus to a couple of hungry-looking street dogs.
On the bus on the Old Nono-Mindo Road, Rose Ann told us about Barbara & Tony Nunnery’s house and its hummingbirds, explaining that this couple had converted what had been pastureland back to montane cloud-forest; had hosted 41 different species of hummingbirds at their feeders, more than any one area in the world; and that they would probably offer us tea or coffee. Tea sounded fine to me.
Suddenly the bus pulled to the side of the road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. One would never have guessed that there was a house anywhere in the area. In fact, I thought that this was a spot where Rose Ann and Willy knew to find a new bird species, but it turned out to be the entrance to Tony & Barbara’s house and nature refuge. There was no break in the roadside grasses and trees so we all milled about a bit before Willy waded through the elbow-high grass telling us to follow this “walkway” to the house. And indeed, once past the entrance grasses, we were on a walkway that sloped down the mountainside to the house hidden below.
I think we took this vegan, self-sufficient couple, who were eating lunch, quite by surprise. Tony, originally from Tennessee, and Barbara, from Germany, were not expecting us either at this time or at this date, I think. Nonetheless, Tony greeted us warmly and offered us full use of their restrooms (outdoors in a separate building at the foot of the trail) and told us to assemble on the second story deck while he finished his lunch. He also asked us to please take off our shoes and boots before walking on the deck’s polished wood decking. Yes, it was very foggy and raining again. So, we deposited our umbrellas underneath the deck and our shoes/boots at the top edge. After this I turned to look out into the yard and caught my breath.
The couple had hung hummingbird feeders everywhere and the hummingbirds—despite the now heavy rain—were thick at the feeders: Booted Racquet-tail, a fleetingly seen Wedge-billed Hummingbird, Brown Violetear, Green Violetear, Brown Inca; Buff-tailed Coronet, “one of the feistiest!” according to Rose Ann. “With its head and throat glowing yellow-green, it charmed us at Guango and then at Tony & Barbara's, where it was the commonest hummer”; White-tailed Hillstar that caused me to take a photo of several of the group stretched on their bellies peering under the deck in order to see the hillstar sitting on the broom handle below.
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| The group stretched on their bellies peering under the deck in order to see the hillstar sitting on the broom handle below |
Of this hummer Rose Ann says: “This western race has the rufous malar and is a candidate for a future split.” We also saw the White-bellied Woodstar. About it Rose Ann wrote: “Bumblebee-like in flight, the White-bellied Woodstar was seen well at Guango and at Tony & Barbara's, where they were mostly females;” Purple-throated Woodstar; Western Emerald; Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, and several Violet-tailed Sylphs. As soon as it began to rain in earnest, many of the hummers openly bathed, but the Violet-tailed Sylph male . . . “pretty well stole the show!”
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| Violet-tailed Sylph, Judd Patterson |
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| (L to R) Booted Racquet-tail, ; Brown Violetear, Paul Pratt; Green Violetear, Steve Metz |
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| (L to R) Wedge-billed Hummingbird, Cannon forum; White-bellied Woodstar, Larry Thompson and Purple-throated Woodstar, Eleanor Biccetti, Flickr. Woodstars are very tiny hummers. |
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| Brown Inca, Sam Woods, Buff-tailed Coronet, David Hemmings; Western White-tailed Hillstar (with the rufous malar), Nick Athanas |
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| Western Emerald, Paul Pratt; Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, unattributed |
The couple’s new website is http://www.pachaquindi-naturerefuge.com/ “Pachaquindi” meaning “hummingbird place” in Quechua. Tony & Barbara charge a small entrance fee but fund their little refuge themselves. Rose Ann says the two have no car so take a taxi once a week to town for groceries.
The Nunnerys also had a rice feeder in the side yard. We observed a White-tipped Dove visiting it. At Tony & Barbara’s we also got our best looks at White-sided Flowerpiercers. Rose Ann: “We watched both sexes flick their wings, exposing their white flank patches as they went about their work of piercing corolla tubes to filch the nectar.”  |
| White-sided Flowerpiercer; photo Robert Scanlon |
After we tore ourselves away from Tony & Barbara’s, the birding grew quiet with the rain, so we moved on to our overnight lodging—Septimo Paraiso (Seventh Heaven) Lodge—and birded the entry and the lodge’s hummingbird feeders in the rain.
Hang on, because I’m going to take a short break from birding here: Septimo Paraiso Lodge needs some explaining. The Internet description makes this lodge look like seventh heaven (the Talmudic and Muslim belief that there are seven levels of heaven, the seventh and most exalted being the abode of God and the angels), but it was not that exalted. Primero Refugio (First Haven) might be a more fitting name because the lodge did afford us a roof from the rain, some good food, chatty hospitality, and banana and hummingbird feeders.
Perhaps the name fit when Septimo Paraiso was originally built, but this large place had grown haphazardly in all directions since its origin. The lodge sported eclectic décor: Victorian overstuffed furniture and frilly furnishings clashing with awful modern art and simple Ecuadorian functional. The central building had a lobby that could have come from an alpine ski house, and the blond-haired woman behind the desk could have been Heidi. In fact she was Ana Lucia Goetschel, the chatty trice-married, fifth-generation German manager who ran the lodge with husband number three and two young sons.
Iris’s and my room was a large family room upstairs at the front of the lodge. We had a balcony that overlooked the entrance stairs and a fountain . . . with a long rubber snake in it. On either side of the room, under eaves that sloped to the floor, were two twin beds and two sleeping mats and pillows for the kiddies. In the center of the room was a “matrimonial” bed covered with at least a zillion pillows. I at first thought to sleep in one of the tidy twin beds, but found that even sitting up on the bed caused me to knock my noggin on the sloped ceiling. Petite Iris volunteered to sleep in one of these twin beds. Poor thing. Twice she reached to her night table and nearly knocked herself silly. Our drinking water came in two, small bottles, each with a tinfoil lid secured with lace & ribbon.
Permeating every room was eau de mildew. Now I know that this area of Ecuador is very rainy, but getting rid of some of the frilly, flouncy, bedding and overstuffed décor would have been a start. Rose Ann’s room—way out in the outback, so far out, in fact, that she had to go on walkabout to get to it—was the worst. It reeked of mildew. At Rose Ann’s request, Ana installed a dehumidifier. At first Rose Ann thought that it did some good, but she later realized that her nose had merely grown accustomed to the mildew smell. It nearly knocked her over each time she entered her room.
Mike’s room—out back through what appeared to be a bar and party room, across a terrace, and up some outside stairs—sported a rickety canopy bed but a sleek black marble bathroom . . . the shower in which spluttered to a cold stop mid-shower one night.
Curious, I explored the lodge’s long thatch-covered walkway and was stunned when at its end I came upon a Jacuzzi and swimming pool that could have been imported from a Hollywood movie set. Despite the rain, the pool boy was idly skimming leaves from the pool’s surface. There were lounge chairs on either side of the pool and a tiki bar. Had I just stepped through the looking glass into Wonderland?
Okay, enough about the lodge. Let’s just say that it was an adventure and would have been quirky but comfortable enough were it not for the overriding smell of mildew.
I think I got off on this aside at the point of our arrival at Septimo’s hummingbird feeders, so let me return to that area. After stashing our gear in our rooms, we gathered on benches in a sheltered area near five hummingbird feeders. Once again Rose Ann helped us with the names of those hummers we were seeing, some of which we had already seen several times before. Most hummers have at least two-word and more often three-word names, and it was hard keeping these in order. I think a good game could be created in which all of the hummingbird name parts were put on cards and one had to arrange them “Go Fish” style in the correct order. But I wander again. By the end of the tour, we’d had great views of 64 hummingbird species, but the White-necked Jacobin and White-whiskered Hermit were seen best here, and we also saw a beautiful Green-crowned Woodnymph for the first time at these feeders.
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| The White-necked Jacobin deserves three photos to show its neck, flashy white tail and snowy stomach; top photo
Chris Jimenez, Flickr; left, Gary Ashley, Flickr; right, Cathy & Sam, Wikipedia
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| White-whiskered Hermit; photo by Dusan Brinkhuizen |
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| Green-crowned Brilliant, photo by Bob Gress |
That evening we all met in the basement dining room and enjoyed a pre-dinner drink and a fine meal . . . what we were served, at this reserve, I cannot now remember. I do remember that all of our meals here began with soup and that this first meal ended with tres leches cake, a dessert that Willy loves, and the only dessert he eats. It was served after several of our meals but I never got to taste it because of my lactose-free diet. I understand that this sponge cake is made from three types of milk: evaporated, condensed, and whole milk.
After dinner we completed our bird lists and then it was bed, at least for Iris and me.
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