Ecuador Bird Photography

Our workshop begins in Quito, the beautiful and historic capital city of Ecuador, where we’ll have an evening orientation and dinner. Night in Quito.

Our trip begins with a journey into the most biodiverse place on Earth: the Amazon Rainforest. After a short regional flight to the town of Coca, we’ll travel by boat downriver into the vicinity of Yasuni National Park, where we’ll be based at an amazing and comfortable lodge for 4 nights. This region is home to an incredible array of birds, with over 600 species recorded in the near vicinity, similar to the number of species recorded in the entire country of Canada!

During our stay, we will visit an amazing canopy tower, where we can get a unique vantage point on canopy dwelling birds. We also plan to experience a clay lick, where parakeets, parrots and macaws visit to ingest minerals from the soil. In addition to an incredible array of birds, we may also encounter other wildlife, such as several monkey species, caimans, and various other reptiles and amphibians as we explore the region by canoe and trail.

After our time in the Amazon, we’ll head west to the east slopes of the Andes, where Cabañas San Isidro will be our base for two nights. Here, we’ll begin to get a taste of the spectacular hummingbird diversity of the Andes, with species such as the breathtaking Long-tailed Sylph and Chestnut-breasted Coronet being regular visitors to the lodge grounds. The San Isidro Black-banded Owl is often encountered in this area, as well as a multitude of other bird species.

On days 8-9, we’ll make our way to the higher slopes of the Andes. This region is particularly spectacular, with jaw-dropping mountain views and impressive rivers and waterfalls. Our base for these two nights will be the lovely Guango Lodge, just downslope from Papallacta Pass. At this beautiful cloud forest hideaway, we’ll be surrounded by more hummingbirds, including several new species for our trip.

In the mornings, insects attracted to lights near the lodge attract a diversity of cloud forest bird species onto closeup perches, including flocks of beautiful Turquoise Jays, among many others. A short walk from the lodge leads us into the habitat of other cloud forest species, such as Torrent Ducks, White-capped Dippers and Gray-breasted Mountain-Toucans.

In addition to time spent at the spectacular lodge grounds, we’ll also visit higher elevation habitats. Unique alpine species such as the Chestnut-winged Cinclodes and Many-striped Canastero are common here, and we’ll watch for other high-altitude specialists such as the Carunculated Caracara and Andean Condor.

On days 10-13, we travel west of Quito to visit what is arguably the hummingbird photography capital of the world: the Tandayapa Valley. Well over a dozen hummingbird species regularly visit the feeders at our base, Tandayapa Bird Lodge, where they have no fear of people. Meanwhile, tanagers, Rufous Motmots, Crimson-rumped Toucanets, and Toucan Barbets are frequent visitors to fruit feeders. While at the lodge, we’ll practice photography and lighting techniques with some photography setups at the feeding stations.

The surroundings of the lodge are equally spectacular for birds, and we’ll visit additional reserves in the area to look for and photograph some of the other amazing species of this region, such as the Sword-billed Hummingbird, Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan and several antpitta species. On the afternoon of day 13, we’ll make our way back to Ecuador’s capital, Quito, for our final night of the tour.

The morning will provide one final chance to reminisce about our experiences over breakfast as our trip comes to its conclusion.