About 2 hrs drive roughly north west of Quito are the cloud forest where we had booked a 3 night stay at Bellavista. The last 45 minutes of the drive is on dirt but we arrived in time for breakfast.
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| From Quito to and into the Cloud Forest |
Bellavista has multiple walks of various grades of difficulty through the cloud forest and the first walk is scheduled at 6:15am when the birds are most active, back for breakfast, another walk at 9:15am then yet another at 4:00pm, each walk lasting a few hours.
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| In the mountains very near Bellavista |
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| Our accomodation in the cloud forest on the ground floor |
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| Hiking through the forest |
In the cloud forest it usually rains most afternoon/nights and true to form on our first 9:15am walk, it was clear, warm and humid weather as Carlos our guide showed and described many different plants, whilst spotting a few birds and a poisonous caterpillar.
In the tree canopy above us, we could see lots of bromileads growing on the branches of trees, many small, but so large they may cause the trees to collapse.
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| Poisonous caterpillar |
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| Native quinoa plant |
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| Booted ratchet-tail hummingbird |
Over lunch we asked if a very special bird could be seen around Bellavista… short answer from Carlos was “no”! We could possibly see it if we took a specific ½ day tour or we could do a full day tour and try to spot an additional special bird. We opted for the full day tour!
Why do we do this to ourselves because it meant a 5am start… the sun hadn’t even risen. Into the darkness of the cloud forest we drove along dirt roads for an hour before stopping on the side of the road.
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| Local squirrel |
Then it was a climb through a narrow gate in the gloom, downwards along a still moist slippery path through the forest till we reached a large purpose built hide to wait for our first quarry.
We could hear them in the trees a 50-70m’s ahead and as the sun just started to rise and light fought its way through the dense forest, their activity picked up.
Suddenly one of these birds appeared directly in front of us… wow, its weird bright red head in massive contrast to the foliage around it. Then another, and another, with some doing a bit of an Irish jig on tree branches.
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| First Cock of the Rock appears |
These were male ‘Cock of the Rock’ birds, found in this location on just one tree, who were all trying to court 1 female… all 20-30 of them!
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| Very colourful in a cloud forest |
With the sunlight increasing and resulting photographs improving, these spectacular looking birds increased the sound accompanying their dances for about 30 mins before suddenly, they all took off, silence descending on the forest. It was all over for that morning.
For the next few hours we were taken for various forays into different locations, looking for specific birds, the local guides running the tour knew would be present.
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| Turquoise Jay |
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| Potoo with baby under chest feathers |
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| Crimson Rumped Toucanete |
A very different and nice Ecuadorian breakfast made of plantains that look like bananas but don’t taste like them, was provided back at the local guides home, where they also had many bananas located to attract even more birds in.
We stayed here for a few hours clicking away at all sorts of species coming and going, many with very colourful markings.
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| Toucan Barbet |
We said farewell to the local guides and were driven to yet another location, famous for hummingbirds and hopefully the 2nd bird we wanted to see.
As we arrived, the owner of this location rushed out to meet us, excitedly pointing to a large fruit laden tree and mumbling something in Spanish to Carlos.
“Hurry” Carlos said, his binoculars already up to his eyes and then he was pointing to the next special bird we were after, a different species and very shy Quetzal sitting on a branch in the distance.
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| Golded Headed Quetzal |
We had first seen Quetzals in Costa Rica with the male having very long colourful feathers like a tail flowing behind them. These feathers had been used by the Aztecs to make headdresses for the kings.
We had only heard of Quetzals being in Ecuador from Veronica, but this species does not have the long flowing feathers but were still great to see nonetheless.
Again we stayed here watching many varieties of hummingbirds flitting in and out to feed, many species of other birds joining them at the feeders or bananas, again also laid out for them to feed on.
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| Golden Olive Woodpecker |
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| Roufus Tailed Hummingbird |
Rob created a new record for her for one day of photographing with 910 photos taken and around 80 selected to keep. This had been a very enjoyable and rewarding day.
We were up again at 6:15am for our first walk on our final day, heavy rain having fallen overnight, making the tracks very slippery and dropping the temperature significantly.
Carlos kept us around the lodge, as there were plenty of birds coming and going, with the sun warming this part of the forest first.
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| Masked Trogan - male |
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| Masked Trogan - female |
Our 2nd walk had us heading into the forest, again learning even more about various plants in the forest and a stunning viewpoint of the valley and mountains before it was finally time to depart and head back to Quito.
CLICK HERE - Link to more photos in the cloud forest
Next morning we had to fly out to yet another location and adventure in Ecuador.
Go well!
Great photos.....
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