Thank you for your inciteful post, this sounds really good. Very much looking forward to my trip.
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Help with Ecuador (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Chas 100
- Start date
Thank you for your inciteful post, this sounds really good. Very much looking forward to my trip.
Thank you for your help, I can't thank you enough.
Another very good place for feeders in the Mindo area is San Tadeo. It's on the main road near the Mindo junction and just adjacent tothe Bellavista road. It has excellent hummingbird and fruit feeders - probably a similar selection to Mindo Loma, as it's at a similar altitude.
https://ebird.org/hotspot/L4992806
https://ebird.org/hotspot/L4992806
Thanks Andrew, I had already got that on my list and now with your recommendation, I will really try to get to this one. I do appreciate your help.....keep the tips coming please. Did I say that Puembo Birding Garden is my base? It was mentioned a lot when I first started to put things together and it seemed a safe, well thought of place with a good host.
Not sure if this means you are staying there all 9 days? Even if you are, I would suggest visiting both sides of the Andes. You'll find different birds in the west and the east. Most lodges and restaurants put out hummer feeders and they can be very addicting - hard to tear yourself away! Mindo and Tandayapa are not far from Quito in the west, and Guango and Cabanas San Isidro are nearby along the eastern road. I highly recommend these two lodges - they arranged local guide Roberto Cedeno for us last February and he was excellent. He stayed with us for 5 days as we moved down in elevation to Wild Sumaco Lodge. There we used the excellent services of their resident guide, Byron. Cabanas San Isidro had a resident guide also, but he only spoke Spanish. But if you just stay around the lodge feeders and trails for photography you won't need a guide. I wanted to maximize my chances for finding Lifers.
I would say Wildsumaco is too far to go if you are also going west. Save it for your next trip!
Whatever you decide you'll have a fantastic experience!
Oh - and one more vote for Paz de las Aves! I must say it sounds rather awful to have large groups on those narrow trails, so if there is any way to check ahead to see how many people will be there I'd do it. They have built some rooms to stay overnight since I was there in 2012. So that's another option. I had a fantastic time there. Great photo ops of the antpittas - you'd be hard pressed to get such photos on your own, without the help of the worm feeding, I mean.
Have a wonderful trip!
Peggy
I massively appreciate your help, thank you. I am really looking forward to the trip. I am massively bogged down with information overload though! My plan is to stay the first day at Puembo, then acclimatise and photograph the species in the garden there. Then the next day, get a guide/taxi to Mindo and stay overnight somewhere.....back to PUembo... then do the East towards Guango and stay overnight there in the same way. I plan to then go to Altisano on a day trip. Don't know if this sounds like the kind of thing that will be successful. I do want to avoid large concentrations of people and some of the lodges seem very expensive, too luxurious for my taste and budget and a bit of a contradiction in terms of a true wildlife experience. The quality of the toilet facilities for me doesn't define a good birding area, am I being harsh? I can't really picture the scene over there so my trip will be a good way to get to grips with it all. Hope I am safe, a big concern to be honest, have heard some scary stories!
gdhunter
Well-known member
One 2015 trip to Ecuador doth not an expert make, but I found that access to quality tracts of habitat compensated somewhat for the added expense at places like Wildsumaco & San Isidro. We could have stayed in cheaper places (& in some instances did), but it was worth the added cost (for us) to get a running start each morning without arranging a taxi or other transport.
Neither of those contradicts the "true wildlife experience" but I'm unable to make the same assertion for Paz de las Aves (at least based on my perhaps atypical experience).
Puembo Birding Gardens is an ideal staging point.
I agree with GD that in many of the birding lodges, you pay for preservation of the area more so than for the luxury - not all of them are as luxurious as one could think. In Mindo, Yellow House is in the cheaper end, but the negative of that is that while the garden is nice, there is a good distance up to the forest along their trail. Not bad when you get there, but with the short time horizon you have, I would put a priority into having the good areas within walking distance.
Regarding safety, I remember being more scared in London than I was in Ecuador.
Niels
".....but it was worth the added cost (for us) to get a running start each morning without arranging a taxi or other transport.
Neither of those contradicts the "true wildlife experience" but I'm unable to make the same assertion for Paz de las Aves (at least based on my perhaps atypical experience)"
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Puembo Birding Gardens is an ideal staging point.[/QUOTE]
You make some very good points, thank you.
Neither of those contradicts the "true wildlife experience" but I'm unable to make the same assertion for Paz de las Aves (at least based on my perhaps atypical experience)"
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Puembo Birding Gardens is an ideal staging point.[/QUOTE]
You make some very good points, thank you.
I hadn't thought about this aspect of paying towards conservation, it makes me look at this in a new light so thank you. I hope that the comment about London is "tongue in cheek" but I get your point. I would never feel unsafe anywhere in the UK so its reassuring to know that safety doesn't appear to be an issue in most parts of Ecuador, in fact, it is massively reassuring.
I have now returned home after my trip to Ecuador which was absolutely amazing and was at least 10 times better than I expected!!! I was based around Puembo Birding Garden to start, a real jewel of a place with brilliant "home from home service". The owner Mercedes is incredibly caring and friendly. Birds in the garden were awesome, Tanagers and Hummingbirds etc and by 7.30 on the first morning I had ticked and photographed nearly all of my targets! I then moved to Satchatamia which was a brilliant base, I will not list all the places visited or birds seen but it was all I could have wanted and hoped for. I even photographed Spectacled Bear with cubs, Ecuadorean Hillstar feeding young, Green Kingfisher at the nest and lots more. I saw White Capped Dipper but dipped the Torrent Duck....I ran out of time. If you want more details of species just ask me. Thanks for your help to those who posted.
Birdwatchers House was great by the way, Plate -billed Toucan are awesome! My only problem now is identifying my Hummingbird,s is there any way I can do this on here? The only criticism was my guide who weirdly knew where to take me and acted as driver/security/fetch and carry but oddly couldn't put a name to lots of species seen, he guessed most and made them fit his dodgy field guide....... quite a frustrating disappointment really in that respect. So I am left with dozens of species un-named but working through them one by one!
Birdwatchers House was great by the way, Plate -billed Toucan are awesome! My only problem now is identifying my Hummingbird,s is there any way I can do this on here? The only criticism was my guide who weirdly knew where to take me and acted as driver/security/fetch and carry but oddly couldn't put a name to lots of species seen, he guessed most and made them fit his dodgy field guide....... quite a frustrating disappointment really in that respect. So I am left with dozens of species un-named but working through them one by one!
Glad to hear you had a good time Chas. If you want to post ID queries you can just start a thread on the ID forum:
https://www.birdforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=114
Tony Knight
Well-known member
I'm looking to combine a visit to Equador with a visit to the Galapagos so only have time to visit 2-3 sites in Equador after landing in Quito so I guess that excludes "Amazon jungle" birding. There are many excellent lodge recommendations in the thread above around Mindo valley but which 3 lodges would you recommend to cover the best mix of hummers, open plain, mountain and forest birds I guess at different altitudes ?
And what is the best time of year to visit ?
thanks
Tony
And what is the best time of year to visit ?
thanks
Tony
Time of year is probably more influenced by Galapagos than of mainland Ecuador. If you want to see the albatross etc, then you need to go at times of the year when they are there. If you are not going to visit those islands/look for seabirds then no problem.
We did https://www.bellavistacloudforest.com/ , http://www.sachatamia.com/ and Yellow House in Mindo. Especially Bellavista is different enough from the others to make it worth while. Between Bellavista and Yellow house we spent one day with Refugio Paz de las Aves.
If they should all be lodges I would consider Séptimo Paraiso instead of yellow house. We added a good deal of extra birds by hiring a guide for a day and with him visit lower elevation places all the way down to Rio Silanche - that was one of the advantages of being at Yellow house, it felt like excursions out was the thing to do. We also did a little high elevation birding at Yanacocha when driving to Mindo - seen in the rear mirror, staying a day in Quito and hire a guide for that trip might have been worth it. We were there in August 2015.
Niels
We did https://www.bellavistacloudforest.com/ , http://www.sachatamia.com/ and Yellow House in Mindo. Especially Bellavista is different enough from the others to make it worth while. Between Bellavista and Yellow house we spent one day with Refugio Paz de las Aves.
If they should all be lodges I would consider Séptimo Paraiso instead of yellow house. We added a good deal of extra birds by hiring a guide for a day and with him visit lower elevation places all the way down to Rio Silanche - that was one of the advantages of being at Yellow house, it felt like excursions out was the thing to do. We also did a little high elevation birding at Yanacocha when driving to Mindo - seen in the rear mirror, staying a day in Quito and hire a guide for that trip might have been worth it. We were there in August 2015.
Niels
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Tony Knight
Well-known member
Thanks Niels.
Yes I had seen your input on previous threads and was thinking of 2-3 days at Bellavista, Paz de la Aves and Satchatamia with a guide booked for one morning at each, plus a few trips to different sites from each. Would that cover the full Mindo range of habitats ? I guess I would just hire a car for a week from Quito airport.
For timing, Galapagos seems to be best Dec-June (more of a general wildlife experience so I wouldn't base around the albatross). I've read that the Dec-Apr time is also best for Mindo with most birds and bird activity. However that is also the wet season and the rainfall levels seem very very high ! It is said that it often rains non stop from afternoon to overnight but sometimes all day.
Look at when the birding companies visit Galapagos, that time should ensure good possibilities. For me, the albatross and the other seabirds definitely was a part of the pleasure!
Sachatamia is higher than the turn to Mindo town, I would probably go a little lower for the lowest you do. We had 9 days total.
Niels
Tony Knight
Well-known member
Thanks Niels.
Somewhere like Alambi then ? It's difficult to tell the altitude of the lodges from googlemaps
!Looks like the albatross is nesting Apr-Dec so Dec looks like a possibility but it is right on the edge of that range and also the edge of the general best times for mindo and galapagos.....
I do not know the Alambi. The place I have been dreaming about is
in part because if this quote:
Many of the lodges place the elevation somewhere on their webpage, but from the same source as above
Sachatamia 1680 m
Bellavista 2230 m with access to a sideroad a little higher
Tandayapa 1950 m
Paz de las Aves 1,969
An internet search says 1526m for Alambi
Niels
in part because if this quote:
Many of the lodges place the elevation somewhere on their webpage, but from the same source as above
Sachatamia 1680 m
Bellavista 2230 m with access to a sideroad a little higher
Tandayapa 1950 m
Paz de las Aves 1,969
An internet search says 1526m for Alambi
Niels
Tony Knight
Well-known member
Thanks again Niels. Hopefully I will finally get there this year or next.
Josedecuba
Member
Hi, i know this is old post, wondering if anyone have a different thinking about the yellowhouse on mindo? until today that i found this treat is when i realize that the yellowhluse is not so good for birding in general and for people with not much time to spend. im going to mindo now for sprint break and i was thinking than yellowhouse was one of my best option for birding there in mindo. please anyone with experience can point me to other than the yellowhouse but in the same price range or when i can spend my time in a better way cor birding for 5 days in total. thank
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