Tandayapa

Just 70km or so west of Quito as the Fruitcrow flies, but rather further by the quiet, little-used mountain backroads, Tandayapa stands at about 1650m, and thus supports rich, humid cloud forest and its associated species. This epiphyte-laden, semi-dwarf forest type is exceptionally bird-heavy, especially in tanagers and hummingbirds.

The very rich cloud- and elfin-forests on the descent provided lots of great birds to see, such as Grass-green, Rufous-chested, Blue-capped, Golden, Golden-naped and Fawn-breasted Tanagers, Black-chested and Hooded Mountain-tanagers, Plate-billed Mountain-toucan, White-sided Flowerpiercer and Golden-crowned Flycatcher.

The lodge at Tandayapa itself was extremely well-placed - high in the forests above a pristine, forest-filled valley. The hummingbird feeders here were simply outstanding - Violet-tailed Sylph, Buff-tailed Coronet, Booted Rackettail, Purple-throated Woodstar, Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Fawn-breasted Brilliant, Purple-bibbed Whitetip, Empress and Green-crowned Brilliants, Brown Violetear and Brown Inca!

Also here were such goodies as Red-billed Parrot, Red-headed Barbet, Crimson-rumped Toucanet, Black-and-chestnut Eagle, Metallic-green Tanager, Barred Becard, Powerful Woodpecker and various migrant and resident wood-warblers.

While we had our share of rain here, we also saw hatfulls of birds - top spot.

Full blow-by-blow trip report