Quito to Bellavista

Then we piled into a couple of taxis and headed off toward the cloud forest:

with a quick stop at the Mitad del Mundo:

We didn’t actually pay to get in- we’ll visit the equator on our way back to Quito, because today we’ve got a date with the cloud forest!

We stopped at a hummingbird hangout for lunch and went for a walk along the river:

I liked this heart-shaped rock:

Lots of pretty flowers:

and of course, HUMMINGBIRDS!!!

LOOK AT THEM ALL!!! and there were so many species!

Andean emerald:

Action shot!

Look how grumpy this one is!

Crowned woodnymph (male):

Crowned woodnymph (female):

(almost got it with its tongue out!)

White-necked jacobin (whose neck is actually purple…):

Purple-throated woodstar (male):

when the sun hits his throat just right, that purple really pops!

Purple-throated woodstar (female):

Fawn-breasted brilliant:

Rufous-tailed hummingbird:

White-booted racket-tail:

Look at his puffy pants!!!

and his long tail!

(he kept flitting back and forth to this branch)

This was a lucky capture with that guy on the right:

There was also a fruit station that attracted other bigger birds:

L-R: Yellow-crowned euphonia, Yellow-tufted dacnis, Silver-throated tanager

Golden tanager:

Blue-gray tanager:

Flame-rumped tanager:

(female; the males are black with a yellow butt)

Back on the road into the mountains, we finally made it to our home for the next few days, Bellavista:

photo by Turner

Turner in front of our rooms:

My room had a bed and bath:

and a sketchy junction box…

It also had a sitting room surrounded by windows and a future deck?

There were several hiking trails, but it’s pretty wet and rainy up here (which is to be expected in the clouds), plus, there are plenty of birds right here, so I didn’t do much exploring:

Skip found this little guy just sitting on the ground:

He must have flew into something- he was a bit stunned, but eventually Skip let him go:

I think he’s a Buff-tailed coronet, like this guy:

This guy was content to pose for me:

Action shot!

hummingbird tongue!!!

Turns out, these guys are super common:

I spotted so many of them!

(didn’t stop me from photographing every one I saw though!)

Purple-throated woodstar:

Purple-bibbed whitetip:

White-booted racket-tail:

Violet-tailed sylph:

This guy had such interesting shimmers of color on his head and neck that I almost missed his tail at first:

Maybe should have set my camera for more depth of field so I could capture his tail better, but still a very neat bird to see:

Rufous-tailed hummingbird:

There were also other non-hummingbirds, like this Blue-winged mountain tanager:

playing in the bird bath:

Masked flowerpiercer:

Grass-green tanager:

Montane creeper:

We did go on a short walk, where I found some fun wet-weather plants:

and this really cool stick bug!!!

But the highlight of the day by far was this olinguito!

Not a great shot as it was dark and I had to crank the ISO, but he had just been classified as his own species last year (2013) and I was really hoping we’d see one!

Success!

Goodnight, big scary bug: