Fine Feathered Friends: Bird Surveys in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest

Dedicated to my ultimate bird-loving friend: James

 

In addition to all the land-based creatures that frequent Santa Lucia, there are also many different types of birds.  One of our volunteer tasks was to keep a record of birds seen or heard at certain points.  This "bird survey" involved an early departure, usually 4 or 5 in the morning, a 2 hour hike to our destination, and 8 pre-assigned stops for 10 minutes each.  Volunteers are accompanied by a local guide who identifies the birds for us to record. 

 

This was easily my favorite job, because it gave me the chance to learn some calls, and after a while I actually felt helpful! There are probably 12 species that I could recognize by sound right now.  But I couldn't help wishing my mom could have been there, aside from suffering through a rugged terrain with our hereditary knees, of course.  She would have been a wiz at picking up the various calls, I am sure. 

 

About 95% of what we recorded was heard calls, which, though great for learning calls, was not great for seeing birds.  Most birds, if seen, were fluttering by quickly, or far away.  So most of my ID skills came from looking in the bird guide.  It put a face with the call, as it were.  I started by own recording system to try to help me remember the bird and the sound of it's call.  In my notebook, I drew a small picture of the bird, did a quick semi-musical representation of their call, and wrote a short description.  The hope is that going back through my video clips, I will be able to pick out some familiar calls. 

 

 

 I tried to upload some of my video clips here for you, but unfortunately the files are just too large for this slow internet server.  Sorry!  But thanks to this amazing site I just found: www.xeno-canto.org, I can share some of the sounds with you!  Here are some of my favorite calls from the mountains.  (If you click on the name of the bird, it will take you to a page about the bird, and clicking my description will link you to a wav file). 

• Andean Solitaire:  Easily one of my favorites.  We heard this bird frequently, but never saw one.  It has a distinctive trill that is tinny, like a tin flute.  It has an almost mechanical sound. 

• Wattled Guan:  This plucky little guy (no pun intended) is heard all over the valley.  It is somewhat of a mix between a baby elephant and a cat being pulled by its tail.

• Toucan Barbets:  This name is in here as plural, because you rarely hear one singing without another.  They do a 2-note call and response back and forth, and it was common for us to hear them over 200 meters away. 

• Rufous-Breasted Anttrush:  One of our stand-by calls.  There seemed to always be one around.  They have a sharp, clear two-note call.

• Andean Pygmy Owl:  This was my first and only owl heard on this trip.  I heard it while we were taking a breath break on our 4am bird survey hike.  It has a clear, hollow call.

  

Even when we were not out on a bird survey, there was still a lot of action from our fine feathered friends.  In fact, right in front of the lodge are three feeders being used for research on hummingbirds.  If we had a spare minute, we often spent it watching the drama at the feeders.  It was my first time seeing hummingbirds in person, so I was captivated by their jerky, quick movements, their iridescence in the sunlight, and the thudding sound of their wings that always sounded like a bumble bee stick in a megaphone.

 



This little guy quickly became my favorite.  He is called a Booted Raquettail.  Can you guess why?  The female is similar, and has the same white little booties, but not the long tail.  Their call was only one that we recorded frequently.

 

On our long hike back from a bird survey, we were caught by the call of this White-Rumped Hawk.  It took us a minute to find him/her, perched at the top of this old, broken tree.  His/her call was unmistakably a hawk.

 My favorite bird adventure, though, was when we went to the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock Lek.  We left the lodge early so that we were there well before dawn, adding more warm clothes to combat the encroaching cold as we cooled down after the hike.  Gradually, as the sun rose, with it came the growing cacophony of calls from these unusual birds.  In fact, the first time we heard it, it was such a peculiar sound (something like a mix between the screech of an owl and the squeal of a pig), that I burst out laughing, fighting to muffle it in the collar of my jacket.  For about 40 minutes it was mostly just sounds that we heard, as all the flamboyant males competed for females' attention.  Eventually, though, some made there way up into the trees where we could finally get a good view.  Very well worth the wait!

 

I know that my blurry pictures and some sound-bites can't really capture exactly what it's like to listen as the forest wakes up, but I hope it at least helps you imagine it a little bit better!  I will keep trying to find a way to post some of the video clips, because they really bring it all together!