GET YOURSELF TO ECUADOR

PIB has great trips to various habitat zones in Ecuador. And there’s a book you want to take with you. It’s the first-ever, one volume nature guide for anyone headed to Ecuador’s wondrous mountains and rain forest and arid western slopes:
Wildlife of Ecuador:
A Photographic Field Guide to Birds, Mammals, Reptiles, and Amphibians
Andrés Vásquez Noboa. Photography by Pablo Cervantes Daza. Princeton Press. 2017. $29.95.
I wish I’d had a book like this when I was in Ecuador…or even Panama where I got far too close to a pit viper without recognizing it. The bird section is fine but the real value is in all those other critters: face-to-face shots with snakes. It’s the head that matters…look for the heat-sensing pits. You may want to keep your birding guide nearby or back at the ecolodge because only breeding plumage shots are given for most avian species.
Now I know there are two species of agouti in Ecuador and I saw the black in Coca. Not sure even my bird guide knew there were two, certainly didn’t tell us.
Superbly clear range maps. Both English and Latin indices.
My favorite Ecuadoran bird is at the top of page 140…the Collared Inca.
ECUADOR GALLERY FROM MY VISITS:
Yellow-tufted Woodpecker:
Great Ani:Hoatzin at Sani Lodge:Squirrel monkey:
Swallow-tailed Kite over Napo River in Amazon Basin:

NORTHWEST WINTER BIRDING, GALLERY PART 3

Here are yet more pictures captured by birders on the PIB trips to the Pacific Northwest last winter.  Here’s you chance to get your own pictures this winter.

View across Sauvie’s Island taken by Steve Murray.  That’s another one of those Cascades volcanoes.

Black Turnstones on the ferryboat dock at Port Townsend, Washington.  There were Surfbirds present, along with Pigeon Guillemot and Pelagic Cormorant.  Steve Murray took this photo.

Adult Pigeon Guillemot in Puget Sound.  This bird will not show up in your local reservoir if you live east of Sacramento.  Photo by Mr.Murray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barrow’s Goldeneye by Tom Shade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to all the birds we saw Orca, river otter, California sealions, harbor seals, elk and mule deer.  Among the land birds we saw: Varied Thrush, Wrentit, Pacific Wren, Pileated Woodpecker, Merlin, Cooper’s Hawk.

 

 

 

 

Steve Murray’s Focus on Northwestern Birds

TOP TO BOTTOM:

The only Pied-billed Grebe we saw on this trip.  There were dozens of Red-necked and Horned Grebe plus a few Western and Eared.

Thayer’s Gull

river otters

Eurasian Wigeon male at Nisqually NWR.

Dusky Canada Geese, Sauvie Island

All birds seen on February, 2010, Northwest Trip.

PIB Northwest Birding Trip, Feb., 2010—Birds Seen:

Greater White-fronted Goose, Sauvie Is.
Snow Goose
Ross’s Goose, Sauvie Island
Brant
Cackling Goose,   Canada Goose,    Trumpeter Swans  on Whidbey Island                                                                                          
Tundra Swan
Wood Duck
Gadwall
Eurasian Wigeon
Am. Wigeon
Mallard
Shoveler
Pintail
GW Teal
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Harlequin Duck
Surf Scoter
White-winged Scoter
Black Scoter, Cannon Beach, OR
Long-tailed Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Barrow’s Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Red-throated Loon
Pacific Loon
Common Loon
(we could not locate the YB Loon at Point Wilson)
Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe                                                                                      
Red-necked Grebe
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
Brown Pelican (three off the Oregon Coast)

Brandt’s Cormorant, Whidbey Island

Pelagic Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret, Sauvie Island
Bald Eagle–seen each day
Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk, Ft. Clatsop
Red-tailed hawk
Rough-legged Hawk, Sauvie Is.
Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine
Coot
Sandhill Crane, Sauvie Island
Black-bellied Plover
Killdeer, Potlatch State Park
Black Turnstone
Surfbird
Sanderling
Dunlin
Mew Gull
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
Thayer’s Gull
Western Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Common Murre
Pigeon Guillemot
Marbled Murrelet
Cassin’s Auklet
Rhino Auklet
Rock Pigeon
Band-tailed Pigeon, Whidbey Island
Eurasian Collared-dove
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl, Sauvie Island
Anna’s Hummingbird, Sequim
Belted Kingfisher
Red-breasted Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker, Tolmie State Park
Steller’s Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
American Crow
Northwestern Crow or AmericanXNorthwestern
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Bushtit
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper, Sequim
Bewick’s Wren
Winter Wren
Marsh Wren,
GC Kinglet
RC Kinglet
Am. Robin
Varied Thrush, seen  in numbers at Fort Stevens Park
Starling
Yellow-rumped Warbler, Sauvie Is.
Spotted Towhee
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln’s Sparrow, Whidbey Island
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
DE Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Brewer’s Blackbird
House Finch
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Total species:  120                                                              Can you find the Winter Wren?

Our mammals included: harbor seal, California sealion, mule deer, white-tailed deer(on January trip), river otter, orca, eastern gray squirrel, coyote, western gray squirrel, harbor porpoises off Seaside, elk, muskrat, surfers.   Cold-blooded animals included: steelhead on

the surface of Coffeeberry Lake; red-legged frog, ring-necked snake, a newt.