In Focus Daily

Yesterday was our first day back in Delaware to photograph shorebirds. I noticed a lone Willet, in breeding plumage, as it bathed in a pond near the DuPont Nature Center where the aptly named Mispillion River spills into Delaware Bay. The Willet was enjoying its bath so much that I photographed it off and on over a 30 minute period. It bathed and preened and fluffed its feathers, doing a partial wing stretch. In most of the images, the water rippled around the bird as it enthusiastically bathed. The water had calmed a bit when I took this just as it roused to fluff its feathers.

It’s all gone?? A Blue-winged Mountain Tanager stares incredulously at an empty banana peel in Ecuador recently. The bananas were put out at a feeding station at Sachatamia Lodge in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest and the colorful tanagers were used to finding bananas there whenever they arrived. This one couldn’t believe the peel had nothing left. It did poke its beak up into the peel to verify but came away empty-beaked.

When I arrived in Ecuador, I thought I was there to photograph some of the 132 species of Hummingbirds that live in that magical place. I did see and photograph about ten percent of the Hummingbird species that live there but I discovered that the Tanagers were every bit as colorful and fascinating as the hummingbirds. This is the Glistening Green Tanager, a small bird with coloration unlike anything I’d ever seen. Even the colorful Amazon parrots that are primarily green, could not compete with this standout. I quickly realized after I arrived that it wasn’t only the Hummingbirds that make Ecuador a special birding place, but the Tanagers, as well.

What a morning at the Ferrari Pond Trail yesterday! The Coyote family was out and on display, basking in the morning sun. Five pups, Mom, Dad, and two juveniles from last year——a Nine Dog day! Only three are easily visible in this image, but a fourth, a second pup, is partially visible in front of Dad on the left. While Dad’s eyes seem to be trained on me, the pup and Mom are watching at least two of the pups bounding across the meadow toward one of the juvenile helpers. Another juvenile was napping to the right of this group and one of the pups went to visit that Coyote. It was fun to watch the antics of the small pups, rolling around on top of their parents, gnawing at their siblings’ tails, and romping through the tall grass. The goats are scheduled to start eating in the open spaces here next week. I don’t know how it’s going to work out with the Coyotes who have claimed that entire space as theirs. Time will tell.

Sometimes a bird doesn’t have to go far to find a feast. I had been watching a striking Blue-Gray Tanager perched in a tree when suddenly it hopped down a few branches. At its new location, I could see that it had found a feast of berries clustered on a branch (I haven’t been able to identify the tree) and it began to pluck berries one by one and consume them. This branch appears to have been a popular feasting site, as evidenced by empty nubs where berries once grew.

One of the cutest and fiercest birds we encountered in the Cloud Forest of Ecuador was a small warbler called the Slate-throated Redstart. This feisty little bird was attracted to the moths that were drawn to the light near the hide. All the Cloud Forest regulars stopped by for breakfast. The Redstart would grab a moth that was perched on the large canvas, then it would fly to a log or other perch and proceed to literally beat the life out of the moth, whapping it against log as the microscopic particles that cover the moth’s wings clouded the surrounding air and the wings broke apart. When the moth was subdued and most of the wings had broken off, the Slate-throated Redstart would gulp it down, ready to search for another breakfast morsel.

It was an exciting experience photographing some of the incredible Hummingbird species native to Ecuador a couple of weeks ago. It was even more exciting to photograph a native Ecuadorian bird perched on a native Ecuadorian plant. In this case, a female Purple-bibbed Whitetip took a rest on a fuchsia plant. Fuchsias, the kind of plants with pendulous blossoms reminiscent of ballerina skirts, are native to Ecuador and attract hummingbirds in areas that are cooler and more humid than my current home. I can’t grow those successfully where I live so it was very satisfying to see a hummer perched on one, even if there were no blossoms on the plant.

The Red-headed Barbet (only the male has a red head) gets its name from the stiff bristles that surround its beak, the barbs, as well as the bright red feathers of the male’s head. In the above images, the barbs are more visible in the female than the male because of the lighting and how they are holding their heads. What fascinates me about the Red-headed Barbets is that both the male and females are quite colorful. Even though the female has no bright red feathers, she can hold her own when it comes to colorful plumage.

The Ornate Flycatcher, endemic to the Cloud Forests of the Andes, is a tiny, endearing bird, smaller than many of the hummingbirds we photographed in Ecuador. It seemed always to be hanging around the when we visited the hide, probably because of the abundance of moths and other bugs attracted to the area. It was easy to identify both from its small size and especially the white headlight like spots between its eyes.

Until he turns his head in the right direction, it isn’t obvious that the tiny Purple-throated Woodstar of Ecuador is the star of the show. Woodstars are among the smallest of hummingbirds. They dart around and buzz almost like bees, and as denizens of the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest, they were ubiquitous at the feeders at Sachamatia Lodge. We saw the tiny Woodstar every time we visited the feeders and he held his own with the Velvet-purple Coronets who were much larger and dominated the area. One day he landed in a tree and turned to show off his gorgeous gorget and his forked tail. The star of the show, indeed!

A female Flame-rumped Tanager, hiding in the Cloud forest of Ecuador, peeks out from the leafy fronds shielding her.

Angry bird! I love the expressions that birds make. One of my favorite birds that I met in Ecuador was the Pale Mandibled Araçari. They would arrive and take over the area feeding area, causing all of the smaller birds to fly away. This one seems to be daring down any of the birds that stayed, saying “mine, all mine.”

Some of the Hummingbirds in Ecuador are unbelievable. This Violet-tailed Sylph is one example. Its long, gorgeous tail makes it incredibly distinctive. I never managed to capture an image of it in flight but was thrilled to get it perched on a stem in the forest.

It had just started to sprinkle on our last morning at Sachamatia Lodge in Ecuador when three Pale Mandibled Araçaris landed on the feeding perches, scaring off all of the other birds. This Araçari made me chuckle both because of its perplexed look and the raindrops on the top of its head.

The Masked Trogon is commonly found in Ecuador’s Cloud Forest, especially in the Mindo Valley. We found a pair on a couple of different days as we watched from the hide down the road from the Sachamatia Lodge. They are dimorphic meaning that the males and females look different from each other. While the males feature iridescent green heads and backs, red bellies, and a distinct black face mask, the females are brown with red bellies and a black face mask. They are both equally stunning to look at, something that I admired about many of the bird species in Ecuador as the females were often as colorful and gorgeous to look at as the males.

One of the denizens of Ecuador’s Cloud Forest is the Brown Inca. This hummingbird is a deep, rich, chocolate brown color, reminiscent of Ecuador’s artisanal chocolate, world renowned for its high-quality Arriba Nacional cacao. Seeing and photographing this beautiful chocolate brown Hummingbird was almost as delicious as tasting its culinary counterpart.

It’s the wet season in Ecuador and it rained every day we were there. While there were some gully washers and thunderstorms, most of the time the rain was light and brief. The hummers, like this Brown Violetear, took advantage of the rain to bathe.

Yesterday was our last day in Ecuador. We started the day off early overlooking the cloud forest and photographing the birds that came into the area in search of bananas to feast on. The Pale-mandibled Araçari arrived en force. Three of them descended at once onto the perches where the bananas are strategically placed, frightening all of the other birds away as they grabbed huge chunks of banana, flipped back their heads with the impossibly unwieldy beaks and swallowed the fruit in a single gulp. The Pale-mandibled Araçari is one of the larger and most entertaining of the birds was saw this past week here. Their expressive faces and colorful feathers are always a welcome sight.

There is a “hide” on the grounds of Sachamatia Lodge in Ecuador that is used by birders to spot birds from an inconspicuous place so that the birds attracted to the area can be seen without stressing them. Inside, there is enough room to set ups tripods and seat about eight photographers. One of the ingenious things about this hide is that a large white canvas stretches across a framework at a 90° angle from the hide that is lit up all night by a large light bulb. During the night, bugs, moths, and other flying insects are attracted to the light and they cling to the white canvas so that in the morning, the canvas provides a smorgasbord of bugs for the birds that arrive at first light. Throughout the morning, birds fly to the canvas and snatch a morsel off the canvas. In the process of subduing the moth, microscopic scales fly everywhere off the wings creating a cloud that surrounds the bird. We watched lots of different bird species snatch a meal from the canvas. To me, the most entertaining was the Plain-brown Woodcreeper that would grab its meal from the canvas then retreat to the trunk of a nearby tree and subdue the bug as it ascended the tree and scales flew.

What’s in a name? Very few of the Hummingbirds here in Ecuador bear the moniker Hummingbird. They are Brilliants, or Emeralds, or Incas, or Violetears, or Sylphs, or Coronets. And, they are Racket-tails like the White-booted Racket-tail which to me is one of the most aptly named Hummingbirds of the sixteen species I’ve seen to date. This small-bodied Hummingbird gets its name from two distinct characteristics: the fluffy white puffs of feathers that surround its legs, creating the “boots,” and the pair of long bare-shafted tail feathers with racket-shaped disks at the end of each. It is one of the most recognizable Hummingbirds here in Ecuador and it quickly endeared itself to me, first by almost landing on my finger when we walked by the hummingbird pavilion one afternoon, and second because it is simply adorable. My challenge each afternoon when we photograph Hummingbirds here is to photograph it in flight, not perched on the feeder which it seems very content to do. I’ve been fortunate to achieve my goal a number of times so far this week. This is one of my favorites.