Karen and I just returned from a wonderful 10-day birding trip to the Ecuadorian Andes. Why Ecuador? Ecuador is relatively small (about the size of Colorado) yet according to eBird an astounding 1,689 species have been reported there (1,161 species have been observed in the U.S.), we’ve never been there, and the timing of the trip fell in the right dates of our calendar (January in Chicagoland).
After looking at various company’s guided trips we selected Road Scholar’s “Birding in the Ecuadorian Andes“. We’ve taken several of Road Scholar’s non-birding trips before (D-Day and Paris, Galapagos and Machu Picchu, and Costa Rica’s Natural Wonders) and we really like Road Scholar’s emphasis on educating its participants beyond site-seeing facts and figures. They have thousands of trips yet only a small number feature birding, so Road Scholar was not the first company we investigated for this trip, but I’m glad we signed up with them.
One of the big differences in this Road Scholar birding trip compared to other trips we’ve taken with Field Guides and Red Hill Birding is that the guide was a local birding expert. The other companies mentioned have their American birding expert accompany the group on the trip; by virtue of their experience they can identify the birds by sight and sound but sometimes have to rely on locals to determine where the best birds are. Also, the American guides are less familiar with the country’s customs, language, and politics. On this Road Scholar trip our guide was a native Ecuadorian named Antonio Jaramillo Toledo, or Tony.
Tony was knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful throughout the trip. During down-times on the bus or the lodge he would share information about Ecuador that only a native would know (like the history and ingredients of local drinks that were served to us at dinner). He also knew every nook and cranny where to look for birds. English is his second language (they speak Spanish in Ecuador) and I struggled at times to understand the names of the birds we were spotting, but this was more than overcome by his desire to provide us with a great birding experience and for us to come away with an understanding of his country, not just a bunch of Lifers.
We traveled with eight other participants from varied points in the United States and all but two were experienced birders. When we were out birding Tony preferred giving his full attention to spotting birds for the group, so it fell upon us to create the shared eBird checklists (he would proof them before finalizing). I didn’t have the energy to verify that I had observed each species on each of the 48 checklists but I’m doing so as I go through my pictures for each day.
When I loaded my pictures from the SIM cards to Lightroom I created a Smart Collection for each day so the images are automatically separated. If you’re unfamiliar with Smart Collections here ‘s a link to an article by The Lightroom Queen (a good resource): Creating Smart Collections in Lightroom. I create a Smart Collection for each date of the trip and Lightroom places the pics in them automatically, i.e. “Capture Date” “is” “2025-01-13”. This also works when I upload pics from my iPhone into Lightroom so all the pics, regardless of source, are in the same Collection.
I thought it would be interesting to share some Before and After numbers regarding the trip. Below are the Before numbers. As I work through the pictures many will be deleted and as I verify the species on each Checklist the number of species and Lifers will be sure to go down (many species that are listed were “Heard Only” and I usually delete them from the Checklist – I like to actually see a bird in order to count it as a Lifer).
Before Numbers:
Species Observed: 304
Lifers: 201
Pictures Taken: 5,488 (I deleted about 10-15% of my images right on the camera during bus rides so the total taken was probably over 6,000)
Time To Process: I process approximately 2.2 images per minute so I calculate it will take over 41 hours to go through all the pics!
Below is a map showing all the spots where we birded (both Red and Blue pins). Note the two white blobs on the right side of the map – these are snow-covered extinct volcanos!
As I go through my images I’ll share them as part of my trip report of our Ecuadorian birding experience. Until then, only 34 hours of post-processing to go!
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