If you aren’t into birds, you may as well stop reading now. Today was alllllll about los aves.
We woke again at 4:30am and headed up into the hills, and after a short walk in the dark we arrived at a blind set up beside a light and a white screen. This was theatre #1: the bugs. Similar to in Hawaii, where lights in the water attract plankton, in turn attracting manta rays, these lights were set up to attract bugs and moths to serve as a breakfast feast for the birds of the cloud forest. We watched in awe as birds slowly arrived with the rising sun, noshing on bugs to their hearts’ content. I wondered how Diane, our soft-hearted moth-lover felt about this, but the opportunity for photos was just too good to get weepy. Bird highlights: olivaceous pihas, strong billed wood creepers, tricolored and chestnut-capped brushfinches, and the gorgeous masked trogons.
About 20 minutes of having this spectacle all to ourselves and the guides, a group of four tourists came into the blind with us. When I spotted the first trogon (yes! I saw it first!) and the rest of us got very excited, I heard one young man from the other group ask, “so is it going to do anything? Like sing a song or build a nest?” A piece of me died inside. But thankfully they stayed quiet and appreciative, and when I spoke with him later I realized he is just a bit of a class clown. Phew.
Then we all walked maybe 50 meters away to a glorious garden where stands were loaded with bananas and other fruits for a dazzling assortment of birds. Highlights here were the plate billed toucans (we have now seen all 5 varieties of toucans in the area!), toucan barbets, red-faced barbets, masked flowerpiercers, and tanagers galore: flame-faced, golden hooded, black-cheeked, golden, blue winged mountain, and palm. Totally spectacular.
And if that wasn’t enough, there were hummingbird feeders set up to feed the swarms of hummingbirds zipping by our faces. Diane was given a small container of nectar and she spent at least an hour covered with hummingbirds. She was in HEAVEN. Diane was delighted to watch them reach their tongues out to sip from the feeder on her palm and then peck at each other when they were impatient for their turn. They landed on her hand and she loved the feel of their tiny claws grasped around her fingers, and the tickle as they tasted her hand and tried to drink from her watch. “I could stay here all day!” she told us, and we agreed wholeheartedly.
Now, as a disclaimer: in general I am against feeding wild animals to entertain tourists. But. In this fragile ecosystem, Jorge has shown us where the forest has been cleared for agriculture and where it is being cleared even further for residential homes. “What is Mindo, without the forest?” he solemnly asked. So Jorge and other eco-conscious residents have been looking for every opportunity to show local landowners how to make a living from their land while keeping the forest intact, and “bird theaters” like these are one of the easiest ways to do that. We paid the landowner in cash so we know he benefited directly. He was so obviously thrilled with how tickled we were at the display and also was genuinely excited about the birds we were all seeing, that it does give me some hope that sustainable tourism can continue to benefit Ecuadorians and the ecosystem in tandem. Knock on guava wood.
I guess I lied and this post isn’t *all* about birds; we did hit two non-birding stops after the bird smorgasbord, the first of which was an orchid garden. Abuela Alicia has lovingly curated a botanical paradise of orchids, begonias, pitcher plants, bromeliads and much more in her own backyard in the center of the town of Mindo. She gave us a tour with her magnifying glass in hand, explaining the scientific names and showing us the most exotic features of each variety.
Our final stop was at the Mariposario (butterfly garden) right across the river from our lodge. As expected, Diane moved easily from feeding hummingbirds to feeding butterflies. Oh, and once we got back to the lodge she immediately found two months and walked around with them on her fingers for about an hour.
Now we rest. Mindo is an absolutely amazing destination and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone, but it is truly special for lovers of birds and plants. The weather is cool, mostly upper 60s to low 70s, only increasing to the upper 70s when the sun peeks out. Mosquitoes here are really not bad, which is shocking. We have bites but our repellent works (when we remember to use it), and they don’t swarm like they do in other tropical destinations. The town is adorable, and if I returned I would like to stay in or near town to explore it a bit more. There are sadly no geckos, but I guess no destination can be perfect.
Tomorrow we head back to Quito to catch our flight to the Galapagos islands!
Traveling Together 
Sissy and I are in love with all of these birds! And Zach’s photography is INCREDIBLE!!! Something we learned in Costa Rica was that when they were turning around their economy to go from an agro-based one to an eco-tourism was they did exactly this kind of thing, showing the landowners how much MORE they could make by protecting nature than destroying it. This model works globally so feed away!!
ps- more bird photos!!
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oh yay!! Zach took over 2,000 pictures of birds that day but is self conscious about them being low res on the blog 😂 We will have to share the favorites once we are back on flickr so you can get the full effect!!
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