The final part of our trip was 3 nights in Mindo, where we arranged a bird guide for the 1st day. We ended up spending most of the day with our guide, Julia Patino from https://mindobirdwatching.wordpress.com/ after meeting early that morning. Being a proud local resident and expert spotter, Julia showed us some of the best bird-watching and landscape spots Mindo has to offer.
Thanks to Julia’s spotting skills, we managed to see hundreds of different bird species, most of which we’d never seen before, as well as red squirrels and Agouti’s. Some of the highlights being, Quetzals, Toucans and Toucanets, Motmots, and the awesome Potoo.
Photography wise it was tricky to get close enough to the subjects, I only had 70-200mm and Kirsty had the 300mm. 400mm would have been great 🙂
Julia’s scope provided us with better views and we even managed to get some photos using it with the mobile phone. Good old Samsung Galaxy 🙂
Toucan
Swallow-tailed kite
Potoo
Mindo truly is a birders paradise. We loved the place – not least for its relaxing, non-touristy, hospitable climate.
Not only did Mindo delight us with tropical flora and fauna we’d never seen before, but it also gave us an experience of hummingbirds that we had only dreamt of.
Hummingbirds were on top of our “must see” birding list when we arrived in Ecuador, and we did not go away disappointed. We saw our first hummingbird on our very first day (in Quito) and then at least 30 different species in one day with our guide in Mindo towards the end of our trip
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Hope you enjoyed the photos.