Ecuador

Galápagos Top Predator

When you think of apex predators some iconic animals come to mind: Tyrannosaurus rex, African lion, orca, great white shark, polar bear, jaguar, saltwater crocodile, and harpy eagle.

The apex terrestrial predator of the Galápagos is not a mammal or a reptile but a raptor.

This is one of the larger buteo (broad winged) hawks in the world: the aptly named endemic Galápagos hawk.

The hawk is found on most of the major islands and preys on a wide variety of the island’s fauna, from giant centipedes to booby nestlings to marine iguanas.

On our journey around nine of the islands we saw hawks on three: Fernandina, Espanola, and Santa Fe.

In 1835, Darwin notes how tame the local hawks were as he writes in the Voyage of the Beagle:

“Extreme tameness…is common to all the terrestrial species…A gun is here superfluous; for with the muzzle I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree.”

We did not get near close enough to knock a hawk out of a tree but we did have some good looks at the Enchanted Island’s top predator.

Our first look was at Punta Espinoza at the northwest tip of Fernandina Island. Our non-birder heart surgeon first spotted a juvenile on a cliff from the panga.

We later encountered the Galápagos’ top predator while looking at waved albatross on Espanola.

On Espanola, we saw an adult soaring on the same updrafts as the albatross.

Waved Albatross

There is something mystic about an albatross (think Rime of the Ancient Mariner) and seeing one is always special.

Most of my sightings have been from the deck during a pelagic boat trip. Sometimes the sightings aren’t quality as the bird appears and disappears among the swells. Fleeting and always leaving you wanting more.

On the island of Espanola, I was about to have one of the closest encounters with albatrosses anywhere.

As with the boobies, the albatross were tame and we often had to walk around them as they sat in the trails.

A young albatross sitting in the trail. It was remarkable to see these largely pelagic birds on solid rock.

As we headed to Punta Suarez, an albatross dropped out of the air and made a rough landing. The male greeted his partner with head swerving, skypointing, bill-gapping, and bill fencing. Watching this from such close range made me feel like I was in a BBC documentary. Now all we need was Sir David Attenborough to narrate the behavior.

A mated pair bonding. The male is bill-gapping.
An albatross in flight is a beautiful sight.

At Punta Suarez we paused to take in the sights and I had time to sketch the scene before me.

Flightless in the Galapagos

We flew from Quito to get to the Galápagos. But how did birds get to the islands?

We guess that some flew, some swam, and others arrived on rafts of vegetation pushed to the Galápagos by the cold Humboldt Current.

There were two flightless birds I was very much looking forward to seeing and both are found nowhere else in the world. The Galápagos are truly the Enchanted Islands when it comes to endemic species.

I grew up on a street named Cormorant Court so these aquatic fish-hunters have always fascinated me. On the California coast we have three species of flighted cormorants: Brandt’s, double-crested, and pelagic. And the cormorant I really wanted to see is the truly ocean dependent flightless cormorant.

We woke up on near the “seahorse’s mouth” on Isla Isabela. As the night turned to day from the deck of the Nemo III, vertical dark “rocks” turned into roosting flightless cormorants.

After an early breakfast at six, we were boarding the panga by 6:40 to get a closer look at the cormorants.

This is the world’s largest cormorant. I guess you can evolve to be bigger when you don’t need to fly. This is the only flightless cormorant and it is only found around the Galápagos islands of Fernandina and Isabela.

Flightless cormorant on Isla Isabela. Photographed from the panga.

Around the “Seahorse’s Mouth” we had some quality panga time with this amazing endemic, both preening on the rocks and swimming in the bay.

Although they are flightless they still need to dry and preen their wings.

After spending time with the cormorants, we boarded the Nemo III and headed over to Fernandina Island to look for another flightless endemic.

We would be birding from the deck of the catamaran, looking for a vertical black and white rock we were hoping to turn into a Galápagos penguin.

This small penguin is the only penguin found north of the equator (but just barely). It is certainly the most northerly or southerly if in the northern hemisphere, penguin as well as the only tropical penguin.

Before long our guide Willy spotted a lone penguin roosting in the rocks with two brown noddies.

A not so great view of my first penguin species.

We had much better views on Islabela. Some were roosting and preening while others were swimming and foraging.

Boobies of the Galápagos

I had seen the red-footed booby before on the coast of California and brown booby is also an infrequent visitor to the coast of the Golden State. But now I was about to see the red-footed really close as well as two other boobies, which would be lifers.

How do you know it’s a red footed? It’s perched in a tree (and it has red feet). This booby is within touching distance her on Genovesa.

One of these boobies is the poster bird of the Enchanted Islands: the blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii).

You will find this booby on t-shirts, posters, signs, carved figurines, and other tourist detritus in the gifts shops.

After landing at Baltra and transferring to our catamaran, the Nemo III, our first stop was North Seymour Island.

North Seymour has a large population of blue-footed boobies and swallow-tailed gulls.

At our landing site we were greeted by a sleeping Galápagos sealion and a preening swallow-tailed gull.

What is amazing about the Galápagos is that the wildlife seems to have little fear of humans. We experienced this over and over again.

If you’re not careful you can end up stepping on a booby in the Galápagos. In this case a Nazca booby. (Disclaimer: no boobies were stepped on during the making of this post!)

The word booby is derived from the Spanish word “bobo”, meaning stupid. Perhaps because of the bird’s tame behavior made them easy to catch by hungry sailors.

At North Seymour, the blue-footeds were in the middle of the trail in the midst of skypointing and wing displays which are their mating rituals. Watching these boobies made me feel like I was in a BBC nature documentary and Sir David Attenborough would step out from a nearby bush at any moment!

To blue-footeds in mid-trail in mid-courtship.

On the following day we had more booby encounters. This time at the island of Genovesa at the Prince Phillip’s Steps. The most common trailside booby was the Nazca booby (Sula granti), another lifer, with red-footeds also in the trees.

A quick sketch of a Nazca on Genovesa that somehow looks like a muppet of the Fraggle Rock era.

The Nazca is one of the largest boobies of the Galápagos. They are mainly white with a black mask (they were once called masked boobies until they were later split). Out of the three boobies that occurs in the Galápagos, the Nazca flies further out that the blue-footed to forage.

Among the sand and leaf litter, in a circle of non-guano, Nazcas were nesting on the ground. Nazcas always lay two eggs. Usually only one bird survives, the first hatched, which outcompetes its younger sibling.

SFO Touchstone (Under the Influence of Billy Collins)

Sitting in a gray swivel chair with gray skies above and the United Boeing 737 below at gate E8.

This was not the plane taking me to Houston nor that plane continuing on to Quito. This plane was heading off somewhere else.

I pull out my sketchbook and pens and start sketching in a continuous line, starting with the nose of the Boeing and reaching back to the tail then reaching out to the starboard wing and down below to the turbine engine and back to the front landing gear.

I have done this sketch many times before at different airports of different planes at different gates.

This is a touchstone sketch, one that I return to while killing time at an airport.

Perhaps it’s not really killing time but a meditation after the chaos of security lines and X-rays, of taking off your belt and hat only to put them on again.

Yes it is a meditation as time flies by (pun intended) and moves ever closer to 8:15, boarding time.

Airport sketch at Quito. UIO is a beautiful setting in the middle of the Andes.
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Andean Condor

There is one bird that is held in such high esteem that it is the national symbol of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. It is also the national bird of Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, and Ecuador.

It is also one of the largest flying birds in the world with a wingspan of ten feet and a bird that was on the top of my Ecuadorian wish list, so much so that I took an extra day and hired a guide to take me high up in the Andes, and hour and a half from Quito. It is the Andean condor!

My guide Gustavo picked me up at my lodging at the Puembo Birding Garden and we headed southeast, our destination: the Antisana Ecological Reserve. The Reserve is centered around the 18, 714 foot volcano Antisana. The high Andes are perfect place to see the true giant of the Andes, the Andean condor.

The cloud hidden peak of Antisana. At 18,714 feet is is the fourth highest volcano in Ecuador.

After winding our way up from Quito on streets that got progressively narrower and more rustic through small villages we stopped for a mid morning snack and caffeine break at the appropriately named Tambo Condor Restaurant.

Condors, this way!

We stepped out on the patio and watched a giant hummingbird at the feeder. We were here to see another giant. Gustavo focused his scope on a distant smudge that was just to the left of the thin cascade of white that was falling from the cliff.

“There’s your condor,” he announced as he stepped back.

Centered in the scope was an adult condor, preening on a cliff ledge. Lifer! This was just the opening act. Looking down the valley, with the sprawling capital in the distant haze, three condors appeared on the wing. They rose up from the valley and flew above the cliffs, one condor coming in for a cliff landing.

Over the course of out time in Artisan we saw about eight condors. A true treat to see this slowly declining species and a symbol of the Andes Mountains.

 

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The Cock-of-the-Rock and the Angel of Peace

There was one experience that I was really looking forward to in the Mindo Valley.

It was a visit to the legendary Angel Paz and his property called Refugio Paz de las Aves. Over the past ten years Angel has developed a relationship with a few species of hard to see antpittas. He is afterall known as the “antpitta whisperer”.

The Angel of Peace, feeding three dark-backed wood-quail.

Before we could see Angel coax antpittas out of the forest, we first visited the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock lek on his property. At just after 6 AM, we headed down the narrow path that ended in a blind. As we walked down the hill we could hear the otherworldly calls of the displaying males. The trees just down hill were filled with the iconic Andean specialty as they called and danced in there riotous plumage for the drabber but unseen female. The show lasted for almost an hour before the males dispersed to head off to start their day.

Male Cock-of-the-Rocks displaying at the Refugio Paz de las Ave lek.

The first bird that Angel conjured up was a cloud-forest pygmy-owl. We then headed to another part of his property and three dark-backed wood-quail where waiting by the side of the road for us. We then moved on and with the help of his brother Rodrigo, our search for the antipittas was to begin in earnest.

We walked a short way down a path and Rodrigo headed off trail and downslope. He whistled into the forest and called, “Andreita. Andrea. Venga, venga, venga!” Rodrigo repeated this and within five minutes “Andeita”, a chestnut-crowned antpitta appeared at the base of a log. Lured by worms, the antipitta made it’s way up the log and was now ten feet downslope from our position.

After getting great views we headed a little further down the trail and Rodrigo summoned “Williamina” a yellow-breasted antpitta from the forest. This shy, retiring bird stayed in view for a short time, taking the worms and then disappearing into the forest.

At the end of our unforgettable visit to Refugio Paz de las Aves, we had ticked almost 70 species of birds including two species of antpittas, the iconic Andean cock-of-the-rock, a common potoo with a chick, and the cloud-forest pygmy-owl.

 

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A Surprise at the Feeders of San Tadeo

On the Fourth of July we where going to see some Ecuadorian fireworks at the fruit and hummingbird feeders of San Tadeo in the Mindo Valley.

These feathered fireworks mainly came in the form of tropical tanagers. Golden, flame-faced, blue-gray, golden-napped, back and blue-capped tanagers. Added to the show where crimson-rumped toucanets and red-headed barbets. But the most colorful explosion came in the form of a pair of toucan barbets.

This barbet is often described in field guides as “unmistakeable” and one tropical birding guide described the toucan barbet as, “a rainbow flavored snowcone.”

While our group was enjoying the firework display, some movement on the ground caught my attention. What I saw was what looks like a large dark rufous potato on sticks and I knew immediately what bird this was and I called out: “Antpitta!!

I later found out that, our guide Luke, at first, thought that I had misidentified the potato bird, that is, until he got his bins on the bird.

“Giant antpitta!” he announced to our group, proclaiming it’s existence.

All eyes were on the bird as it sulked and paused, sulked and paused, like a snowy plover on Ocean Beach.

The reason for the initial disbelief is that the giant antpitta, despite it’s name, is one of the hardest birds to see and see well in the Mindo region. If you don’t count the unusually tame giant antpitta at Refugio Paz de las Aves. In fact, no one had ever seen this bird at San Tadeo, including the owner and Paul Greenfield (the illustrator of The Birds of Ecuador).

We were all able to get views of this rare treat as it sulked behind the water feature, stopped and paused, then struck at something in the leaf litter. It then disappeared from view, heading into the leafy cover downslope.

We then headed downslope to the hummingbird feeders that offered an amazing view of Mindo Valley with the small town of Mindo nestled in the center of the valley.

It was at the hummingbird feeders that we first saw what Luke described as his favorite hummingbird in Ecuador. And the velvet-purple cornet is an absolute stunner!