Ecuador is the species densest country in South America. Incredibly close to 1600 species inhabits this rather small country. Tropical and subtropical forest on both side of the andes, interandean valleys, patches of temperate forests, paramos, endemic bird areas in the south, including the Tumbesian region abides for Mega diverse country. Kolibri Expeditions offers a series of good value trips to Ecuador aiming to more or less cover all the endemics and special birds in the country. We use a combination of lodges where available and inexpensive accomodation. The objective is to see the birds - not to be ruined.. We have several years of experience of mainland Ecuador and particularly Galapagos, in spite that we lately have concentrated more on our tours to Peru.
We have set up a filming expedition to Tiputini to film Army Ants for Discovery (Creeping crawlies)
All trips are run on request. Please don´t refrain to ask us about details that are not listed here.
Tiputini has lately sallied as one of the absolute highlight in Ecuador, and even all of South America. Having a fantastic tower and a canopy walkway, as well as extremely large trail system and maybe the densest population of army ant swarms in the Amazon your in for some of the best birding in your life. The Tiputini river is often low, why it is possible to find large mammals such as Jaguars and Tapirs on its shores, as well as Salvin´s Curassow in good numbers. Pink river dolphin is almost guaranteed on your way there.
Tiputini combined with Yuturi Lodge to access river islands, good varzea forest and a canopy tower with a lek of Black-necked Red-Cotinga next to it.
This will be a workshop for bird-watchers and an introduction to Neotropical lowland birding.
Day 1. Flight to Coca and transfer to Tiputini research station. Numerous possibilities include Nocturnal and Salvin´s Curassows, Grey-winged Trumpeter, five macaws, Long-tailed and Rufous Potoos, Black-throated Brilliant, Pearly and Cocha Antshrikes and a host of other antbirds, furnariids, manakins and tanagers. Tiputini has some of the most remarkable virgin rainforest in South America. The river is fed from the same lowland, which means that if it does not rain for a couple of days the banks of the river will be completely exposed, which leads to exceptionally good possibilities of viewing seldomly seen mammals such as jaguar and tapir. There is an extremely good tree-tower with i.e. Black-faced Hawk almost guaranteed and several other goodies such as Black-bellied Cuckoo and many more. Additionally there is a canopy walkway of some 200 meters.
Day 2-6. Tiputini. Five full days here to explore the extensive trail system. Tiputini is one of the best places in South America for army-antswarms, which has made various film crews select Tiputini for filming ants and the obligate followers such as White-plumed Antbird and Reddish-winged Bare-Eye.
Day 7. Tiputini-Yuturi Lodge. We will spend three nights here. On the way we will check out some river islands for specialties such as Greater Wagtail-Tyrant, Lesser Hornero, Black-and-White Antbird, Castelnau´s Antshrike, Amazonian Umbrellabird and many others.
Day 8-9. Yuturi Lodge. Black-necked Red-Cotinga is our prime target today. We shall also check the extensive lagoons and river system for specialties like Agami Heron and Sungrebe, as well as Cocha Antshrike. At night we will search for Zig Zag Heron.
Day 10. Boat Yuturi-Coca. Flight to Quito.
