The Lodge just at the base of the green mountains.
Tucked away on the Ecuadorian Coast, just south of Bahía de Caráquez, is a small spot of land with a lodge and cabins, trails into the surrounding forest, and miles and miles of empty beach. The place is simply called Chirije, named after the ancient culture that used to live in this gorgeous location. In fact, an existing excavation is today a museum with multiple examples of treasures found on site.
That was part of the reason we wanted to visit, so that we could explore the archeaological ruins. If you'd like to see pictures of the stone and pottery discoveries, please visit my blog at NotYourAverageAmerican.com. Currently, you can read about Chirije, The Lodge and later next week there will be two other pieces published, Chirije, The Trails and Chirije, The Beach.
Examples of some of the finds at the Chirije archeaological site.
I know you came today for the birds! I took the following photos over 4 days in which we had weather ranging from bright and sunny to overcast and gray to outright rain. The pictures are not all great but even the poor ones show birds that I might not ever get to see again so I thought they were worth including. I hope you enjoy them!
This first group of birds were easily seen on the Lodge grounds, no hiking necessary. In fact, you could have sat most of the day either on the UFO porch (yes, there are many folks who come to Chirije with the hope of sighting UFOs as many of the locals have claimed to see them.) The downside of birdwatching near the Lodge - two cats. One is older and showed little interest in hunting but the younger one is still learning and I'm afraid the bird population may suffer in time.
A Groove-billed Ani showing off his tail.
A Yellow-rumped Cacique
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A Long-tailed Mockingbird
One of the tiniest woodpeckers I've ever seen, a Ecuadorian Piculet. They average about 9 cm.
A pair of Croaking Ground Doves surprisingly not on the ground.
A Tropical Gnatcatcher.
Some kind of Saltator (the beak makes me think so) but one that doesn't match a description in my book. Help!
A pair of Groove-billed Ani.
This is probably a Tawny-crowned Pygmy Tyrant. If you have a better ID, please leave a comment!
This fellow is so distinctive that you would think he would be easy to identify. But no. If you can help out, please let me know in the comments below.
This special bird, the Blue-crowned Motmot, deserves to be highlighted on his own. He greeted me every morning we were there. He could be very hard to see, which is why I include the camouflaged picture. It's hard to believe that a bird so blue could blend in so easily. Although he spent a lot of time on the ground hunting bugs, he's known for sitting in trees. The locals call him
El Relojero, because his tail keeps time like the pendulum of a clock.
We spent a lot of time at the beach and were surprised to only see high flying frigate birds and one lone whimbrel. We did spend one afternoon walking to the closest village, about five kilometers away. The walk has to be timed with low tide so as to be able to walk around the point. Once there, we watched the locals bring in a huge net of fish while the frigate birds tried to steal what they could directly from the nets.
The only shore bird we saw even near Chirije. Surprising.
Fisherman in a local village about 5 kilometers from Chirije.
Magnificent Frigate Birds in San Clemente, Ecuador
Some of our most exciting birding took place on the trails in the dry forest behind the lodge. There is a trail that took us past an old abandoned farm field (great for hummingbirds) and then took us up, up, and up so that we eventually had a view of the ocean from up high. We arrived during fruit season - cactus fruit to be exact. It made for great bird watching! At the very end of the trail, there was a very old and very tall cactus. Huge actually. And the birds were all over it. Unfortunately, many were beyond the reach of my lens or so well hidden in the brush that they were next to impossible to see much less photograph.
A Southern Rought-winged Swallow waiting in the open field.
Southern Beardless Tyrannulet
A Guira Tanager eating fresh fruit from a cactus that must have been 40 feet high.
A Yellow-tailed Oriole
The obligatory Turkey Vulture.
Another bird that deserves to be highlighted is the Crimson-breasted Finch. I used a 300mm lens to capture these shots and not all are perfect but I wanted folks to see how many antics take place when a single bird is trying to get every last bit of flesh out of the fruit of a cactus.
On our very last morning, I went hummingbird hunting. I had seen them flitting around the empty field and I was bound and determined to get some decent shots. A little female Short-tailed Woodstar (most likely) decided to help me out and provided me with some excellent shots, despite having a young cat as a partner.
Female hummingbirds can be tough to identify but because of the location, this sweet little bird is proably a Short-tailed Woodstar Hummingbird.
And one last shot of the beach, just to remind you were we were at!
Looking from the beach in front of the Lodge back towards Bahía de Caráquez. We could barely make out the lights of the city at night.