In the calm before the stifling daytime heat on the 6am road between Misahualli and Puerto Misahualli, we quickly appreciated the “no win” trade-off between a distinct absence of any “up” versus stultifying humidity.
The humidity didn’t so much go through the roof as melt it by 10am, and the sky was illuminated by silently flashing lightning after 2.30pm each day, presaging conditions that were muggy beyond muggy.
But the birding was great below 400m, and as long as you had three showers a day, and maintained a consistent banana/Pilsener diet, you could cope well enough.
The road leading away from Banana Lodge had Black Throated Mango, Violaceous Jay, Russet Backed and Crested Oropendolas, Yellow Rumped Caciques and Troupials, Magpie Tanagers, Yellow Headed Caracara and many other goodies as we strolled alongside the Misahualli River, which runs into the bigger Napo in town.
Magpie Tanager
Yellow Headed Caracara
Local commuters, machete salesmen and schoolchildren seemed happy enough, perhaps because Ecuador had beaten Venezuela 3-0 in the footy the night before, or maybe it was because it was just a good sunny morning to be out.
Clouds of swifts zoomed about above us, some easy to identify, others a bit more tricky.
Fork Tailed Palm Swift, Lesser Swallow Tailed Swift, White Collared and Short Tailed Swift all ripped about in the blue, while White Banded and White Winged Swallows were a bit easier to watch as they skimmed along over the river that meandered wide and brown beside the road, or perched up on the boulders along the banks.
Chestnut Bellied Seedfinches, Ringed Kingfisher and stacks of huge electric blue Morpho butterflies that tottered down the tarmac (unphotograph-able as ever) reminded us that new, lower altitudes meant new birds and bugs.
Yellow Green Vireo was commoner, as was Black Phoebe, but Blue Winged Parrotlet, with its Crossbill-like call was new.
So was the splendid Mottle Backed Elaenia and the tiny LaFresnaye’s Piculet.
Yellow Green Vireo
Black Phoebe
Blue Winged Parrotlet
Like an old friend from 16 years ago would be, an encounter with an Olive Sided Flycatcher was a lovely surprise – imagine if it was the same one we saw at Cape May all that time ago? (joke)
Olive Sided Flycatcher
Nice waistcoat buddy.
It was strange birding in a place where the heat/humidity meant everything shut down after 10am – we’d been spoilt with all day birding at the cooler high elevations, but Misahualli had its charms too…and the Napo River was like a sweaty, feverish gateway to new species.
Black Vultures bridge-loafing
And I’ve always wondered what Brian Sweeney “Fitzcarraldo” Fitzgerald did with that bloody big boat.
Although it was very hot, we wandered down to the “lagoon” opposite the famous El Jardin restaurante (superb fillet steaks the size of frisbees, menus bound in shagpile carpet, ice cold Pilsener galore, and open air dining to the plop of shoals of carpy fish in the pools around us), across the Napo from town, where living legend Pedro materialised from the secondary forest like the shopkeeper from Mr Ben.
Pedro has the punt poles and canoes that mean he has can show you around the “lagoon”/waterways night or day.
He knows his birds and can call in any number of them.
We “negotiated” a fee over complimentary bananas.
I say “negotiated”, but really we just smiled a lot, ate bananas and then got in his canoe.
There’s Pedro behind me in the pic below as I fail to master the art of the unselfconscious selfie…
Even in the heat of the day, a quick punt with Pedro was worth it, with some really cool stuff emerging from the overhanging branches.
Spot Breasted Woodpecker, Lemon Throated and Gilded Barbets, super-groovy Great Anis (much better than we expected) and Striated Herons all stared down at us as we glided along the calm, fetid waterways, silently passing under them apart from the odd unavoidable “oooh” and “ahh”, or loud rustling when we collided with low overhanging vegetation.
“Thwaaack!!!!”
Spot Breasted Woodpecker
Great Ani
Juve Striated Heron
These birds were mighty fine, but even better were a sneaky Sungrebe or two and world-famous half-dinosaur/half-toiletbrush, the Hoatzin.
Up to seven of these loonballs stumbled and squawked through the branches just a few feet from the punt.
They looked like hungover Ken Dodds the morning after a Knotty Ash bender celebrating yet another clear tax audit.
Tatifillarious baby.
Crazy name, crazy bird.
Sungrebe
Hoatzin
Hoatzin – the epitome of stinky elegance…
Ecuadorians less polite than Pedro refer to these strange creatures as “Stinky Turkeys” because their diet of leaves, and the unique fermenting process that goes on in their stomachs to break said leaves down, apparently makes them somewhat less fragrant than a carload of Marshside’s finest after an Indian takeaway/Guinness marathon/all night twitch combo.
That said, they smelt fine to me as we drifted underneath them – weirdos.
We had a great time with Pedro and promptly agreed to go out at night with him the next day and then go punting at dawn on our final day in Misahualli.
The night expedition was particularly entertaining, particularly as we set sail in pitch darkness fortified by buckets of Pilsener and the biggest and best steaks that the Restaurante El Jardin could offer.
I’ve not heard Trops freak out in the dark before, but then to be fair, we’ve never been two inches thick in biting insects attracted by the bazillion to our torchlights and sweat, while we were stranded on a canoe in the middle of the night.
Wave after wave of them swarmed onto us, impervious to the repellant qualities of St Deet (100% natch, but completely ineffective here).
And although we went wandering out into the pitch black, squelching through vines and roots, rustles and the unnerving squeaks and hisses of a rainforest in the dead of night (whatever happened to “never leave the boat” Pedro???), we didn’t see anything.
We did hear Tawny Bellied Screech Owl and Great Potoo though, but they weren’t playing.
C’est la vie.
Gray Necked Woodrail and Purple Gallinule put in torchlit appearances, but as night time safaris go, it wasn’t our most successful expedition.
Mike blats a Gray Necked Woodrail dans la nuit
Our second daytime, or rather dawntime, punt with Pedro was even better than the first – all the stuff we’d seen previously showed again, with added Snail Kite, Solitary Black Cacique, Speckled Chachalaca, our only Blackpoll Warbler of the trip, Laughing and Bat Falcons, ubquitous Great Kiskadee, Masked Crimson Tanager, Amazon Kingfisher, Grey Chinned Hermit and Little Woodpecker.
Stonking.
Little Woodpecker
Speckled Chachalaca
Great Kiskadee
I must also point out that “Punting with Pedro” as the Channel Four series will doubtlessly be called, was also a damn fine way of seeing monkeys.
I like monkeys, and parts of Misahualli have apparently been taken over by the critters, which is fine by me.
I still have fond, if hugely politically incorrect, memories of the chaotic Chimps’ tea parties at Lanark Deer Park (surreally in North Wales, not Scotland) when I was a kid, so any sighting of a monkey makes me beam widely.
But the Misahualli crew will have your Pilsener off you before you can say “Chlorophonia” or so the story goes.
There are signs pleading with visitors not to encourage monkeys in the town square, although I suspect the folks like ’em well enough when they bring in the tourists.
I liked the idea of monkeys taking back parts of a town hemmed in by rainforest, and naturally had high hopes of seeing the monkey fire brigade during our three day stay.
Just picture that as they career through town, monkey sirens wailing and bananas flying everywhere!
Sadly it wasn’t to be and I had to make do with Spider Monkeys and an oddly annoying troop of Tamarinds going bonkers in the branches above us as Pedro placidly punted away.
Spider Monkey
Annoying tamarind
You can never have too many monkeys.
Birding Ecuador 2016 