Until I catch up on my school-posts, I won’t be writing much about Mindo. I do, however, have videos and photos that I took on Mari’s camera, so check them out! The round glare you often see is the lens of the camera reflecting against the scope that provided most of the zoom to capture the images—I discovered the annoying way how difficult it is to perfectly align the two device’s lenses. Thus, some of my footage has required heavy splicing to edit out the seconds spent trying to focus the scope (which in addition had a bad leg) in one hand while keeping the lenses in line with the other hand. Unfortunately, the most evasive bird, the Golden-winged Manakin, was the subject of the most troublesome equipment management.

The Rufous Motmot, which was a juvenile based on its tail (adults of this species, and of many motmots, have two racquet-tipped tail feathers), and the Pale-mandibled Araçari were both perched on the same wood plank with banana or plantain on it at the visitor’s waiting area of the Milpe Cloudforest Reserve, though at different times. An interesting thing about motmots’ racquet tails is that when the adults preen, the barbs on a certain section of the quill, or shaft, of the feathers fall off to create the gap that shapes the racquet!

The Chocó Trogon, endemic to the Chocó region of Ecuador and Colombia, looks fairly similar to the Collared Trogon subspecies found in this part of South America. As an aside, you can read a little about the Collared Trogon in the Neotropical Birds Species Account that I wrote for the species in my ornithology class, and also look up any other bird that I’ve referred to here, as there may be some interesting information about them on this Cornell Lab of Ornithology website!

I’m including some photos of birds and insects we saw below, as well as the list of species seen in the day-and-a-half that I was in Mindo. It is also possible that I am missing some species that I saw but don’t remember having seen!

Golden-winged Manakin

Golden Tanager

White-shouldered Tanager

(Probably) Summer Tanager

Blue-grey Tanager

Lemon-rumped Tanager

Bananaquit

Orange-bellied Euphonia

(Probably) Lineated Woodpecker

Black-cheeked Woodpecker

Guayaquil Woodpecker

Tropical Kingbird

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture

Masked Tityra

Bronze-winged Parrot

Red-tailed Parrot

Maroon-tailed Parakeet

Ornate Flycatcher

Foliage Gleaner

Beryl-spangled Tanager

Grey-breasted Wood Wren

Dusty-capped Flycatcher

Green Thorntail

White-whiskered Hermit

Green-crowned Woodnymph

White-tailed Jacobin

Green-crowned Brilliant

Brown Violetear

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Chocó Trogon

Collared Trogon

Pale-billed Aracari

Chestnut-mandibled Toucan

Crimson-rumped Toucanet

Wedge-billed Woodcreeper

Torrent Tyrannulet

Black Phoebe

Squirrel Cuckoo

White-tipped Dove

Rufous Motmot