worldly warren

Soon after returning home from Minnesota in early July, dad left for a birwatching trip to Equador with 10 others from Tennessee and South Carolina.

Here's a brief summary of his trip sent by the trip organizer: "We all arrived in Quito on July 12 and were on our way on the morning of the 13th. Quito is at 9300' in the Andes, and on our first excursion we headed west towards the coast and lower elevations. Sightings on our western decent included: Rufous-bellied and Short-tailed Nighthawk; Maroon-tailed Parakeet & Red-billed Parrot; White-collared Swift; 26 species of hummingbird including the unbelievable Sword-billed Hummingbird and Sparkling Violetear, Purple-bibbed Whitetip, Shining Sunbeam, Velvet-purple Coronet, Sapphire-vented Puffleg, Tyrian Metaltail and Violet-tailed Sylph; Golden-headed Quetzel; Board-billed Motmot; Toucan Barbet; Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan; Pacific Hornero; Montane Woodcreeper; Giant Antpitta; Golden-faced Tyrranulat; Smoke-colored Pewee; Masked Water-Tyrant; Golden Crowned Flycatcher ; Black-and White Becard; Andean Cock-of-the-Rock; Turquoise Jay; Great Thrush; White-capped Dipper; Spectacled Whitestart; Cinereous Conebill; 17 varieties of tanager; Rufous-colored Sparrow; and Peruvian Meadowlark. We than reversed our direction and went back past Quito to higher elevations and the eastern slope above the Amazon. In that portion of the trip we added: Yellow-billed Pintail; Andean Teal; Black-chested Buzzard Eagle; Carunculated Caracara, Andean Gull, White-capped parrot; San Isidro Owl (new species, no scientific designation yet); Bronzy Inca; Chestnut-breasted Coronet; Black-tailed Trainbearer; Long-tailed Sylph; Powerful Woodpecker; Pearled Treerunner; Unicolored Tapaculo; Torrent Tyrannulet; Cinnamon Flycatcher: Rufous-tailed Tyrrant; Inca Jay; Russet-crowned Warbler; Bluish Flowerpiercer; Golden-rumped Euphonia; Saffron-crowned tanager; Blue-necked Tanager; Plushcap;Yellow-browed Sparrow; Russet-backed Oropendola and Red-breasted Blackbird among many others. On the final day in Ecuador, several of us had late flights, so we arranged for our guide, Norby Lopez, to take us up above 14,000' in the Andes south of Quito on an additional excursion. It was a beautiful day, and we we saw some great birds including two of the endangered Black-faced Ibis and an amazing 14 Andean Condors. It was a great trip! The group got along well together, the food was excellent and the accomodations were comfortable and well located. Our guide, Norby, was outstanding as a person and bird-finder! The only short-coming of the trip was the unseasonable rains that we had. The bird-list total for the group was 271 but would have been much higher if the rain had not been so extreme. In spite of this, we were blessed with some rare sightings including one, as yet, unclassified species of owl!"

Now, dad is at the Iron Complex on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Junction City, California where there are currently several wildfires burning.