TomKal foto

Ecuador 09/2023- introductory text
Ecuador- the first country in South America to which I organised a full birding photography expedition. The word full means a period of two weeks dedicated solely to photographing birds.  Add to that, of course, with a local professional guide who proved to be knowledgeable, friendly and very committed. Santiago, thanks and regards, because sometimes without your boundless energy and knowledge of where to look out for birds, the photographic output would have been, much, much smaller. Many galleries of new species were created and it was difficult to choose which gallery to add introductory text to for the whole expedition. I did not choose the Andean condor, and I explain why in the information next to this species (Link to the gallery). I also did not decide on the Sunbittern, even though I think that the most important photo of this trip, is the photo of this bird. I explain in the sunbird gallery (Link to the gallery).During our entire stay, hummingbirds accompanied us almost everywhere. They were so important in the total output of our trip that a joint text about photographing hummingbirds in Ecuador was written about it, but also a few of them got individual information accompanying each species. So many new photos of hummingbirds were created that I also decided to make an independent diaporama after my return from Ecuador dedicated traditionally to the birds of the trip (link), but also exclusively with hummingbirds photographed in Ecuador (link). These are posted on my YouTube channe. In writing my account of the expedition, it is important to say that it is about the mountainous areas, the higher altitudes of 1,000 to 4,400 above sea level, and the much lower areas in the east of Ecuador, which are included in the Amazon basin along the Napo River. We were not in the western part of Ecuador on the coast, which is much lower in elevation and has completely different bird species. Although Ecuador is slightly smaller in area than Poland, Ecuador's fauna includes more than 1,600 bird species, more than three times as many. The tropical climate is conducive to greater biodiversity and this could be seen at every turn. Photography itself is not easy and it takes some effort to take as many pictures as I managed to take in Ecuador. Here, there are two ways of photographing to be distinguished. The first is to use the hotel gardens, with special areas set up for bird watching and photography. These hotels are probably a poor name, everyone calls them lodges and you could say that it is the equivalent of a European form of agro-tourism. In quite remote areas off the tarmac roads, usually deep in the rainforest, lodges are built for tourists, usually meeting the standards of a 2-3 star hotel (beds, bathroom). There one has nature at one's fingertips, not to mention the places where bananas are usually laid out and birds visit these places and can easily be observed and photographed. Another way of attracting the attention of birds is to hang a white sheet over which a light is suspended at the site of such observations. Throughout the night, various kinds of moths and other insects are attracted to such a place, and at sunrise they become the birds' breakfast. In one such place at sunrise, a pair of trogons flew in, in addition to several other species. They were a few metres away from the observers sitting at sunrise, photographers. There is, of course, complete silence on the tourists' side and species normally feeding in the treetops are at your fingertips and can be admired up close. It looks almost perfect from a photographic point of view, but unfortunately it must be remembered that at the bottom of the tropical forest, even at midday there are no favourable conditions for photography due to the lack of sufficient light in this place. You need to turn up the ISO to a few thousand, use bright lenses (2.8 or brighter) and shoot in bursts at 1/30, 1/60th of a second. It sounds disastrous, but the birds in the morning are slowed down, sedentary and this gives you a chance to get sharp photos. After a few skips on the ground or arriving on a branch, the bird freezes almost motionless and watches. This is the only opportunity with a tripod-mounted camera to take a satisfying, sharp photo. To take such photographs, one has to get up around 4am, sometimes a little earlier, to be on site before sunrise and to capture the birds feeding on insects lured by the light at night. Many good, interesting photographs have been taken in such places. It should be added here that long telephoto lenses are not necessary there. A 300 millimetre lens is enough, the important thing is that it is bright (2.8 and less). Almost our entire stay we got up between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m., often forgoing breakfast at the hotel (lodge). We were given its equivalent on the road (a sandwich, as hard boiled, a carton of juice and some fruit - banana, tangerine). We would eat this our breakfast as a short break of birding activity followed our first morning visits.
The second way to photograph birds in Ecuador was to walk along the paths in the forest, or the access roads to the lodges. There it was already much, much more difficult. A 600 millimetre lens with a 1.4 converter, sometimes couldn't cope. Lighting conditions better, but birds much more skittish and keeping a great distance. 'Full frame' shots are rare. This is accompanied by considerable effort. In tropical forests, temperatures of around 30 degrees with high humidity are really not recreation, but a major physical effort. Doing several kilometres a day with several kilograms of equipment, after 2-3 hours of such walking, taking photos, you look as if you have stepped out of a shower. This was the case in the lower parts of Ecuador. In the high parts of the mountains at altitudes above 3,000 metres, the effort was due to lack of oxygen. We were too short to have time to acclimatise. At one point we ascended to an altitude of 4,400 metres and felt like we were in another dimension. We slowed down our movement, every stop was accompanied by immediately putting all our gear on the ground and breathing in as much air as we could to recuperate. There, for the first time, I was glad there were no birds. After half an hour we got into the car to descend at least a few hundred metres lower, and I was so exhausted by this short "walk" that I immediately fell asleep in the car. At an altitude of 3,000, to 4,000 metres above sea level, moving slowly and minimising the equipment we carried, it was already possible to photograph. We photographed some species of hummingbirds at an altitude of 3,600 metres. Interestingly, driving up so high we saw frozen puddles, so it must have been frost at night and such exotic, tiny, delicate hummingbirds live there.  After just 3-4 hours of driving down, the humidity and temperature had already increased so much that between 12 and 15 o'clock it was better to just lie down, rest and gain strength for the afternoon session, as the bird activity is negligible anyway. They also feel it in the hot, humid time of day. There, it is difficult to have any close encounters with birds and the photos are always framed. I finally decided to add the introductory text to the galery of Andean cock-of-the-rock, as it made perhaps the biggest impression on me. There were enough photos and a recording of the birds' soundtrack to create one of the most interesting galleries on my return from Ecuador. There were several bird encounters, but the second was probably the most interesting. Early September is the mating season of the Andean cock-of-the-rock. In two places, rather peculiar lookouts were built to observe these birds. The first smaller one was not very effective in terms of photographing the birds, which sometimes move quite fast during their mating season and at distances of several dozen metres in the treetops. It took about half an hour to march along the mountain to the second lookout, but this lookout was several tens of metres long. The name schelter is a rather narrow concept to what the term means in Europe. In Ecuador, it's more like an observation deck, a long balcony with a canopy for the rains that fell every night and sometimes during the day. I could already hear the Andean cock-of-the-rock a few hundred metres before reaching the schelter. I later recorded their sounds several times. The bright red birds, with a noisy disposition, were not difficult to locate. The difficulty in photographing them was finding a 'window' i.e. a clear field, not obscured by branches to take a picture. A few hours of trying and it worked, the result was material for an extensive gallery. Unfortunately, the females did not appear before our lenses.
Concluding the cover text from Ecuador, it has to be said that it was a very intense trip and had nothing to do with a traditional holiday. We got up two hours before sunrise and photographed until dusk. We visited more than a dozen places during our two-week stay where there were always different species to photograph. We travelled more than a thousand kilometres to reach interesting bird sites. Ecuador is a country with a very diverse landscape, beautifully colourful. Unfortunately, many hectares, of beautiful tropical forest are being cut down for palm oil cultivation. Such mono-crops sometimes stretched for miles along the road, thanks to large, all-powerful corporations. Objectively, the trip to Ecuador must be counted as very successful. Both in terms of birding and socialising (Krzysiek, Santiago-greetings). The best recommendation, however, are the photos and their quantity. This can best be seen in the attached list of galleries created and modified after our return from Ecuador.

Traditionally, after returning from an expedition, a list of galleries newly created and modified with photos from the expedition is created in the information in each gallery. The list is also a collection of links to these galleries. If the name of a particular species is followed by the letter „T” in brackets, a text with information about the species is attached to the gallery, and „V”, the gallery has an audio recording. For a quick overview of all bird galleries created and altered after photographing in Ecuador, simply search in your browser in the tab on the right for „Tags” and find 'Ecuador-birds' there and "Ecuador hummingbirds". In addition, all hummingbird species have text in common, about photographing hummingbirds in Ecuador- this has the symbol - "T", and if a gallery contains individual information, I have added a second letter "TT".