Day 1: Zuro Loma & Tandayapa Bird Lodge.

The tour will start with a 90 minute drive to Zuro Loma Reserve, to visit feeders there for Chestnut-naped Antpitta, Barred Fruiteater, and a swathe of Cold Wet Temperate Cloud Forest hummingbirds, including Sword-billed Hummingbird, Mountain Velvetbreast, Black-tailed Trainbearer and Sapphire-vented Puffleg. By late morning, we will be driving along the Old Nono-Mindo Road through scenic cloudforests to Tandayapa Bird Lodge, arriving there for lunch. The afternoon wil be spent around Tandayapa Bird Lodge, nestled within Cool, Moist Subtropical Cloud Forest, of a very different nature, and birds to those experienced during the morning. The feeders are World famous, and regularly hold hundreds of hummingbirds, including species like Violet-tailed Sylph, Booted Racket-tail, Purple-throated Woodstar and Purple-bibbed Whitetip. Tanagers and Toucan Barbets can be found in the surrounding forest too, along with a wealth of other Cloud Forest birds. You will spend one night within the cloudforest at the very comfortable Tandayapa Bird Lodge.

Day 2: Milpe & Rio Silanche Bird Sanctuaries.

This day will provide stark contrast to the other days, and so compliments them well, with a markedly different elevation (Milpe lies at 3610ft/1100m in the Andean Foothills and Silanche lower still at 1640ft/500m), and therefore bird list. Milpe is home to a good semi-seasonal display ground (or lek) of the Club-winged Manakin (usually most active in January-March, but active on and off year round). Other birds that frequent the area include Choco and Yellow-throated Toucans, Collared Arari, an assortment of tanagers, including Rufous-throated and Ochre-breasted, as well as Guayaquil Woodpecker and Blue-tailed Trogon. Silanche, lying lower, offers these and more other birds like Cinnamon Woodpecker, White-tailed Trogon, Scarlet-browed Tanager, Orange-fronted Barbet and both Rufous and Broad-billed Motmots too. The combination of these two sites in one day can sometimes lead to lists of over 100 species, purely from forest birding! The order in which the sanctuaries will be visited will be decided the night before; sometimes Rio Silanche is done first and other times in reverse order, with Milpe first.

Day 3: Tandayapa Bird Lodge & the Tandayapa Valley.

Tandayapa Bird Lodge lies at 5740ft (1750m) within the Lower Tandayapa Valley in the bird rich Choco bioregion of Northwest Ecuador. The highest point above the lodge (only around 25 minutes drive), in the Upper Tandayapa Valley, reaches 7545ft/2300m, and offers additonal species to those found immediately around the lodge.Within the wet,  bromeliad-laden cloudforest trees of the Upper Tandayapa Valley species like Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan, Beryl-spangled and Grass-green Tanagers and Crimson-mantled Woodpecker all occur. Therefore, even with a full day it will feel like barely enough, once you have covered the hummingbird and fruit feeders at the lodge, and birded both the Upper and Lower Tandayapa Valley, for the greatest variety of birds! On this day all of the meals will be taken at the lodge.

Day 4: Mashpi.

This wonderful private reserve lies within rich wet subtropical cloud forest, which holds a long list of specialties, which are best looked for here. This includes some dazzling species, like Glistening-green and Moss-backed Tanagers, Orange-breasted Fruiteater, Black-chinned Mountain-Tanager, Toucan Barbet, and the scarce Black Solitaire. Other possibitlies include Golden-collared Honeycreeper, the rare Indigo Flowerpiercer, Uniform Treehunter and Buffy (Pacific) Tuftedcheek. The site has great feeders too, which help to photograph some of the very best of these species, plus hummingbirds, like Velvet-purple Coronet and Empress Brilliant. As this is one of the longer day trips from the lodge (around 1hr45mins drive from there), we will spend much of the day there, taking a Boxed Lunch in the field overlooking the feeders, and return to the lodge in the afternoon, getting back around 6:00-6:30pm.

Day 5: Refugio Paz de las Aves & the Tandayapa Valley.

This site is also located in Moist Subtropical Cloud Forest, like Tandayapa Bird Lodge, but offers a copletely different birding experience. This private reserve, run by the friendly Paz Brothers is the place to see very well rare birds at forest feeding stations. The remarkable success of Angel and Rodrigo at habituating wild, normally shy, forest birds quickly gained worldwide fame and admiration and has now been copied with other bird species in other South American countries Colombia, Peru and Brazil. Some of the treats on offer include no less than 5 species of antpitta (including Giant and Yellow-breasted), Dark-backed Wood-Quail, as well as Golden-headed Quetzal and a host of birds at their on site feeders, like Velvet-purple Coronet, Empress Brilliant, Toucan Barbet and Flame-faced Tanager. However, all of this will be preceded by a dawn time visit to a forest blind overlooking a traditional display site of the bright scarlet Andean Cock-of-the-rock, where several males gather each day. The reserve entrance includes a mid-morning cooked meal and local coffee, and so we will take a Boxed Lunch, as people are often still full from the on site meal to have a full lunch! We will return to Tandayapa Bird Lodge for some final time with the feeders, and to check out, before driving back to Quito in the afternoon (a 2-hour drive away), arriving by 6pm.