The Deskbound Birder: Río Silanche Bird Sanctuary (NW Ecuador)

Thursday 2 May 2019

Río Silanche Bird Sanctuary (NW Ecuador) – 2nd May (Day 8)

After a rather sleepless night in the Hotel Apollo in Pendro Bicente Maldonado being constantly awoken by barking dogs we headed the short distance to the Río Silanche Bird Sanctuary Here we spent much of the day birding from the 15m high canopy tower, the trail behind the canopy tower and the car park area with short excursions along the adjacent gravel track to various side trails. Despite a drop in temperature since our last few days at Playa De Oro, we were now at 350m, it was still decidedly steamy. The reserve was birdy, particularly the area around the car park and highlights from the day included Barred Puffbird, Choco Tyrannulet, Stripe-billed Aracari, Scarlet-browed Tanager, White-bearded Manakin, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Rufous-fronted Wood-quail, Lanceolated Monklet, Orange-fronted Barbet, Dusky-winged Woodpecker, Pale-legged Shrike-vireo, and the extremely localised and skulking Berlepsch's Tinamou. One of the trials produced an extremely active Army Ant swarm which was accompanied by Bicoloured Antbird, Buff-rumped Warbler and Plain-brown Woodcreeper.

At mid-afternoon we drove the short distance to Rancho Suamox for the rare and declining Brown Wood-rail which has been coming to discarded fruit to the rear of the ice-cream store the fruit being used in the ice-cream making process. Unfortunately we had no luck with the rail and the only birds of note we recorded here were Ecuadorian Thrush and Pallid Dove but the ice-creams were great! We then set off on the 1.5 hour drive to Chontoloma Lodge near to Mashpi Town and arrived at around 19:00 in pouring rain. After a good, but beer free meal, we crashed at around 21:30 to the sound of heavy rain on the roof of the lodge, tomorrow there was a key bird to see and I hoped that the skies would rain themselves dry before dawn.