A photography tour leader just wrapped up ten days in Ecuador and came home with a stat that sums up the country's appeal: his group recorded 275 bird species in just eight days of field time. In a country roughly the size of Colorado that hosts more than 1,600 bird species overall, that kind of tally is par for the course.
The route crossed dramatic terrain — moss-draped cloud forests with trees over 100 feet tall, mountain passes above 13,000 feet, waterfalls on nearly every slope, and daily shifts from steamy lowland jungle to the cold, windswept páramo grasslands where cushion plants hug the ground.
The trip's star moments came from hummingbirds. Ecuador has around 130 species, and the group photographed 52 of them. Two stood out: the sword-billed hummingbird, whose bill is longer than its body, and the giant hummingbird, the world's largest, with a nine-inch wingspan. The latter was spotted casually feeding at a restaurant's back-deck feeders high in the Andes, gliding in on outstretched wings while smaller hummers frantically flapped around it.
Another highlight was the Andean cock-of-the-rock. Before dawn, the group hiked 15 minutes to a blind on a forested mountainside to watch males gather at a lek — a courtship arena where the brilliant red birds bob, hop and squawk in competition for females. The dominant males do the mating; the rest are working their way up the social ladder. Females then build mud nests on rocky cliffs and raise chicks entirely alone.
Toucans, snow-capped volcanoes rising above the clouds, and hundreds of rushing rivers rounded out the itinerary. For anyone who has dismissed Ecuador as merely a stopover on the way to the Galápagos, this is a reminder that the mainland alone ranks among the richest birding destinations on the planet.
Practical takeaway: guided photo and birding tours here pack an enormous amount into a week or two, thanks to short driving distances between habitats. Early starts are the norm — the best activity is at dawn — and hides at leks and feeding stations make even casual photographers get frame-worthy shots. Pack layers: you can go from humid lowland heat to near-freezing Andean altitudes in a single day.
