[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

Femi Faminu, who frequently birds with (and without) us at Malibu Lagoon and elsewhere, recently returned from a birding trip to Ecuador. This time she visited the Ecuadorian portion of the Amazon basin, as well as the “coastal rainforest” known as the Chocó, some parts of which stake the claim to being the rainiest rainforest anywhere. (They’d better check with Meghalaya in northeastern India which has the world rainfall records for: hour, 24-hours, week, month and year.)

She saw 412 species of birds, plus mammals, large flapping insects and…well, perhaps they were larvae. (I hope not botfly larvae.) This included plenty of the beautiful tanagers, second largest bird family in the world, with which South America abounds. (Our U.S. tanagers, many of which are also beautiful but not as stunningly beautiful, aren’t actually tanagers anymore. They’re cardinals.) You’ll also find out why it’s unwise to climb trees to look for potoos.

Among her birds were species with intriguing names like Blue-throated Piping-Guan, Great Potoo, White-throated Daggerbill, Sunbittern, Rufescent Tiger-Heron, Golden-headed Quetzal, Broad-billed Motmot, Moustached Antwren, Rusted-belted Tapaculo, Western Woodhaunter, Dwarf Tyrant-Manakin, Long-wattled Umbrellabird, Black-capped Donacobius, and the formerly-frugivorous Bananaquit. If you speak Spanish, you’ll know all you need to know about the tapaculo.

And – for the food aficionados – she eats something unidentifiable but it was small and (I think) white, looking altogether too grublike, to which she initially has a strong reaction.

Makes you want to go birding.

If you go here https://www.youtube.com/@femif9792 you can see her many other films.

Here’s a map of the Chocó, courtesy of Wikipedia.