Birding Site Guide

This is another Jocotoco Foundation reserve with a number of threatened Tumbesian endemics and other birds of interest. It is easily accessed by public transport and the nearby town of Piñas makes a good base. There is also accommodation in the reserve but it is expensive. Piñas is a medium-sized town with several places to stay, eat and an internet cafe. I stayed at the apartment in Piñas used by biologists working in the reserve and was lucky enough to be accompanied by Mary Elizabeth Juiñes into the field on one day to look for the Endemic El Oro Parakeet (which we only heard). Piñas can be reached by direct buses from Loja or Cuenca. From Piñas, there are half hourly buses that leave to Machala from a place called 'Cinco esquinas' and pass by the reserve. There are several places you can enter.

The nearest place to Piñas only takes 20 minutes and is called 'La Urna' (the bus costing less than a dollar), a big blue, concrete shrine which all the drivers know. From here, you can walk along a gravel track which starts at about 1000m in altitude and goes down to the Umbrellabird Lodge at about 500m(?). The walk takes several hours but there is excellent birding. I saw several Rufous-headed Chachalacas at the start of the road. About halfway down, there is a trail or to the right called 'Sendero de los Pericos' which can be a good place to look for the El Oro Parakeet in the morning. I only heard them here, but saw Bronze-olive Pygmy-Tyrant, Blue-black Grosbeak and Pale-mandibled Aracari. Before the lodge, there is a trail off to the left to forest with a reliable Long-wattled Umbrellbird lek. You really need to be there first thing in the morning though. Below the lodge is supposedly a reliable site for the Grey-backed Hawk which I also failed to see here.

Another entrance is at 'Jardin de los Colibries' further down from the Urna. There are many feeders here and you can see many species of hummingbird. There are also feeders around the lodge with most of the same species. By the 'Jardin' there is also a house belonging to a guardaparque named Valdamiro. You might be asked to pay here ($15 for foreigners), and if not you can pay when you get up to the lodge, about 40 minutes walk from the road. The 3rd entrance is by a place called Selva Alegre. This is a big swimming pool complex. This is the furthest to the lodge and is better to access in a car. At a curve in the road, just before a big sign reading 'Ben Olewine', is where I saw Ochraceous Attila. My second day, I accompanied Mery Elizabeth to a place on the other side of the main road called Cresta Polo, not normally accessible to the public, which is one of the best spots to see the parakeets. This season is apparently difficult to see the species. In January though, they are apparently guaranteed. I saw 118 species including 12 lifers

Species seen