Ecuador: Birding the Mindo Valley
Ecuador may well be the epicenter of Neotropical bird diversity, and perhaps no other destination expresses this better than the western slopes of Volcán Pichincha. This region stretches for only some 50 miles to the west of the country's charming capital city, Quito, yet holds a phenomenal array of bird species. From our base of operations, the Séptimo Paraíso Cloud Forest Reserve in the renowned Mindo Valley, we visited a variety of nearby bird sanctuaries, nature reserves, and birding hot spots in search of the local avian specialties found here.
Birders paradise
Consider that Ecuador which only covers 0.02% of the earth's land surface, holds about 10% of all bird species found on the planet and it is not an exaggeration to state that an inordinately high number of Ecuador's 1,600 species of birds are found in the Cloud Forests!
The Tandayapa and Mindo Vallies, just 84 km northwest of Quito, are amongst the best birding sites in South America. Around 430 species have been recorded, with 370 around Mindo alone, the birding here is excellent with species such as Toucan Barbet, Scaled Antpitta, Spillman`s Tapaculo, Little Woodstar, Long-Wattled Umbrellabird, Tanager-finch, Black-crowned Tityra, Golden-Bellied Warbler, Torrent Duck,White-capped Dipper and many more.
What is a Cloud Forest?
The definition given by the UNEP is
“Tropical montane cloud forests are a rare type of evergreen mountain forest found in tropical areas where local climatic conditions cause cloud and mist to be regularly in contact with the forest vegetation. These forests support ecosystems of distinctive floristic and structural form and contain a disproportionately large number of the world’s endemic and threatened species.” Press for link
