On my last morning here, I went out early with Eladio and Jhonny, and the best bird of the day happened right off the bat. Maybe the first bird we heard calling when we got onto the trail was one of the resident White-bellied Antpittas, which I had been hearing daily for the past week. We peered into the dim underbrush to look for it, and heard it again, quite close. Jhonny called to it, and it was almost too good to be true when it hopped right out into the trail not 3 metres ahead of us! It pecked for a grub or something, hopped a little further, and then finished crossing and disappeared into the bamboo on the other side of the trail. None of us had a camera, but the image in my memory got the day off to good start!
Hiking up the ridge behind the cabañas, we came across a couple mixed flocks and managed views of a few good birds, but mostly the rest of the hike was birding by ear. At this point I mostly have the wrens there down, and a couple flycatchers and woodcreepers, but the tanager chips will be a challenge for another trip. I am also getting to the point where I can sometimes tell which hummingbird is calling and not just that it is a hummingbird!
On the way to the airport, I stopped for an afternoon of birding at Guango Lodge. There are still quite a few species possible here that I need, so even though it wasn’t ideal timing, I figured, why not. And after a few hours of quietly walking the trails and sitting in front of the hummingbird feeders, I got a lifer! On my last walk down the trail by the lodge, a bit of activity caught my attention, and after sifting through a few warblers and Grey-headed Bush-tanagers in the canopy, I got a great head on view of a Short-billed Chlorospingus! Not the most flashy bird, but very satisfying as I had overlooked the fact that this species was possible here on my first visit.
Then I headed off to the airport, and began the long arduous journey back to Vermont, not really wanting to think about what tomorrow would bring.
