Ecuador: Day 7 - NWC

Today we had our usual 4:30ish wake up, coffee, breakfast, and canoe (ow! My butt!) at 6:00. Fortunately, it was a short canoe ride across the lake to the trailhead for the tower. We climbed the 33m-tall tower in short order, and proceeded to see some birds and get attacked by bugs. Spraying deet directly on some of the nests deterred or even killed some, but others returned, and in greater numbers. I must admit though, some of the birding was good. 

After 2 hours (or ~0.00000323 Current JLs) on the tower - 25min of clickity click and 95 min of shoo fly) we headed back down the tower and along a trail. We hiked the trails for a bit, saw a few birds, but it was getting close to noon and the bird activity slowed a lot.

After lunch, we took the rest of the day off. Dad and Andrew went through bird photos, and I updated the blog. Nice to have a little hammock time. 

Ecuador: Day 2 (morning) - Sacha Lodge

Dad woke up at 3, and went back to bed.  I woke up at 4 and just got ready. We had a 4:30 wake-up call (Wilmer came by at 4:15), breakfast at 5, and on the canoe by 5:30. We crossed the lake and went upstream into some thick jungle. It was plenty dark, and not much to see.  About 30 minutes in, we went ashore and walked up a trail to a tall wooden tower built around a Kapok tree. The tower was above the main canopy, and we were able to watch the birds wake up around us. It wasn't super busy with birds, and those that were around kept their distance fairly well, but we did see a playful group of Araçari and a cotinga or two. 

As you can see, the bugs became a bit of a nuisance towards the end. 

I did get some great video of hiking and canoeing, but there's no way this bandwidth can handle it.  Perhaps later. 

On the way out though, we had a great surprise - River otters!  Very cool! Highlight of the day, for sure so far. 

I got a video of the pair of these too. Keep an eye out for it!