burrowing owls nest. Giant hummingbirds often flycatch over the
park’s small reservoir. Another
interesting bird here is the purple-collared woodstar. This tiny, dry-land hummingbird makes a strange,
almost laughing noise unlike any
hummingbird I’ve heard. Fully
adult-plumaged males are rarely
seen; usually you see only a few
purple or blackish flecks on a male
purple-collared woodstar’s gorget.
Common at lower elevations, the
rufous-tailed hummingbird is here,
as are the high-elevation black-tailed trainbearer and the western
emerald. The emerald is a small
hummingbird in which the male is
all glistening green and the female
is gray-bellied with a black mask.
East of Quito
If you head east of Quito, on
the main highway to Tena and the
edge of Amazonia, you’ll have
a few hours of twists and turns
overlooking miles of wild habitat,
with Sumaco National Park on one
side and Antisana Reserve on the
other. About an hour outside Quito,
you’ll climb to paramo grassland
at the summit near where in the
1500s Spanish explorer Francisco
de Orellana began his descent from
the Andes toward the Amazon. (He
survived this adventure and gained
fame as the first European to travel
down the Amazon to its mouth.)
This highest point, Papallacta Pass,
brings you into high-elevation
hummer territory. Ecuadorian hill-
star, a snazzy, large hummer with
a violet-purple head (in the male)
and white belly and tail shares
this treeless terrain with a dark
hummingbird called the blue-
mantled thornbill. The hot springs
town of Papallacta is a bit lower
down, and here you can pick up
not only tyrian metaltail but also
its all-green cousin the viridian
metaltail. Orange shining sun-
beams adorn the bushes here, and
once again you’ve reached the
right elevation (this time on the
eastern slope) to see swordbills at
the Datura flowers.
