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South America Itinerary Ideas

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:14 pm
by Jon Sweezey
I'm planning a 10 day trip to South America this August to photograph wildlife including snakes, frogs, cats and birds of prey. Right now I'm looking at Colombia, Ecuador or Peru and my preference is to explore and photograph by foot rather than by boat. I've been to SA twice but my wildlife viewing opportunities were not very good compared to when I went to Costa Rica so I'm hoping to change that this time around. Please let me know if you have any good recommendations of where I should go. Thanks

Re: South America Itinerary Ideas

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 7:45 pm
by aholman1351
The Pantanal of Brazil is an excellent place to visit and photograph as many of the various species (for example many snail kites) are easy to locate and you can do that walking with a good guide.  A good choice is the Pantanal Bird Club with which I have travelled twice.
http://pantanalbirdclub.org/

Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 5:42 am
by ChrisRoss
There are heaps of birding lodges in Ecuador and plenty of different habitats. They'll all arrange to collect you from the airport. I visited Bellavista, Guango, Wild Sumaco and Copalinga. All great lodges. Bellavista is West of Quito, Guango and Wild Sumaco are to the East. If you want variety I'd say Bellavista and Guango for 3 days each and do Copalinga for another 3. Copalinga is a flight to the far south of Ecuador , the other 2 accessed via ground transfers from Quito. Wild Sumaco is great but is 5 hours by car from Quito so possibly a little far for a 10 day itinerary.

Bellavista is at 2000m or so and has many hummingbird feeders and they leave the lights on at night which attracts countless moths and other bugs. Next morning forest birds come in to feed on the moths at first light.

Guango is at 2800m has great hummers and feeders as well, good forest birds including sword billed hummers, Chestnut breasted coronet, long tailed Sylph, torrent ducks in the river, Turquoise Jay and many others. Close by you can get Ecuardorian hillstar and rufous bellied seedsnipe and other high altitude specialists.

Copalinga is at about 950m and has banana feeders bringing in many tanagers and other forest birds. In hummers it is great for wire crested thorntail, white tipped sicklebill among others. It is close to podocarpus NP, which had great butterflies and we saw otters in the river. The owner is a fantastic host and very helpful.

All lodges have great food and I can recommend them all highly. All will arrange transfers to the lodge from the airport and will even arrange tarnsfers between lodges. On my return from Guango I had a guide take me to look for high altitude specialists on the way back to the airport. I have all my photos from this trip on my website (link in signature)