Mindo Bird Count

Here is a post with no pics!
A few weekends ago I did the Mindo Christmas Bird Count. This is part of the Audubon Christmas Bird Counts and Mindo is famous for having 'won' a number of times. I put won in quotes because it isn't a real competition but rather a way for bird watchers to get together and do some citizen science. The numbers are actually really useful for scientists interested in global trends in bird populations, particularly now with climate change causing big changes in migration timing and patterns.

So a week or so before the count, Lisa and I were stopped on the street by a local bird guide and asked to participate in the count. I said sure, why not. So I went to the first meeting and they asked me if I knew my birds and the trails behind the Yellow House, where we live. I said yes to both. Next thing I know I am being listed as a guide of one of the ~35 groups going out around Mindo to count birds! I was also warned (threatened?) that I needed to see an oilbird as it is rare around here and the Yellow House trails are one of the few places they can be seen. Now I am not only a guide but I have pressure on me to find a locally rare bird! I found out that I would be guiding some students from a university in Guayaquil who were coming up for the count. So I signed up and signed Amalia up too as she wanted to be part of the fun.

So count day rolled around and I was nervous. We met in town at 7pm to get instructions, t-shirts, lunches, and to meet the participants. We also had dignitaries from the local and national governments including the mayor, members of the Tourism Ministry, etc. I met the 4 people who were to go with me. Actually, I only met 2 as the other two were yet to arrive. I also got to talking to some of the other guides and we decided to head up the hill that night to find the oilbird. So we left around 10pm to find the oilbird. I wanted two nights in case we failed the first time. But as luck would have it, we found the bird! All was good and I was in bed by 1am.

The next morning, Amalia and I went to town at 6am to start the count. First we had to meet our group. Of the four, only 2 showed up. We waited around for the other two but they were hungover or sleeping… so we left. Amalia went to the cabin to bird around there and I headed up the hill again. It quickly became apparent that my students were worthless. Neither had binoculars or any interest in birds. They both claimed to be students of tourism but wanted to be guides but it became clear this was a class assignment that they had to do, not that they wanted to do. The woman was so out of shape she could barely hike. The guy was so tired (he had been up most of the night) that he would stop and sit down every chance he got. He eventually fell asleep on the side of the trail! Neither had boots either so they got to walk through cow poop in their sneakers. Anyway, around lunch time they decided they had had enough and bailed. I birded another hour or so and then went back to the cabin to bird more with the family. They had a number of hummingbirds from the feeders and the garden and in the end we had around 60 or 70 species. No bad for a bunch of non-birders!

Sunday we got together for the compilation. This was crazy. I was told to be there at 7am but it didn't start until 10:30. Luckily, I figured this so didn't make my way there until 9am. The way it works in that each group in assigned a number, I was 27, and they go down the list of possible birds we could have seen. If you saw it, you raise your hand and say your number and the number of individual birds you saw. This is not an efficient system! For rare birds it goes fast, for common birds it takes time. Meanwhile, someone is entering all the numbers on a spreadsheet. For rare birds, everyone claps if only one group sees it. This only happened for me once, the oilbird!

In the end, I think we got around 450 species but I haven't heard the final number yet. It was certainly a huge local event and we are glad we participated. The town is very proud of it's birds and it was fun to be part of the bird count!