A Reflections of the Natural World Blog Post Series by Jim Gain
Ecuador Birding – Where Every Feather Tells a Story
From October 26, 2025 through November 8, 2025 I joined 5 other adventurers and an outstanding photographer and birding guide (Liron Gertsman) with Eagle-Eye Tours to Ecuador. This blog series highlights the animals (mostly birds), people and locations we encountered over the 14 full days in this beautiful land.
DAY 4 – Afternoon
- My Ecuador Species Count including the visit to El Retiro and San Roque jumps up to: 185 (130 lifers)
- Primary eBird Public Hotspots: San Roque
It took me a second to understand what Liron was pointing at. The river was wide and restless, its surface broken by drifting mats of vegetation and the occasional stranded island of sand and roots. My eyes skimmed across the chaos, expecting some Amazonian specialty — a heron, a jacana, maybe another tern. But then the shape resolved itself, and my brain stalled. A BURROWING OWL, standing bolt‑upright on a half‑drowned island in the middle of the Napo River.
For a moment I genuinely thought I was hallucinating. This was a bird I associate with the dry, open spaces of home — the sun‑blasted grasslands of the San Joaquin Valley, the desert scrub of Arizona, the wide cattle pastures of the Southwest. And yet here it was, perched like a tiny sentinel above the swirling Napo, its sandy plumage glowing warm against the cool greens of the drifting hyacinth. It looked impossibly out of place, like someone had cut a piece of the Great Basin and pasted it onto a river that drains the Andes.
The owl didn’t seem bothered by the absurdity of the moment. It stood tall and alert, bright yellow eyes fixed on us with that mixture of curiosity and disdain Burrowing Owls have perfected. The wind ruffled its feathers, and for a heartbeat it looked almost heroic — a lone desert wanderer refusing to yield to the river’s slow, relentless push. I felt a strange, almost childlike delight rising in me, the kind that comes when the world suddenly breaks its own rules.
Seeing such a familiar bird in such an alien setting made the Amazon feel even more dreamlike, as if the boundaries between ecosystems had briefly dissolved. It was a reminder that nature is full of wanderers, misfits, and surprises — and that even in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, the unexpected can still stop you cold.
NEXT UP: EB#32 “Afternoon Birds, Bats, Butterflies and a Really Cool Pair of Owls at Sani Lodge“
Previous Ecuador Birding Blog Posts:
- DP-4 — White-necked Jacobin
Daily Photo 4. A familiar White-necked Jacobin provides a reminder that even common birds can be extraordinary photographic subjects. - DP-2 — Pale-vented Pigeon
Daily Photo 2. A long-awaited photograph of a Pale-vented Pigeon, finally captured just after a tropical downpour at Saní Lodge in Ecuador. - The Velvet‑purple Coronet and the Science of Color: A Field Photographer’s Reflection
A quiet Gray Fox along the Stanislaus River offered a moment of Zen‑like stillness, blending natural history, resilience, and the calm grace of wildness moving at its own pace. - EB100 – Epilogue – Full of Wonder and Gratitude
This epilogue looks beyond the individual bird highlights to the deeper meaning of the journey, capturing the wonder, gratitude, and renewed perspective that Ecuador left within me. This blog series chronicles Jim Gain’s experiences with birds and nature. - EB99 – Ecuador – Favorite Images from the West Andes
This epilogue looks beyond the individual bird highlights to the deeper meaning of the journey, capturing the wonder, gratitude, and renewed perspective that Ecuador left within me. This blog series chronicles Jim Gain’s experiences with birds and nature. - EB98 – Ecuador – Favorite Images from the High Andes Páramo
A visual tribute to the páramo, where the Andes reveal their rawest beauty and every moment feels carved from wind and light. This blog series chronicles Jim Gain’s experiences with birds and nature.
>>Ecuador Birding Blog Home Page Link https://reflectionsofthenaturalworld.com/ecuador-birding/
*This Ecuador Birding blog post was shaped and polished with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot, helping bring clarity and a consistent flow to my field notes and dictated memories.
**Unless otherwise indicated in the image caption, all photographs (>99%) are mine.
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