Birding and photography on my own.

Have you checked out "Guango Lodge"? It's about 2 hours by car from Quito, down the road from the thermal baths at Papallacta. The time I was there, I saw a photographer with his equipment set up waiting for hummingbirds to stop by and visit the flower he had. Not a lot of people because it's tucked away. The area is a little remote and I don't know what else is around there. But the people who run it are nice and you might be able to get a room cheap. There is a huge property that they have and you can walk around as much as you like.

Banana Lodge is very nice and reasonably priced but there are no trails on the property as it is up against the river. There are some trails in the Misahualli area and maybe even across the river from Banana Lodge. We stayed at Liana Lodge ($192 per night for 2) and there were 2 tours included each day. There were some trails in the area you could walk on your own.
We stayed at Yellow Room (or hotel I forget which) in Mindo and they had some nice long trails, but I doubt it would take more than 2 or 3 days to cover them all. We saw some birds and butterflies there. They also had a lot of birds that just hung around the hotel and massive amounts of hummingbirds on their feeders.
I am not a birder, but think you will do better in Mindo than the Tena area.
We were there last February.
Regards,
Bob

Thanks for the replies. Guango Lodge is not cheap but it's a possibility for a couple of days. I would really like to be at a lower elevation. Yellow House in Mindo sounds good but I think it's the rainy season over there. I walked trails in the Misahualli area twenty years ago and didn't know if they would still be good. I'm considering the Alberque Espanol Jungle Lodge down river.

A place for just getting to see birds for me is around Banos. I have been plenty of times in Machay waterfalls. There is a trail going downhill you have to pay 1 dollars entrance fee and if you go early enough or late enough you wont find anybody there. I have seen an Andean Mommot, and Cocks of the Rock, but i have been to this place several times as i used to live in Banos. The trail uphill has about 7 different waterfalls, i know you are not interested but no one goes up there, and sometimes you can find lots of butterflies licking a rock and of course more birds as very little amount of people get to the place.

Me and my wife did one of the paths in the Yellow House and it was very good. We didnt really do the trail in the proper hour, but that one was about 45 minutes walking uphill and then we went to a view point of Mindo and it got dark on our way back, we could hear a lot of birds but didnt get to see any.

I hope this help.

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