After four wonderful days of birding at Refugio Paz de Las Aves and surrounding areas of Mindo, Ecuador, I was not done with the area. I booked three nights at Mindo Yellow House, and I had already stayed there one night after my tour at Refugio Paz ended. I had two more nights at the Yellow House, and I would actually stay another two nights. Yellow House was a unique hotel/hostel because it had its own network of hiking and birding trails attached to it.
Chestnut-backed antbird on the Mindo Yellow House Trails.
Morning starts with a breakfast with a view and hummingbirds
Like many hotels and restaurants, Mindo Yellow House comes with free breakfast. The first day, I did not think I would be able to take advantage of this. I had an early tour leaving at 5:30 a.m., but they accommodated me by leaving a to go breakfast including fruit and egg sandwiches in the fridge below my accommodation. The next morning, I was able to experience the breakfast in person.
View of the road between Yellow House and the village of Mindo.
My first full day at the Yellow House, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and started birding the area around the hotel. There were tons of birds to see even without hitting the trail. There is also a quarter mile road that leads from the hotel to town. The entrance gate is adjacent to the local park and several restaurants, so even though it is tucked away in the forest, it is also convenient to the village and many restaurants, shops, stores etc.
My first swallow tanager at the Yellow House.
Breakfast was amazing
Breakfast was wonderful with fruit, bread, coffee, and eggs made to order. The table looks out on the rainforest and there is an active hummingbird feeder hanging right in front of the view. The area is open, but there is a roof above you. It was a great pleasure to have such a lovely view with sparkling violeteers with breakfast.
Beautiful rufous motmot at the fruit feeder in front of the Yellow House.
Birding Mindo Yellow House, breakfast, more birding, hiking, more birding repeat
The next three days, I spent birding Mindo Yellow House grounds and trails. There are other activities to do in town, like seeing waterfalls, chocolate tours, tubing, and rafting, but I spent all my time on the Yellow House Trails looking for birds. Every day, I saw new and old species. The Yellow House Trails are at a lower elevation than Refugio Paz, so there are different species here. The trails go straight up to higher elevations.
Related: Panama Pipeline Road birding the army antswarm
Fawn-breasted tanager was a new species for me along the Mindo Yellow House Trails.
Yellow House Trails.
In fact, it seemed like there were different species on the grounds of the Yellow House, then after climbing up for a little bit, there were a lot of different tanager species, then at the top of the trails, you would find interesting wren species, higher elevation species, and toucans. It was interesting how the birds were found stratified at different elevations although some species were found everywhere and some were only found at a certain elevations.
Another bird that required a lot of patience was the red-faced spinetail as they like to stick to the thickets. There was one making its nest right below my room, so I learned that I could stake out his nest taking to get a picture of him in the open.
Chasing the scale-crested pygmy tyrant
On my first morning, birding at Mindo Yellow House, I started to walk down the path towards town. This area is more open with a stream that meanders on one side, and pasture on the other. There is some livestock, which cattle egrets follow and spaced out trees as there is no forest here. I used the Merlin app to try and find and identify the birds here. One that kept coming up on this stretch was a scale-crested pygmy tyrant. This is a bird that I had heard many times at Refugio Paz and other areas around Mindo, but I had not yet seen.
A decent shot of the scale-crested pygmy tyrant, but it did not show its crest.
One criticism I have of the guided tours at Refugio Paz was that they strictly target key species like the Andean cock-of-the-rock and the antpittas. They tend to ignore smaller species like greenlets, tyranulets, and tyrants unless they are easily found. This is what I enjoy about solo birding without a guide. I can focus on any species I want, and I spent over an hour searching for this scale-crested pygmy tyrant.
Finally success with the scale-crested pygmy tyrant.
Yellow House Trails closer to the lodge.
Finally success with the scale-crested pygmy tryant
It took me 15-20 minutes just to see it. Then it was another 45 minutes trying to get a clear photo of it through the trees. This was not easy as this bird was tiny and even in a backdrop where the trees were isolated, it was still difficult to get that perfect angle. This bird likes the thick undergrowth, so it did not make itself visible at the edge of the tree. It only stayed in the thickest part of the middle of the tree. My patience paid off, and I finally got a decent shot.
Masked water-tyrant at the water feature adjacent to the hotel.
There was always a black phoebe or two around the grounds at the Mindo Yellow House.
Birds seen around the grounds
The Yellow House had hummingbird and fruit feeders so hummingbirds and common tangers could always be seen around the grounds. There was also a rufous-breasted motmot that often made an appearance at sometime during the day. Other birds that were common around the hotel were black phoebes, red-faced spinetail, masked water-tyrant, and flycatchers like the tropical kingbird, social flycatcher, and rusty-margined flycatcher. Common tanagers like the blue-gray, palm, and flame-rumped were also seen and more uncommon like swallow, blue-necked, and white-shouldered could occasionally be seen.
Blue-gray tanager, a common tanager, but I am always happy to see them.
Hiking up the hill for more robust tanager species
As soon as you leave the grounds, there is a gate where you begin the trails at Mindo Yellow House. The trail goes through some pasture land where there are some domesticated horses. The trail immediately starts gaining elevation. Once you start going up, the first thing I noticed was there was more of a variety of tanager species. Some of the tanagers I saw farther up the trail included bay-headed tanager, rufous-throated tanager, fawn-breasted tanager, Guira tanager, golden-necked, flame-faced and a few others.
Flame-faced tanager up in the tree tops looking for food.
Other birds that were seen higher up that I did not see around the grounds included ornate flycatchers. I saw a pair of these birds I think every time I came up here. Probably the coolest bird that I saw halfway up the hill was a laughing falcon. I was coming down in the evening, and I had just run into someone who asked what I had seen. On this day, the answer was not much as I was in a drought seeing interesting bird species when this bird flew off right in front of me. It landed on a palm branch about a quarter of a mile away, and I was able to get some clear pictures.
Laughing falcon on the Mindo Yellow House Trails.
Ornate flycatchers are the best posers for pictures. They like to sit on exposed limbs and barbed wires and remain for long periods of time.
Loop trails and overlook have the most interesting birds
The main trail gains elevation for a mile or maybe more and then there are a series of loop trails at the top. One of them has a beautiful overlook of the Mindo Valley. The birding is significantly better up here although it is still worthwhile at the lower elevations. As soon as I came near to the trail junctions, I would start hearing different birds like the ubiquitous Andean solitaire, toucans, and wood wrens. I was really excited to hear a chestnut-backed antbird. To my surprise, the one I heard appeared right next to the trail and posed on several low hanging branches. These are often birds you hear but never see.
Chestnut-backed antbird looking right back at me.
I came the closest to seeing the elusive Andean solitaire here. I was on one of the loop trails and it was calling so close that I was pretty sure that I was under the tree where it was calling from. Then a masked trogon landed nearby and distracted me. After locating the masked trogon, I tried to relocate the Andean solitaire, but it was much further away, and I never got a look.
Overlook of the Mindo Valley.
Yellow House trails overlook of the Mindo Valley.
I ended up getting a mediocre shot of the masked trogon in terrible light, so I would have been better off trying to capture the Andean solitaire.
Crimson-rumped toucanet about halfway up the trail got the toucan party started.
Surrounded by toucans, toucanets, and aracaris on the Mindo Yellow House Trails
After three days of hiking the Mindo Yellow House Trails, I had yet to see a toucan. I had heard them a couple of times, and one was close on the first day as I was hiking up on the main trail, but no luck. On day three, I spotted two crimson-rumped toucanets on the way up the main trail. Once I got up on top, I started hiking the first loop trail. Just as I was about to return to junction, I started hearing the sound of large flying birds all around me with some toucan like calls.
The first pale-mandibled aracari that showed up was the vanguard.
One of the most amazing birding experiences of my life
I looked up to two pale-mandibled aracaris in the trees right above me. What happened next was one of the most incredible experiences I have had as a birder. The sound of flapping wings filled the air and suddenly I was half surrounded by calling toucans. There was a mixture of yellow-throated and choco toucans that landed in the trees just above me. Several more aracaris also joined. There had to be at least 15 toucans and aracaris in the trees right above me in a semi-circle around me. I did not know what I should be focused on and just tried taking as many pictures and videos as possible.
Yellow-throated toucan along the Mindo Yellow House Trails.
Pale-mandibled aracari among many other toucans.
Hard to tell the choco and the yellow-throated toucan apart, but the sound indicated that this was a yellow-throated.
Much thicker jungle higher up.
The experience ended as quickly as it started
This mayhem was incredible; however, it ended just as quickly as it began. The aracaris took off first and then one-by-one, all the toucans took off, and I was left in silence wondering if this amazing this I just witnessed even took place. Was it just a dream? I looked at my pictures, and I had evidence that this amazing experience happened on the Mindo Yellow House Trails.
Mindo Yellow House – This is the main lodge. I stayed at an individual room in a separate building.
Highly recommend Mindo Yellow House
Originally, I booked a stay for three nights at Mindo Yellow House. I extended twice and ended up staying there five nights. The rooms were spartan but clean, but they were reasonably priced, breakfast was awesome, it was in a convenient location to town, and the trail and the birding was world class. The owners and the people that were worked there were so nice too. They even drove me to the bus station in their own car when I was leaving.
Adventure on!
Check out my previous three blog posts on birding in the Mindo Cloud Forest!
Part II Refugio Paz de Las Aves day 2 and 3
Part III Other birding areas in Mindo and beyond
