Guides: We are big fans of Tropical Birding. Great guides, terrific organization and decent prices. They have both organized tours and custom tours. We put together a custom tour. Tropical Birding is delight to work with, and we give them out very highest recommendation.

Guidebooks: There's really only one bird guide to Ecuador, Ridgely and Greenfield, The Birds of Ecuador. When there's 1,700 or more species and 750 pages, the bird guide isn't small or light to lug around in the field. A lot of folks have a bookbinder cut out the plates, laminate them, bind them with a comb binder and haul that around instead.

Lodging: We spent most nights in Jocotoco Foundation lodges. They are clean and comfortable, if not fancy. The food was very good, but then Ecuador has uniformly good food. Nights in hotels were a mixed bag. The Hosteria Duran, in Cuena - really a resort - was elegant, with hot springs pools. By contrast, Hotel Orillas del Zamora, in Zamora, had hourly room rates, which is never a good sign. And the staff at Hotel Izhcayluma, in Vilcabamba, was simply rude.

Travel: Tropical Birding provided a bus and driver. Both were excellent. Even starting frm Guayaquil, there's a lot of driving. The roads weren't bad, but the Andes in Southern Ecuador have been put through the geological grinder; there were mudslides everywhere. We were never blocked from a destination, but there were some detours.Wthe best birding is in the rainy season. The roads wash out. I would not want to attempt some of the driving myself, especially in Guayaquil, where most drivers seems suicidal.

Gear: The essence of birding is to see a lot of different habitats. In Ecuador, that means a considerable amount of time spent at high altitude. Even in Ecuador, at 14,000 feet, it's cold, especially in morning. on the other hand, in some of the lower valleys it was blast furnace hot. You'll want layers, raincoats and rain pants, hiking boots and rubber boots. Hats for sure. Ample sunscreen. Lots of ater.

Photography: It's dark. That may seem strange for a country on the equator, but consider: Lots of cloud forests, layered forest canopies and deep ravines. Most of the time, I was shooting at ISO1000 or higher. A tripod is a necessity, and as fast a telephoto lens as you can afford. Flash isn't very practical, except perhaps at lodges with hummingbird feeders.

Birds: We saw 451 species in 13 days of intensive birding. Just for contrast, in 16 years of birding in Alaska, I have managed 232 species. It's hard to imagine a place on the planet with better birding than Ecuador. The Old Loja-Zamora Road, in particular, is simply extraordinary. The steep-sloped canyon of the Rio Bombuscaro gives you canopy-top views along miles of lightly used road. Here's the species list: