A birding and photography trip to Galapagos and Ecuador in May/June 2016 with BirdQuest/Wild Images

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I've set up this web site to give an account of the amazing trip my wife Anne & I had from 20th May to 5th June 2016, with a group, some of whom like ourselves had booked through BirdQuest, and others through WildImages. Our UK tour leader was Andy Swash, the co-author [with Rob Still] of the essential guide "Birds, Mammals and Reptiles of the Galapagos Islands" [ISBN 978-0-7136-7551-1].
Our local guide during the Galapagos archipelago trip was Ernesto Vaca who is a lifelong resident and passionate about the wildlife of the islands. Some of us had a 4 day 'extension' in the Andes near Quito, based in the lodge Septimo Paraiso, just outside Mindo. For these few days our local guide was Juan Carlos Calvachi, one of the best birders in mainland Ecuador.

In the photo above is our boat for the Galapagos cruise, the excellent motor yacht 'TipTop IV', which had a crew of 8, who were superb - nothing was too much trouble, including tracking after whales, courtesy of the captain.
The participants for the cruise were the UK tour leader Andy Swash, myself and Anne, Alec & Katherine Gillespie from Oz, David & Linda Bishop, also from Oz, Michael & Malcolm Boswell [Trinidad & Canada], Linda Pearn and Katherine Schulz [Canada], and then Bob Newman & Diane Major, Ellen Lewis, Janice Meakin, and Mike Miles from the UK. We were joined for the 4 day Andes extension by Greg and Boo Baker from the UK.

Navigating the site: if you click on the 'Route' menu item you will see a map of the cruise route. At the bottom is a link to the daily summary pages. At the end of each daily page is a link to the next 1 or 2 days. Alternatively you can jump to specific days using the 'Daily Pages' menu item. There is a small gallery at the bottom of each page or section. Click on a photo to see a full size version and use the L>R arrows keys or mouse to move through the full sized versions. Hovering over the small thumbnails should display a pop-up caption. File size of all the original images has been reduced in the galleries to [a] reduce upload time for me and [b] to maximise use of allowable site size. I claim all copyright to the photos. Navigation of the photos in the galleries pages is the same.
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The photo below is of the Septimo Paraiso lodge which is just above Mindo in the Andes.