Day 10, Papallactas Pass, 3/17/16

It was raining as I said my goodbye to Angel and and his staff and I took off in my little rental car.  My flight home was not until late so I had plenty of birding time.  I found a good place with habitat above the town of Papallacta but the rain would not let up.  A pair of Great Thrushes investigated my pishes from the car.

After an hour of waiting I gave up and drove on up to Papallacta Pass and took the rocky road that parallels the highway.  Several Stout-billed Cinclodes braved the rain and I got a shot through the windshield.

Found a couple of Plumbeous Sierra-Finches.  The female is the streaked one.

Here's a Glossy Flowerpiercer.  The similar Black Flowerpiercer lacks the pale shoulders.  I saw both in small uncooperative flockes.

I watched a bank of tubular flowers that are the favorite of the Sword-billed Hummingbird.  A large dark hummer with white tail tips nectared on the hill above.  It had be be Rainbow-bearded Thornbill by the tail, a species I've seen before.  Here's the flowers without a hummer.

Finally I saw a White-throated Tyrannulet, one of the most common birds of the high Andes.  I saw many on my previous two trips.

I had hope this large tyrant flycatcher with lots of white in the tail would be the rare White-tailed Shrike-Tyrant.  But pale eyes mean it's the common Black-billed Shrike-Tyrant.

My first lifer on the trip was a Red-crested Cotinga ten days ago.  Another one came to say goodbye to me.

My last bird of the trip was a common Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle.

It started to rain again so I decided to head on down to the airport.  I returned the car with no problems and Budget took me to the airport where I had a long wait for my overnight flight to Houston.