20 Jun 2027 - 03 Jul 2027 (14 days)
USD6,295 SPACES AVAILABLE
Tour Leader: Lev Frid
Tour Price (Per person): USD6,295 (GBP4,787 * EUR5,511 * AUD8,993)
Single Supplement: USD780 (GBP593 * EUR683 * AUD1,114)
02 Feb 2028 - 15 Feb 2028 (14 days)
USD6,500 SPACES AVAILABLE
Tour Leader: James Wade Lee
Tour Price (Per person): USD6,500 (GBP4,943 * EUR5,690 * AUD9,286)
Pricing notes : *Prices are estimated, and dates may change*
15 Feb 2029 - 28 Feb 2029 (14 days)
USD6,900 SPACES AVAILABLE
Tour Leader: Robert Wilcox
Tour Price (Per person): USD6,900 (GBP5,247 * EUR6,040 * AUD9,857)
Pricing notes : *Prices are estimated, and dates may change*
Ecuador sits at the crossroads of an extraordinary range of habitats, from windswept Andean páramo to lush cloudforest and lowland rainforest, packing remarkable biodiversity into a compact and easily accessible area. Its small size, excellent infrastructure, and spectacular scenery make it one of the world’s premier birding destinations.
This tour is unapologetically focused on one of its greatest treasures: hummingbirds. Across a carefully selected network of sites, we encounter an astonishing diversity of these jewels, from the impossibly long-billed Sword-billed Hummingbird and shimmering Great Sapphirewing of the high Andes, to dazzling cloudforest species such as Violet-tailed Sylph, Empress Brilliant, and White-booted Racket-tail, and foothill stunners including Gould’s Jewelfront and Wire-crested Thorntail.
With extended time at some of the finest feeder setups in the Neotropics, we enjoy repeated, close-range views of dozens of species, offering exceptional opportunities to study behaviour, appreciate subtle identification features, and capture unforgettable photographic moments.
Ecuadorian, White-tailed & Green-backed Hillstars; Black-tailed Trainbearer; Great Sapphirewing; Purple-backed, Black-mantled, Blue-mantled, Purple-mantled & Rainbow-bearded Thornbills; Shining Sunbeam; Giant, Speckled, Many-spotted, Violet-headed & Sword-billed Hummingbirds; Collared & Bronzy Incas; Long-tailed & Violet-tailed Sylphs; Tourmaline Sunangel; Chestnut-breasted, Velvet-purple & Buff-tailed Coronets; Mountain Avocetbill; Tyrian & Viridian Metaltails; White-bellied, Purple-throated & Gorgeted Woodstars; Glowing, Sapphire-vented, Black-breasted, Hoary & Golden-breasted Pufflegs; Great Sapphirewing; Violet-fronted, Black-throated, Empress, Green-crowned & Fawn-breasted Brilliants; White-booted & Peruvian Racket-tails; Geoffrey’s Wedgebill; Brown Violetear; Bronzy & Brown Incas; Green & Sparkling Violetears; Gould’s Jewelfront; Golden-tailed Sapphire; Napo Sabrewing; Rufous-vented & Purple-bibbed Whitetips; Golden-tailed Sapphire; Blue-fronted Lancebill; Wire-crested & Green Thorntails; Fork-tailed & Crowned Woodnymphs; Green & White-whiskered Hermits; Ecuadorian Piedtail; White-tipped Sicklebill; Buff-winged Starfrontlet; White-necked Jacobin; Andean Emerald.
White-tailed Deer; Andean Fox; Mountain Tapir (rare); Spectacled Bear (rare); Olingito; Tayra; White-fronted Capuchin.
paramo grasslands and highland lakes, temperate tree line forest & polylepis, temperate cloud-forest, upper and lower subtropical cloud-forest, subtropical cloud-forest, tropical foothill forest
chilly at high elevations but pleasant in the subtropics
8 with 1 Rockjumper leader & local birding leader
UNDEMANDING: This tour is ideal for birders and wildlife enthusiasts of all experience levels. It’s suitable for most mobility levels and offers a relaxed pace, ensuring an enjoyable experience for everyone.
Undemanding. Suitable for all birding / wildlife interest levels. Our Relaxed series of tours are designed to focus on having an enjoyable holiday with a bird and wildlife focus. Where possible; we have reduced or removed long drives, single night stays and poor/rustic accommodation. We have also sought to reduce or remove difficult hikes, narrow/muddy trails and otherwise oppressive environmental conditions. Early starts and night birding are mostly optional, and we will not spend much time searching for difficult and/or skulking species. These tours are not suitable for hardcore birders and listers, or dedicated photographers.
Comfortable
Mostly undemanding. Birding is primarily at lodge feeders & trails, roadside or in parks/preserves.
Good to very good, numerous feeders.
Bobby Wilcox is an excellent guide. He is a skilled birder and clearly worked hard to prepare for the trip. It is a different experience being in a group of 8 with a guide (+ local guide) compared to just the two of us with a dedicated guide (on our custom tour), and it took us a little while to adapt to that, but we really enjoyed the trip. Most members of our group of 8 clients had extensive worldwide birding experience, whilst our expertise was much more limited. Bobby did a good job of supporting us and making sure that everyone got to see as many birds as possible and enjoyed the trip. We would be very happy to go on another tour with Bobby in the future. As mentioned previously in our "Northern Ecuador" feedback - we were very happy with the support that we received from Rockjumper. Thanks very much - we had a wonderful time!
"This tour was great and Dusan was fabulous, an incredible birder, guide and person. I don't need to say more because I'm sure you've heard many accolades about him. It was a great tour though harder than I expected but I'm old and age makes a difference. I definitely would go again with Dusan. There was a disparity of physical abilities among the clients and Dusan handled the situation very well, taking care of the one person who could do the least physically and I think keeping her happy under the circumstances. This really speaks to his people skills. The three of us who were the weakest physically were the oldest. I was elated because I saw the oil birds and Sapayoa(s!!) and why I signed up not even considering the difficulty of canopy birding and what hilly jungle trails entailed. I'm so glad I went and would have hated being dissuaded. So thank you..."
This was my first Rockjumper experience and it was excellent. Dušan Brinkhuizen was amazing at finding birds.
I had a great time on the two Ecuador tours. I have been wanting to bird with Lev Frid since I viewed his webinar on Mexico, and he was every bit as fun and as good a guide as I thought that he would be. Lev's cheerful energy and care for his tour members were always evident, and his bird finding and identifying skills were superb. He worked hard to make sure that everyone was able to see the birds whenever possible, and he dealt with the varying experience levels of the various tour members very well. The list of tour members changed from tour to tour, with a wide range of ages, birding agendas, and personalities. Lev took it all in stride and provided what I considered to be an excellent experience for all. He worked particularly well with the local guides, with whom he shared friendship and respect, and his ability in speaking Spanish was an excellent asset. The local guides were all excellent, and worked hard to give us the best birding experience possible. Our driver kept us safe on the road and got us where we needed to go. The lodges were all great, with comfortable accommodations and excellent food. I picked up several birds that I had missed on an earlier tour through the area, and got a good look at a Mountain Tapir, as a rare bonus mammal. All in all, it was an excellent trip, and I look forward to future trips with Rockjumper.
[To Dušan Brinkhuizen] Truly, it was the very best birding trip I have ever been on, including several other Rockjumper trips which have all been great. As I think back on it, I can only marvel at your amazing ability to hear and identify the "chips" and "tsits" of birds calling or singing from deep in the understorey or high in the canopy of mature cloud forest while walking with a noisy group of folks or, even more unbelievable, from a moving vehicle. And if this wasn't amazing enough, you would then expertly call the desired individual bird into view and, with incredible calm and patience, succeed in making sure that everyone of us on the tour got a crippling look (and maybe even a spectacular photo) of the target bird -- that as often as not -- was not only beautiful but also both rare and furtive. And to further blow our minds, you often would pull out your vegetation clippers and create a setting and stage on which the bird would perform for us -- even sometimes, like some magician, telling us on which perch it would sit!! As a measure of your expertise as a trip leader, let me tell you that on the two back-to-back trips with you I "got" 110 life birds (101 seen and 9 heard) and only missed 1 species that would have been a life bird for me (Blue-mantled Thornbill). Never on any trip before in my life had I experienced such a high rate of success!! But above and beyond all of the uncanny skill and expertise that you exhibited, was the kindness, friendship, and humanity that you showed to each us. For this I am so very grateful. Thank you!!! Moreover, I'm sure everyone on the trip felt this way and I'm sure it created a safe and happy feeling among all of us that made the trip even more enjoyable. I truly hope that I can go with you on another trip sometime. And finally thank you also for the wonderfully detailed and beautifully illustrated trip report you sent. I remain amazed at how you could remember so clearly all the details of the trip.
Ecuador - Hummingbirds Adventure (Relaxed) 2026 - February 2026
Ecuador - Northern: Ultimate Amazon II 2025 - November 2025
Ecuador - Northern: Eastern Andes II 2025 - November 2025
Ecuador - Northern: Choco Cloud Forest II 2025 - October 2025
Ecuador - Northern: Ultimate Amazon I 2025 - April 2025
Ecuador - Lester & Lloyd & friends 2025 - February 2025
Ecuador - Southern Endemics 2025 - January 2025
Ecuador - Northern: Ultimate Amazon II 2024 - November 2024
Ecuador - Northern: Eastern Andes II 2024 - November 2024
Ecuador - Northern: Choco Cloud Forest II 2024 - October 2024
Ecuador - Northern: Ultimate Amazon I 2024 - April 2024
Ecuador - Northern: Eastern Andes I 2024 - February 2024
Ecuador - Northern: Choco Cloud Forest I 2024 - February 2024
Ecuador - Northern: Eastern Andes II 2023 - November 2023
Ecuador - Northern: Choco Cloud Forest II 2023 - October 2023
Ecuador - Northern: Eastern Andes I 2023 - February 2023
Ecuador - Northern: Choco Cloud Forest I 2023 - February 2023
Ecuador - Southern Endemics 2023 - January 2023