This foothill and lower mountain slope EBA stretches the entire length of Ecuador, from southernmost Colombia in Nariño department, along the eastern slopes of the Andes in Ecuador, embracing the Cordilleras Cutucú and del Condor, south into Peru around Huancabamba, then discontinuously across the northern end of the Cordillera Colán and along the eastern slope of the northern Cordillera Oriental (in Amazonas, Loreto and San Martín departments).

The native vegetation of this EBA is tall, upper tropical and subtropical/lower temperate zone evergreen forest (primarily c.800-2,000 m).

The EBA is adjacent to a number of other areas, and its restricted-range species may at times overlap with those from these areas: the Central Andean forests (EBAs 042, 046) are primarily at higher altitude (1,500-,200 m) and the vegetation is cloud forest; the Andean ridgetop forests (EBA 047) of south-east Ecuador and northern Peru are at 1,000-2,450 m, with the restricted-range species present only in the stunted forest on the ridgetops; and the North-east Peruvian cordilleras (EBA 049) are primarily higher at 1,900-3,700 m.

All of the restricted-range birds are confined to humid or wet forest, the more stunted forest near the tops of ridges (e.g. Campylopterus villaviscensio), or secondary growth near primary forest, all between c.800 and c.2,200 m. Heliodoxa gularis is found at lower altitudes than most of the other species, but on current evidence appears to be associated solely with the East Andes, although Hilty and Brown (1986) suggest that it may have been recorded at Letitia in the Colombian Amazon. Zimmerius cinereicapillus is known from very few records in Napo department of Ecuador, primarily at 600-800 m, although within the Peruvian portion of its range it is clearly an eastern slope foothill species rather than a lowland Amazonian bird (Ridgely and Tudor 1994). Tangara argyrofenges is essentially a bird of the Bolivian yungas with (apparently) disjunct populations in the East Andean foothills (EBA 053) of Junín department and in the southern, Peruvian portion of the present EBA.

Many of the moist montane and foothill forests of the northern portion of the Andes are under intense threat from conversion for agriculture and cattle pasture, mining operations and logging (Dinerstein et al. 1995). Widespread destruction of the forest is being caused by peasant farmers and tea and coffee growers at appropriate elevations all along the eastern slope of the Andes (Collar et al. 1992). Specific threats to the forest in this EBA include the cultivation of naranjilla by an increasing human population at c.1,000 m and above in the Volcán Sumaco area of Napo province in Ecuador; in the northernmost portion of the EBA, plans to construct a highway beside the Tumaco-Orito oil pipeline threaten the otherwise pristine forests in eastern Nariño department of Colombia (Wege and Long 1995).

As a consequence of these threats, three restricted-range species are currently considered threatened, and two further more-widespread threatened birds occur in the EBA, Spot-winged Parrotlet Touit stictoptera (classified as Vulnerable) and Little Woodstar Acestrura bombus (Endangered). Eight Key Areas for the conservation of these birds were identified (El Carmen in Colombia, the others in Ecuador) by Wege and Long (1995).

A number of protected areas cover parts of this EBA, such as (in Ecuador) Podocarpus and Sangay National Parks, Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserve, Sumaco Protection Forest and Cordillera de Cutucú Protection Forest (each of which has been identified as a Key Area for threatened birds), although it should be noted that some of these areas cover altitudinal ranges extending significantly beyond the EBA.

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Endemic Bird Area factsheet: Ecuador-Peru East Andes. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/eba/factsheet/45 on 22/11/2024.