Introduction
Martin and I returned for two weeks of birding in Colombia , joined by our good friend Dan Peak for the first part of the trip. We spent 5 days in the area surrounding Bogota and then flew to the Santa Marta region on the Caribbean coast for the remainder of our time. Our emphasis was on quality vs. quantity, concentrating on endemic and near endemic species. We had an extremely successful trip, thanks to our incredible guides, Oswaldo Cortez and Pablo Florez. Pablo had guided us on our great trip in August, and made all of our arrangements. The title of this report is the new slogan for Colombia ’s tourism agency. I found it absolutely true.
December 6
We arrived in Bogota late on December 5, so our birding began early on December 6. Our guide, Oswaldo Cortez, met us before 5:00 AM at our hotel, Casona del Patio. We were delighted to see that our driver was Evar, who had driven us in Bogota on our previous trip. We packed up quickly and headed to Laguna Pedropalo, in the Eastern Andes, north of Bogota . This is one of the best sites to see Turquiose Dacnis. There is a reserve, but all of the birds found can be found along the road, where it is easy to walk.
One of the many things that I find charming about Colombia is that many people walk for fun. It’s not unusual to see families strolling together on quiet country roads on weekend. This can be a bit of a negative when birding, due to conversation, but I am so happy to see families together that it’s easy to tolerate. Being a Sunday, there were quite a few people. Despite this, we did manage to see quite a few birds. One of the first life birds I got here was an Indigo-capped Hummingbird. We also scored on Short-tailed Emerald. A Yellow-backed Oriole sang incessantly. We scanned the lake, which was visible from the road, but only saw a couple of Pied-billed Grebes.
We worked our way up the road, driving a bit, then birding, and then driving a bit more. We reached an area where we stood above the trees. We were all looking in different directions, when Martin called out “Male Turquoise Dacnis! He was trying to get it in the scope, as I ran over. Unfortunately the bird flew. We spent quite a long time searching both the tree it was in, and a group of trees in the direction it had flown. Despite playing a tape of its song we never re-found the bird. Needless to say, we were a bit disappointed.
We started working our way back down the road, when a middle aged lady and three young girls, possibly her grand daughters, passed us. The woman turned back to talk, asking us where we were from and what we were looking for. She spoke some English and we limped along with our limited Spanish. (I should say MY extremely limited Spanish. Martin does pretty well) She surprised us all by insisting that we accompany her and the girls to her finca (farm) for coffee. It was very close, just around the corner. Dan and I were both jonesing for caffeine, so we were delighted to take her up on it. The coffee was incredibly good. Martin doesn’t drink coffee, so she had her kitchen girl make him a glass of fresh blackberry juice, known as mora. This was the first of many times on this trip that we were deeply impressed by the open friendliness of the Colombian people.
One of the downsides of birding near Bogota , is that the birding locations can be quite distant from each other. This area of Colombia is very developed, with excellent roads and a very “civilized” country-side. The farms would look in place in any green, hilly area of the United States . Patches of forest are widely separated. We had a long drive to our next location, Rogitama Reserve, so we took off shortly after noon for the long drive. We arrived right at sunset. After a wonderful dinner, Oswaldo took us out to look for White-throated Screech Owl. Unfortunately we did not have a proper spot light and Martin’s flashlight was not able to pick out the bird, though we did hear it calling quite close. More about Rogitama and its famous "pet", the Black Inca.
Here is a link to my photos:
Here is our bird list for the day:
1 Pied-billed Grebe
2 Cattle Egret
3 Great Egret
4 Black Vulture
5 White-tailed Kite
6 Roadside Hawk
7 Broad-winged Hawk
8 American Kestrel
9 Common Moorhen
10 Band-tailed Pigeon
11 Eared Dove
12 White-tipped Dove
13 Spectacled Parrotlet
14 Squirrel Cuckoo
15 White-throated Screech-Owl
16 Green Hermit
17 Green Violet-ear
18 Blue-tailed Emerald
19 Short-tailed Emerald
20 Fork-tailed Woodnymph
21 Andean Emerald
22 Indigo-capped Hummingbird
23 Steely-vented Hummingbird
24 Booted Racquet-tail
25 White-bellied Woodstar
26 Red-headed Barbet
27 Olivaceous Piculet
28 Acorn Woodpecker
29 Red-crowned Woodpecker
30 Smoky-brown Woodpecker
31 Azara's Spinetail
32 Slaty Spinetail
33 Ash-browed Spinetail
34 Bar-crested Antshrike
35 Plain Antvireo
36 Blackish Tapaculo
37 Sooty-headed Tyrannulet
38 Golden-faced Tyrannulet
39 Mouse-colored Tyrannulet
40 Mountain Elaenia
41 Common Tody-Flycatcher
42 Yellow-olive Flycatcher
43 Black Phoebe
44 Rusty-margined Flycatcher
45 Tropical Kingbird
46 Brown-bellied Swallow
47 House Wren
48 Grey-breasted Wood-Wren
49 Tropical Mockingbird
50 Swainson's Thrush
51 Great Thrush
52 Pale-breasted Thrush
53 Black-billed Thrush
54 Rufous-collared Sparrow
55 Saffron Finch
56 Yellow-bellied Seedeater
57 Yellow-faced Grassquit
58 Sooty Grassquit
59 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
60 Summer Tanager
61 Crimson-backed Tanager
62 Blue-grey Tanager
63 Palm Tanager
64 Fawn-breasted Tanager
65 Flame-faced Tanager
66 Bay-headed Tanager
67 Scrub Tanager
68 Blue-necked Tanager
69 Beryl-spangled Tanager
70 Blue-and-black Tanager
71 Black-capped Tanager
72 Green Honeycreeper
73 Rusty Flowerpiercer
74 Bananaquit
75 Tropical Parula
76 Black-and-white Warbler
77 Blackburnian Warbler
78 Canada Warbler
79 Slate-throated Redstart
80 Rufous-browed Peppershrike
81 Red-eyed Vireo
82 Brown-capped Vireo
83 Rufous-naped Greenlet
84 Andean Siskin
85 Lesser Goldfinch
86 Yellow-backed Oriole
No comments:
Post a Comment