Otun Quimbaya

Otun Quimbaya is situated south of Pereira. We arrived with an afternoon flight and drove straight to the reserve. The main attractions in Otun is Cauca Guan (E) and Red-ruffed Fruitcrow with both species being common and easily seen. A dirt road goes from the accomodation and into higher elevations stopping at a small shop. All the birding is done along this dirt road. We stayed two nights at Otun.

9/2 The main building at Otun. All meals are served here.

9/2 Sleeping quarters at Otun. Good birding just outside your door.

9/2 Our dinner companion. Loads of different moths in the evenings.

We drove to the top and walked down to the "resort". Besides the already mentioned species, Otun is also a good place for Multi-colored Tanager (E), Moustached Antpitta, Colombian Screech-Owl (E) and several other good species.
Our first morning started really well at the open area at the end of the dirt road with Black-billed Peppershrike and a noisy group of White-capped Tanagers. Working our way down the road more good birds were seen with Cauca + Sickle-winged Guan, the Friutcrow, Bronzy Inca, Pale-vented Pigeon, Masked Trogon, Highland Motmots, skulking Chestnut-breasted Wrens and our only Lineated Foliage-gleaner,Tyranine Woodcreepers, Plumbeous-crowned Tyrannulet, Bronze-olive Pygmy-tyrant of the trip. About a kilometer before the lodge we finally connected with Multi-colored Tanager and actually ended up seing 3 of these amazing birds within the last stretch of the dirt road. The species can be tricky as they often forage high in the vegetation and quickly moves between trees.

9/2 White-capped Tanager at Otun. One of my most wanted species.

9/2 White-capped Tanager at Otun. We actually ended up seing this species in four places.

9/2 Blackburnian Warbler at Otun. Very common through out the trip

9/2 Black Phoebe at Otun. Widespread and common species.

9/2 Collared Trogon at Otun. Nice male eating a cicada.

9/2 Cauca Guan, Otun. Listed as Endangered but easily seen at Otun.

9/2 Cauca Guan, Otun. A big Guan.

Red-ruffed Fruitcrow, Otun

9/2 Saffron Finch, Otun. Common bird over much of South America.

9/2 Strong-billed Woodcreeper, Otun. Amazing Woodcreeper!

9/2 Sickle-winged Guan, Otun. Seen in several places.

The remainder of the day we birded around the lodge with a small trip before dusk to the small stream. Here we had 3 Crested Ant-Tanagers (E) easily located by their very strange calls. After dinner we did some owling without much luck. Tropical Screech-owl, a few Paraques and a small troop of Andes Night Monkeys was the best.

9/2 Andean Night Monkey at Otun. Just outside the cabins

9/2 Paraque at Otun. Common at night time. 

As we had seen most of the specialities the previous day we decided to move on the next morning with only a short stop before the village of Quimbaya where we luckily connected with both White-capped Dipper and Torrent Duck.

RDN

Bogota Birding (2)

Pedro Palo is a forested area with a small lake about 1.5 hours west of Bogota. The primary targets at the site are the two endemics; Black Inca and Turquoise Dacnis. A host of other scarce birds can be seen here as well. One of the extraordinary things about birding in the Andes is the diversity and huge differences in species composition over small distances. We failed to connect with the Black Inca but managed to see three Dacnis’s. Other than that we had some good tanager activity, lots of different hummers and various other goodies.

8/2 Blue-necked Tanager at Pedro Palo. As most other tanagers quite attractive.

8/2 Turquoise Dacnis at Pedro Palo. We had no problems with this one seeing two males and a female near the lagoon.

We had lunch at Chicaque where hummingbird feeders provide a good possibility to connect with the amazing Golden-bellied Starfrontlet. We saw two males, including a very smart full adult male while enjoying our lunch.
  

8/2 Golden-bellied Starfrontlet at Chicaque. All Starfrontlets are true stunners! Unfortunately the adult male only made brief visits to the feeders.

The Enchanted Garden in San Fransisco (no, not that one) is the place to get acquainted with the endemic Indigo-capped Hummingbird. It’s one of the most common hummers (30 birds) at the feeders. Other than that we also enjoyed several views of a male Ruby Topaz, though always brief. Other hummers included both White-breasted –and Gorgeted Woodstar. From the enchanted Garden we drove straight to the airport and our flight to Pereira.   

8/2 The Enchanted Garden. Indigo-capped Hummer (E) is easy here!

8/2 Black-throated Mango Enchanted Garden. Quite common.

8/2 Gorgeted Woodstar Enchanted Garden. White-bellied also quite common here.

8/2 Indigo-capped Hummingbird Enchanted Garden. Star of the show.

8/2 Indigo-capped Hummingbird Enchanted Garden.

8/2 Rufous-tailed Hummingbird Enchanted Garden. Common.

8/2 Sparkling Violetear Enchanted Garden. A big hummer!

8/2 White-vented Plumleteer Enchanted Garden. Very attractive!

RDN

Birding Colombia

Colombia is today one of the hottest countries for birding in the world. A total of 1900 birds have been recorded in the country and it is possible to see a 1000 of these in just four weeks. We planned our trip in cooperation with Pablo Florez of Multicolorbirding, a three-week trip focusing on endemics and hard to get birds in the central -and northern part of the country. Pablo guided us the first day and David Geale of Tanager Tours for the remainder of the trip. Both were good company and extremely good birders. 

Many people think of Colombia as an unsafe travel destination but we did not experience any problems at all during the trip and the local people were friendly in all the regions visited. There are still areas in Colombia where one shouldn't go so check with local birders if you plan to go birding on your own. If you do go on your own, check this new site guide for Colombia. 

View from the San Lorenzo Ridge in the Santa Marta mountains. Our trip mainly consisted of high altitude birding, well at least for a Danish guy....

RDN

Bogota Birding (1)

For a capital city Bogota has some prime birding. Several endemics and near-endemics can be seen within an hours drive of the city. We had two days in the beginning of the trip and an afternoon in the end to find as many as possible of these.

The first day was centered around Chingaza National Park and the Guasca Wetlands both north/north-east of the city. Target species were Brown-breasted Parakeet (E), Pale-bellied Tapaculo (E), several near-endemic hummers and Bogota Rail (E), Noble Snipe and Spot-flanked Gallinule at Guasca. We succeeded in finding most of our target species.

Black-billed Mountain-Toucan. Fairly common in Chingaza. We had three sightings during the day. 

Black-chested Mountain-Tanager. Scarce in Chingaza but we luckily caught up with two birds just before we were about to leave. The birds were seen in mixed group with Hooded and Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanagers (both commonly seen).

Bogota Rail (E). Only found in wetlands around Bogota. We saw 2-3 birds but heard many more. Seems like its easier to see the species at Guasca than at La Florida. Spot-flanked Gallinule was easily seen at Guasca as well and we also managed to find two Noble Snipes amongst the more common Wilsons Snipes. The call of the Noble Snipe was very different to the one of Wilsons. 

Golden-Crowned Tanager. One of the best tanagers of the trip. 

Golden-Fronted Whitestart (NE) of the white-faced form. Common in Chingaza.

Rufous-browed Conebill (NE). One of the target species in Chingaza. We had some trouble getting good views, though we ended up seeing several birds very well.

Spot-Flanked Gallinule. Common in wetlands around Bogota. Easy at Guasca. Nice after missing it in Argentina.

Slaty Brush-Finch. Common in Chingaza

White-Chinned Thistletail. Only sighting of our entire trip. 

White-Throated Tyrannulet. Very common 

RDN

Colombia February 2014

Just returned from 21 days of birding in Colombia adding more than 600 species to my lifelist. A total of 55 endemics with an additional four only heard. Colombia has around 1900 species and if you add the Amazonian lowland in the southeast of the country to your itinerary it is possible to see more than 1000 species in less than a month! I will post more pictures and text in the coming weeks from the trip.

Bearded Helmetcrest Oxypogon stuebellii was probably my bird of the trip. The species has recently been split into four species. The stuebellii could be classified as endangered as its only found in a small area in the central part of Colombia. The species live in the high paramo and the above bird was seen in an altitude of 4100 meters at the Paramo Ruiz close to Manizales. 

RDN