Here is the crew:
Final stats: 397 species of birds in 14 days. During our trip there in Jan 2017, I saw 308 species in 12 days.
It was a whirlwind trip of dawn to dusk birding. Colombia is on or very near the equator so year-round the sun rises about 6 am and sets about 6 pm. I must admit, I like having our much longer days as the sun moves north and back south again.
In addition to fabulous scenery, we saw many exotic birds as well as anacondas, crocodiles, caiman, capybaras, monkeys, the rosy river dolphins and even a great anteater.
The landscapes were incredible. We took two side trips, one to the City of Rocks and the second to see the oldest pictographs in Colombia. The experts believe the pictographs are 20,000 years old. They can't use carbon dating as these were painted with iron oxide. Getting to them involved a hike up a very steep canyon. So steep it was like climbing stairs without the stairs. Strenuous, but worth it. The wall is so large I could not get the entire work in a single photo.
The hike up to the petroglyphs was right after we saw one of our top target birds, the Cock-of-the-Rock. This day-glo orange bird is spectacular. He has a feathered headdress that completely covers up his beak, giving the head a distinctively odd look.
Our other side trip, the City of Rocks was full of interesting formations. The paths winding through it made it seem like you walking down streets lined with buildings.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. On our first day, we went to a hummingbird reserve. This is the only place in Colombia where you can see both the Black-tailed Trainbearer and the Green Trainbearer. Not only did we see both, but we also were able to get good looks at a Sword-billed hummer! What a thrill to see so many little jewels up close. Here are a few of them.
White-bellied starfrontlet
Sword-billed hummingbird
Blue-throated Starfrontlet Coppery-bellied Puffleg
Glowing Puffleg
Blue-throated Starfrontlet, female
This is a Black-tailed Trainbearer. Its tail is twice as long as the body.
Green-tailed trainbearer
Day 2. We left Bogota, a city of 10 million people. It took us over an hour to get out of the city. Too many people, not enough roads or public transportation. We finally arrived at our destination Chicaque National Park, a high Andean cloud forest. It was gorgeous. We started at the top and hiked down to a lodge where we had a late lunch.Another fairly steep hike, but slow going because of birds.
The first bird we saw was a Collared Inca Hummer.
We were surrounded by tall mountains with sheer cliffs and incredible views.
When they talk about being in a cloud forest...this is what it is like.
There are over 4000 species of orchids in Colombia and about 1500 of them are only found here. The Cattleya trianae orchid is a national symbol of Colombia. Orchids always seem like such an exotic flower, but walking in the forests you could look up and see them growing on trees.
That was one of the many 'We aren't in Kansas anymore' moments.
I love this group of friends. We go for the birding, but we look at everything! Tiny frogs. We had two local naturalists with us on this day. One of them was an ornithologist and the other was a young student from Tennessee who was studying frogs. According to him, the smaller the frog, usually the more poisonous it is.
Try to catch up with butterflies. Not easy.
And you know we aren't moving very fast when the group stops to ponder an interesting shaped snail on the road. This guy was about 2" long.
