Colombia 2022 - Day 11 Journal

Thursday 2/24/2022 – Breakfast at 6:30, and out walking at 7:20. 

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, roll, 

sliced cheese, corn tortilla.

Fruit is a big part of the meal.

Open-air eating area. 

We first went to an area of a trail where Francisco threw out some cracked corn. Shortly a group of Gray-headed Doves appeared on the trail and fed on the corn. This is a shy forest dove that is usually hard to see, so this was an easy way to observe it. 

Gray-headed Dove

We then walked down to the Manikan lek and found several males performing their wing-snapping display flights. The males jump from one perch to another on the ground, giving a loud “SNAP” with each jump. We always enjoy seeing manakins display.

Golden-collared Manakin male

Golden-collared Manakin extending throat 

We continued down the trail to where a Common Paraque was nesting. Like the Potoo, if a guide doesn’t know where the bird is and shows it to you, it would be impossible to locate. The Paraque flew off and we got to see her single egg in the nest.

Common Paraque egg

We birded various trails until 11:00. We saw a good variety of birds including a male Grayish Piculet in a nest cavity and a Mustached Puffbird. 

Grayish Piculet in cavity

Mustached Puffbird

Black Palm with some nasty thorns 

We’d had seen on Facebook that today was Daniel’s birthday, so I let the lodge manager know. She went into town and bought a cake, and we surprised him with the cake and an English rendition of the Happy Birthday song. None of the staff spoke any English, so they must have learned the song for birthday celebrations of their English-speaking guests. 

Feliz Cumpleaños Daniel.

Daniel had asked us if we minded him taking the afternoon off to get caught up on some work and to have a birthday dinner with his family. So he left after lunch.

Mark and Daniel.

We relaxed around the lodge and enjoyed watching birds at one of the feeding tables. There were often several different species on the table at once. 

Feeding Table

Also visiting the table was a beautiful Blue-necked Tanager. It seems that they could have come up with a better name!

Blue-necked Tanager

Teri found the Tinamu Lodge had a small souvenir shop with some really nice local art. She picked out a few things. Again, my ability to speak some Spanish was a big plus as none of the staff spoke any English!

We sat out under a little cabana watching the bird feeders until 3:30, then Francisco came to get us for an afternoon walk. Daniel had given him a short list of birds that we were “missing”, but the forest was completely silent in the afternoon heat, and we didn’t see anything until we got back to the feeders around the lodge!  We felt bad for Francisco as he was trying hard, but we know the feeling of leading a bird walk when the birds aren’t cooperating!

At this point the few other guests that were at Tinamu had departed, so we had the lodge to ourselves. The internet was finally working well enough to get caught up on E-bird, so we input three days’ worth of data.

We’d also learned that we needed to let the hot water run for at least 5 minutes before it would arrive in the room, so we did so and enjoyed hot showers. 

Next time: Going home, who won the bet, and souvenirs.