Colombia 2023

After a wonderful first trip to Colombia in February 2022, we decided that we'd like to go back and explore a different area of the country.  Our first trip had been to the Western and Central Andes, and our blog describing that trip begins HERE.  Or guide from our previous trip, Daniel Uribe Restrepo of Birding Tours Colombia suggested that we visit the Eastern Andes, in the general vicinity of Bogota. 

Our travel day went smoothly and we landed in Bogota, Colombia at around 7:30 p.m.  The lines for immigration were long, and we were surprised when an official waved us into the "Colombian Citizens" line.  I told him "No somos Colombianos" (we're not Colombian) but he replied "No importa" (it doesn't matter).  The entire time we were in line with hundreds of Colombians I was worried that we'd get turned away and sent back to the other line. But when we arrived at the counter the official was friendly, stamped our passports, and sent us on our way.

Daniel picked us up and we all went to the Garden Inn, Bogota Airport for our first night. 

8/22/2023 Tuesday – We were on the road at 5:00.  Daniel said that we needed to cross Bogota this morning to get to our birding spot, and that traffic in Bogota was horrible. The population of the Bogota metropolitan area is over eleven million people, which is close to that of Los Angeles. We had no idea it was that large. 

And he wasn’t kidding about the traffic!  An incredible mixture of trucks, motorcycles, cars, more motorcycles, bicycles, and you guessed it, more motorcycles. The motorcycles drive on the lanes between all of the cars and trucks. How there aren’t hundreds of accidents every day escapes me, but they make it work.

Once we got out of the center of Bogota things opened up a bit, and we arrived at the Laguna Pedro Palo area at around 6:30.  Birding was along a gravel road on the way to the lagoon, rather than at the lagoon itself. 

There were good mixed flocks of birds along the road, and we spent most of the time walking along various stretches. The weather was cool, foggy and sometimes a bit misty. Very much like cloud-forest birding in Ecuador. Daniel said that the weather was not usually like this here.

We saw a nice variety of tanagers, including Bay-headed, Fawn-breasted, Black-capped, Golden, Blue-necked, Scrub, and Beryl-spangled. Mark won our “first bird” contest for the first time in several trips. He had guessed Scrub Tanager which was seen just seconds before Teri’s guess of Band-tailed Pigeon. Blizzard time!

Black-capped Tanager - male

Slate-throated Redstart

Streak-headed Woodcreeper

The best birds of the morning were a male and female Turquoise Dacnis, an endemic to Colombia. Endemic means that it is found in a restricted geographical area, in this case only in the northern Andes of Colombia. 

Turquoise Dacnis - male

We had a tasty lunch at a nearby restaurant, El Rancho de Jairo.  By now it had turned rainy and cloudy, so we were glad to be inside eating rather than outside birding!

Grilled chicken breast with cheese. 

After lunch we headed to a private preserve called Chicaque Ecopark.  We arrived about 2:00.  Our target was an endemic hummingbird called the Golden-bellied Starfrontlet. Daniel said they had been regulars here at feeders in past years, but he’d not seen them the last couple of trips. He thought it might be that other, more aggressive hummingbirds were dominating the feeders.

Golden-bellied Starfrontlet - male

Golden-bellied Starfrontlet - female

But our luck was good and we had a nice male show up to a feeder within about 5 minutes of our arrival.  It looked like the Ecopark had put up five brand-new feeders and spread them out some, which is a good way to handle aggressive hummers. It was continuing to be gray and misty, so we sort of hid inside of some glass doors, waiting for the Starfrontlet to show up, at which point I’d step outside for pictures. It worked well.

There was a good variety of other hummingbirds as well. 

Collared Inca

Lesser Violetear

Sparkling Violetear

Tourmaline Sunangel

We birded our way back down the road to the highway, and headed back to Bogota at about 4:00.  Traffic returning was much worse, and it took us almost 2 hours to reach the hotel. But we got back fine, met for a light dinner at 6:30, and called it a day. 

Mark had a tradictional Colombian soup called Ajiaco. It is made with different kinds of potatoes, spices, chicken, corn, guascas (a Colombian herb) and served with capers and cream. It is considered a Colombian "comfort food" and was very nice. 

Ajiaco

Next: Chingaza National Park and a new hotel.