2023 – Year-In-Review

January

We started the new year celebrating our 40^th anniversary.  For us, a great way to celebrate any milestone is a trip!

We made our 6^th trip to Costa Rica.  We had a little trouble getting there due to a nationwide failure of the FAA NOTAM (Notice to Airman) system that had grounded all US flights. But eventually we made it and amazingly so did all our luggage.

Scarlet Macaw

February

We have a wonderful Nature Preserve close to our house where we volunteer regularly.  The Preserve is not open to the public except for special occasions but since we volunteer there we are able to go out when ever we want.  It’s a beautiful area with lots of birds. 

We spent February visiting all our favorite birding spots, including Hill Country State Natural Area where we saw this beautiful Red-shouldered Hawk.

Red-shouldered Hawk

March

We took our first camping trip of the year in our travel trailer to S. Llano River State Park.  It’s a very nice park that is only about a 2 hour drive from our house.  We both came to the conclusion that camping was not as much fun as it used to be with crowded parks, unable to get reservations, etc.  We returned home and put our trailer up for sale.  We have never regretted it. 

After we took our trailer to a consignment shop, we realized we didn’t need a F350 diesel anymore either.  We headed to our favorite Ford dealer and picked up a little something to take home. 

Ford F150

Another milestone was celebrating 13 years of retirement (for both of us).

April

No trailer? No problem! AirBnb’s are everywhere and we found a fabulous place to stay in Rockport.  We stayed in a cute, very comfortable cottage in Rockport and found it was more convenient than staying in Goose Island State Park.

We hit all our favorite birding hotspots and restaurants and had a wonderful time. We got to see the final group of Whooping Cranes as they headed north for the summer, as well as the arrival of migrant birds from the south. 

Whooping Cranes

Kentucky Warbler

May

In May we celebrated Mark’s birthday in beautiful Alaska.  We had perfect weather and both thought it was our best trip to Alaska, so far.

 

June

We decided to make a trip to Wisconsin this summer.  We had a great time visiting factory tours and birding. 

Trumpeter Swan

July

With no plans for my birthday this year we spent the month enjoying being home. Mark gave a bird talk at our local library and we spent many hours birding at all our favorite spots close to home.

With my birthday gift card I treated myself to a little yarn shopping.

August 

We took our second trip to Colombia. Our first trip to Colombia was in February of last year.

Everything went smoothly and we saw plenty of birds. 

September

We were home from Colombia for only a couple of weeks before heading to Ecuador.  This was our third trip to Ecuador.

Andean Condor

Andean Hillstar

Yellow-tufted Woodpecker

October

After back-to-back trips we were happy to stay home for a little while. With nice weather we enjoyed hiking and birding a little closer to home.

November

Well, I guess it was bound to happen sometime.  After 13 years living in the hill country it finally happened.

Yep, that is the airbag on top of the dash.

We hit our first deer.  And not just any deer.  A very large non-native Axis deer. About $25,000 of damage, and we don't have the truck back yet!

Dec

Our last trip of the year was to Rockport.  We stayed in a different AirBnb.  It was very nice. 

Unfortunately, our favorite seafood restaurant closed this year due to the owner retiring (Shempy's). We still had other favorite restaurants and didn't go hungry!

Birding was a little slow but we went to our favorite birding hotspots and had great looks at some wonderful birds. 

Great Blue Heron displaying

Least Bittern

Rockport was a great trip to end our 40th anniversary year.

After seven weeks and still not getting our new truck back, we decided to replace our older Ford Escape, with a new one.  We had been enjoying some of the features on the new truck and got even more advanced with the Escape.  It almost drives itself (under certain circumstances)!

Ford Escape

Mark says the "driver assist" is a little weird!

He seemed to get used to it pretty fast.

We had a very fun, busy year and are not slowing down next year!

Colombia 2023 - Day 8

8/29/2023 Tuesday

We met our guide, Flor Alba, at 7:00 for a Colonial Tunja tour. She was a lovely Colombian native, very energetic and informative. She spoke only Spanish so I interpreted about 40% of the content while Daniel handled the other 60%. 

Our guide, Flor Alba 

Our first stop was the Convent of Santa Clara la Real. This convent was the first established by the Spanish Empire in the New World, and dates back to 1571. Much of the original structure is intact, including the massive stone walls and some of the wooden doors. 

We learned that when young women entered the convent they never again stepped outside of its walls, never seeing family or friends again. The best known resident of the convent was Francisca Josefa del Castillo who became known for her spiritual visions and writing. Her most famous work is the 753 page "Spiritual Affections".  

We were shown her sleeping room, which was incredibly small. Most of it is taken up by her bed on the left. We were told that this was the largest such space in the Convent. 

We were also shown her office, with an original desk and chair, and a small chest that would have been used to store writings. 

While much of the Convent is now closed off as a museum, the church within the structure continues to be used for services. 

Our second stop was Casa del Fundador (House of the Founder). This was the home of Gonzalo Suárez Rendón, the founder of Tunja. It is considered one of the finest examples of a 16th century home of a Spanish aristocrat. Construction on the home began in 1540.

The home is very large, and built around a courtyard garden. This was common for these estates as the garden provided food as well as a beautiful place to relax or entertain. It was also used as the bathroom!

The walls and ceilings of the home were covered with various drawings, painting and murals. Most were covered with a white lime plaster at one time. Many of the paints utilized animal blood or other substances that were thought to cause illness or disease, so covering them with lime plaster was considered preventative. Some of the drawings and murals have been restored by removal of the plaster, but other areas have been left covered because of fear of damage during removal. 

The ceilings were particularly bright and ornate. 

We found it interesting that many of the murals included animals not native to South America. The local artists who painted the murals were working only from sketches or descriptions, so some of the animals were not particularly accurate!

The bedrooms were large and ornate, and there were several displays of historical items. 

The home was built on the main square of Tunja and had a marvelous view. 

Our tour lasted about three hours, and ended at a small café where we enjoyed coffee, hot chocolate and various pastries with our guide Flor. Many of the pastries in Colombia are cornmeal based rather than flour based. Apparently corn is a more successful crop in the Andes. Each of the wicker baskets in the picture below contains a different pastry, but all are essentially baked or fried cornmeal. 

In the café I tried on a Colombian Ruana, a thick wool garment that we'd seen many of, especially in the colder high elevations. Tunja is at 9200 feet elevation, so definitely qualifies. 

Daniel recalled fondly the several Ruanas that he owned as a child. They were used not only as warm garments but also as blankets, sleeping pads, and various other things. 

Mark wearing a heavy wool Ruana

We thanked Flor for a wonderful tour and returned to our hotel. We checked out and hit the road around 10:30, stopping around 11:30 for the best Arapenas in Colombia. Arapenas are a traditional Colombian dish (or snack) that are found throughout the country. They are like thick corn tortillas with cheese and sometimes other items baked in. They were very good.

Arapena

We were changing lodging again today, and headed for the town of San Francisco. We had a long drive, and stopped at around 2:30 for lunch. Rural Colombia is really not set up for tourism, and we found it useful to be able to read and speak at least a little Spanish. 

As we approached San Francisco we found the main road closed due to landslide. Daniel was surprised that the lodge owner hadn’t mentioned it as he had just spoken with her the previous day!  He called her and after her profuse apologies for not mentioning the closure, she gave instructions for taking the old road to town. However we ended up following two men in a jeep down a steep, narrow one-lane road with incredibly tight curves. We finally made it into town but Daniel was not amused. We later found the correct "old route" and it was much better!

We stopped into a private residence called The Enchanted Garden for an hour. 

It was a  small garden with dozens of feeder, mostly for hummingbirds. 

We saw a lot of Black-throated Mangos with some Rufous-tailed and Indigo-capped Hummingbirds, and a White-vented Plumlateer (also a type of hummingbird). The sun was in our face so not optimal for picture taking, but a beautiful garden and nice place to spend some time. 

Black-throated Mango

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Indigo-capped Hummingbird

We arrived at our next lodge, Cabañas Aire Libre at around 6:15. They were very nice separate cabins with the main house used for breakfast. The owner was a very nice lady who was so apologetic to Daniel for not warning him about the closed road. We relaxed, had dinner, and got caught up on two days worth of bird lists.

Cabañas Aire Libre room

Next - Laguna de Tabacal

Colombia 2023 - Day 7

8/28/2023 Monday

First of all, I want to apologize for the long gap between posts. I've lost my mojo with regards to getting the blogs written, but I'm going to try to get Colombia finished up ASAP!  I still have Ecuador to do, and we've got a lot of trips planned in the first half of 2024, so wish me luck!  Mark

We left our hotel at 5:30 to drive up into the beautiful mountains above Soata.  These mountains are not as high as the mountains we'd visited previously and were covered with oak forests. 

One of the first birds we saw was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. This is a species that we have in the US, but it looks somewhat different here and may eventually be declared a different species. We'll see. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk (Plain-breasted)

We also saw several Golden-fronted Redstarts.  In the area north of Bogota they have white faces, which makes them look old to me. In most other areas their face is entirely yellow/gold. Some authorities consider the varieties to be two different species, but for now they are still officially considered one. 

Golden-fronted Redstart

In one location a group of Green Jays worked through the trees. We have Green Jays in South Texas, but they look a little different than these South American Green Jays. Again, some authorities believe that there are two different species. I am sensing a trend here...

Green Jays (Inca)

The weather was cool and the forest healthy and beautiful. While not technically a Cloud Forest, the area was moist and the trees covered with moss, ferns and bromeliads. 

Our primary target for the morning was the Mountain Grackle. In Texas we think of grackles (Great-tailed Grackles primarily) as pesky nuisance birds that congregate in large noisy flocks and make terrible messes in parking lots. However, most of the worlds' grackles are better behaved. And in the case of Mountain Grackle, shy and hard to locate!

We made numerous stops along the mountain roads calling and listening for the grackles. In one place we had a strong response and could tell that they were moving in the forest below us, but ultimately they slipped away without us seeing them. Such is the challenge of birding. 

We saw several other good birds, including a Capped Conebill eating mistletoe berries, a Cinnamon Flycatcher, and a Mountain Cacique, not to be confused with the similar size and color Mountain Grackle!

Capped Conebill

Cinnamon Flycatcher

Mountain Cacique

We returned to our hotel about noon, checked out, had lunch at the same place as yesterday. This time Teri and I split the chicken breast with mushroom sauce and it was still a lot of food. They don't let you go hungry in Colombia! We were on the road at 1:15. 

We traveled high up into the Paramo (above tree line) once again, making many stops hoping for Green-bearded Helmetcrest but had no luck. We did observe many Andean Siskins and Brown-backed Chat Tyrants, and also had good looks at Andean Tit Spinetail.

Andean Siskin - male

Brown-backed Chat-Tyrant

Andean Tit-Spinetail

We were a little surprised to find Carib Grackles on a farm fence at this high elevation. These grackles originate in the Caribbean Ocean and only recently have expanded their range into Colombia. The habitat in the high elevation of the Paramo could hardly be more different than their native Caribbean islands!

Carib Grackle - female

Carib Grackle - male

It was a long drive to the town of Tunja.  We arrived about 7:30, and decided to skip dinner as we'd had a big lunch. We did stop at a bakery/cheese shop to buy breakfast for the next morning. 

The hotel room was clean and comfortable and we got ourselves cleaned up and went to bed.   

 Next - A Colonial Tour and Enchanted Garden!