Colombia 2023 - Souvenirs

I forgot to include pictures of our souvenirs from the Colombia Trip. Since we didn't spend much time in touristy kind of places, opportunities for souvenirs were few and far between. 

The nicest keepsakes were two small crocheted/needlepointed dolls that Daniel bought for Teri at Convent of Santa Clara la Real in Tunja. These were in a case near the entry and Teri admired them. Local artists create them to raise funds for the convent. 

At the airport Teri found a simple "Colombia" magnet to commemorate the trip as well. The Keel-billed Toucan (the Fruit Loops bird!) is always a fun bird to see, so it seemed a fitting subject for our Colombia 2023 magnet!

Colombia 2023 - Day 10

 8/31/2023 Thursday

We had breakfast at 5:30 and headed off to Laguna de Tabacal for a second morning. We once again started in the parking/camping area. At this point we were hoping to see a few species that we'd missed the previous day. We saw a couple of very small birds, the Common Tody-Flycatcher and the Scrub Greenlet. 

Common Tody-Flycatcher

Scrub Greenlet

A Bar-crested Antshrike called from the bushes, and we finally got a look at him. 

Bar-crested Antshrike

We were hoping to find Velvet-fronted Euphonia and Rosy Thrush-tanager but had no luck. Before we crossed the road to the "lagoon side" we took a coffee/juice break and had a Chestnut-capped Warbler hoping around practically at our feet. 

Chestnut-capped Warbler

We crossed the road and headed onto the woods trails where things were pretty quiet, but we did get good looks at a female Velvet-fronted Euphonia. The bird was directly overhead in the treetops. Tough to look at and even tougher to photograph!

Velvet-fronted Euphonia - female

At the lagoon we saw Least Grebes, a Solitary Sandpiper, and Green Kingfisher. Interestingly, all three of these birds can be found in South Texas if you are in the right spot!

Green Kingfisher - female

Least Grebe

Solitary Sandpiper

White-throated Crakes called several times and we tried different locations to see it, but no luck. This is becoming a nemesis bird for me. Teri saw it way back in 2008 in Panama, but I missed it. We've heard it dozens of times since, but I've never actually seen one. I joked with Daniel that I wasn't sure they actually exist, but he assured me that they do...

There was a large colorful "La Vega" sign next to the lagoon and Daniel took our picture next to it. La Vega is the name of the nearby town. You can barely see us on the left side.

We headed back at 11:00, stopping at a fancy roadside restaurant for (what else??) grilled chicken breast, this time with melted cheese. Grilled chicken breast (Pechuga a la Plancha) is quite a staple in Colombia. Sometimes offered with melted cheese (Pechuga Gratinada) or mushroom sauce (Pechuga con salsa de champiñones). It was always tasty. 

After lunch we headed back to Cabañas Aire Libre, arriving about 12:45. We finished packing, said farewell to Daniel, and caught our taxi back to Bogota.  In order to reduce traffic congestion Colombia enforces "Plate Restrictions" in major cities. This means that one day a week vehicles with plates ending in a certain number are not allowed to enter the city. This is strictly enforced and the fines are steep. Plate restrictions forbid Daniel from driving in Bogota today, so he made arrangements for a taxi to take us back to our Bogota hotel. This worked well for him as his home was in the opposite direction anyway. 

It was an easy 1.5 hour drive to the hotel, and I was able to check in totally in Spanish. We got a nice room on the top (tenth) floor and showered and relaxed. It was nice to have some downtime before tomorrow’s long travel day. 

The return home was uneventful. We flew Bogota to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to San Antonio, arriving about 10:00 p.m.

Final Thoughts – Our first trip to Columbia was to the Western and Central Andes along with the Cauca Valley between them. That was definitely the best that Colombia has to offer in terms of developed birding lodges. Birds were numerous and easy to come by.

This trip was more focused on the specialties of the Eastern Andes, where there are few dedicated ecolodges. So we used hotels in Bogota and other much smaller towns as bases to explore specific locations. This led to a considerable amount of driving, sometimes over poor and/or dusty roads. Some days seemed like more driving then birding, but there really was no other way to cover the areas. We did enjoy seeing amazing scenery as we travelled though the area, especially in the high elevation Paramo. 

Daniel did a great job once again, and was a pleasure to travel and bird with. We enjoyed the trip, saw a lot of good birds (224 species total), and got 36 lifers (birds we'd never seen before), many of which were rare endemics. We experienced a lot of Colombian culture with the different hotels and lodging, small town and roadside restaurants, and our Colonial Tunja tour. In this regard we certainly "saw" more of the country and culture than we had on our previous trip. 

Most of the trip was at high elevations (6000 – 10000 feet) and so we had cool, pleasant weather. Not a drop of rain fell on us while we were out birding which was great.

We're not sure if we’ll return to Colombia anytime soon as the logical third trip for us would be the Santa Marta Mountains near the Caribean coast which involves a lot of logistics and some tough transportation, as well as being in a warm, humid region. We’ll see!

Next - Off to Ecuador just three week later!!

Colombia 2023 - Day 9

8/30/2023 Wednesday

We ate a light breakfast in the main house at 5:30 (eggs, white cheese, bread) and then headed off to Laguna de Tabacal.  It was about an hour drive to this regional park.  We started in the parking area and moved down into an open camping area with scattered trees and good brushy edges. We saw quite a lot of birds, many common but also a few uncommon ones. We got great looks at one of my favorite woodpeckers, the Spot-breasted Woodpecker. 

Spot-breasted Woodpecker

We saw several different tanager species. Some very bright, like the Blue-necked Tanager, and others not so much, like the Plain-colored Tanager. We also saw the well-named Gray-headed Tanager, although this one was a bit immature and still retained a few yellow head feathers. 

Blue-necked Tanager

Plain-colored Tanager

Gray-headed Tanager

One of the most common mammals in the tropics is the Agouti, which look like big Guinea Pigs. They were prowling the campground looking for food scraps, no doubt. 

Central American Agouti

We had a few birds that really didn't want to show themselves, including a small group of Spectacled Parrotlets. We played hide and seek with them for a while, and I think the Parrotlets won! Can you see the blue "spectacles" on this one?

We had a little better luck with a Speckle-breasted Wren that was hiding in the bushes.

We heard so many Rosy Thrush Tanagers calling. Some were quite close but we never got a look which is too bad because we'd really hoped to see them. 

There were a couple of small food concessions next to the parking lot, so we took a short break for coffee/Gatorade and then went onto the forest trails across the road. 

There were a bunch of different trails, most eventually leading to the “lagoon” (lake) where we saw Green Kingfisher, Least Grebes and a nice Striated Heron. Not to mention a few turtles sunning themselves on logs. 

Least Grebe

Striated Heron

We were at our lowest elevation of the trip (1300m, about 4250 feet) and it was getting warm by the time we left around noon. We had lunch at a restaurant in a nearby resort and it was good.  

We returned to the cabins and decided to take a break until 3:45. It gave me a chance to get caught up on the trip journal and enjoy the beautiful view out of the windows of our cabin. 

We headed back to Enchanted Gardens, hoping to see the Gorgeted Woodstar that the owner had told us comes in earlier than we’d visited the previous evening. Sure enough, we got nice looks at both a male and a female, as well as the similar, more common White-bellied Woodstar. 

Gorgeted Woodstar - male

Gorgeted Woodstar - female

White-bellied Woodstar - male

We also saw our first White-necked Jacobins of the trip, Sparkling Violetears, and a large White-vented Plumeleteer. 

White-necked Jacobin

Sparkling Violtear

White-vented Plumeleteer

In addition to the many hummingbirds, we saw a few other birds using the feeders, like Saffron Finches, Ruddy Ground Doves and Bananaquits. 

Saffron Finch male

Saffron Finch female

Bananaquit

Ruddy Ground Dove

Before we left Daniel had suggested we pre-order our dinner from an Italian Food place in town, with delivery to the cabins at 6:30.  This worked out great as Teri and I enjoyed a good chicken and mushroom pizza without having to go back out. A nice relaxing way to finish a great day. 

Next - Back to Laguna de Tabacal, and wrapping up our trip