Colombia 2022 - Day 3 Journal

Wednesday 2/16/2022 – We both slept a little better last night. Today was a “moving day”, we were in the SUV by 5:45 for our drive to Bosque de Niebla.  Daniel had spoken with another of his guides who told him that the mountain road was in really bad shape, so we decided to drive back down to Cali, then over and back up a different road. He thought the driving time would be the same with better, faster roads, but it turned out to take quite a bit longer and we didn’t arrive to Bosque de Niebla until 7:30 a.m. No problem though, as it was cloudy and the target bird for the morning, Chestnut Wood-Quail was a little slow to arrive at the feeding area.

With Daniel, our guide.

Bosque de Niebla is a relatively new birding site but had amazing gardens and well-thought-out viewing platforms for Tanagers and the Wood-Quail.  We started our morning on the Tanager platform which was built with photography in mind. It had some very nice perches for birds to land on as they came in to feed, which allowed for great photos. 

Multicolored Tanager - male

Multicolored Tanager - female

Off to feed the babies??

Black-capped Tanager - male

Black-capped Tanager - female

After about 30 minutes on the platform we were called to a breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, toast, and fruit.  

Mark and Daniel, our guide

Shortly after finishing breakfast we were told that the Wood-Quail had arrived in their feeding area, so we enjoyed great looks at these normally shy birds. 

Chestnut Wood-Quail

Chestnut Wood-Quail

Then back to the tanager platform where we continued to enjoy amazing looks at not only tanagers but also barbets, motmots, toucanets and others.

Red-headed Barbet - male

Andean Motmot - Head shot

Crimson-rumped Toucanet

It was interesting to see a few birds that will be returning to breed in North America in the next couple of months, like the Blackburnian Warbler and the Summer Tanager. 

Blackburnian Warbler

Summer Tanager

We left about noon and went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. 

Aquí me quedo (Here I stay).

The restaurant featured outside seating on a covered, raised deck, with dozens of hummingbird feeders attached to the deck rail and overhang. At any time Teri could have reached out and touched hummingbirds that were either feeding or perched on the rail.  

I ordered fried Tilapia which sounded like an easy meal, but when they brought out a whole fish, eyes and all I knew that I’d be picking my way through a lot of bones. 

Luckily Teri had ordered a grilled chicken breast, which turned out to be three large pieces and she shared.

We then went up to an older birding site in the area, Finca la Alejandria. It featured many of the same birds but was put together very differently. While Bosque de Niebla had virtually all of their feeding in a compact centralized area, Finca la Alejandria had over a hundred separate bowls of sugar water scattered over hundreds of yards of trail and garden.  It was difficult to know where to sit and where to look, as being in one area meant that you were missing another. 

Our target bird was the Blue-headed Sapphire which occurs only at this site, and after a few “It’s over here, now it’s over there” moments we got very nice looks at it. 

Blue-headed Sapphire

We found another North American breeding bird here as well. This Swainson's Thrush will be returning to the northern states and Canada in April. 

Swainson's Thrush

From a viewing and photography standpoint the first site was easier, but both had amazing birds. It was hard to estimate how many total hummingbirds were at the feeders at Finca la Alejandria, but it was certainly hundreds. 

That is a mighty big leaf!

We left around 4:00 for a longish drive to Buga, where Daniel dropped us off at a very nice hotel. It turns out (I suppose to save money) that he stays at a different nearby hotel where they have an account. 

We met him for dinner at 7:15 and then parted ways until the next morning.

Next Time: Day 4 Journal

 

Colombia 2022 - Day 2 Journal

Tuesday 2/15/2022 – We met Daniel on the patio at 6:00 to check out the birds first thing. Once it got light enough we headed down a slick muddy trail to a bird blind overlooking a trail. Our hostess, Betty, spread some bird seed and cracked corn on the trail to attract a very rare species of bird, the Chestnut Wood Quail. We sat in the blind for a little more than an hour, and things were pretty slow at first. Only an Agouti came to enjoy the seed, but after some time a few other birds joined in, but no Wood-Quail. 

Agouti

White-naped Brushfinch

We were hearing the Wood-Quail calling in the distance, and then closer, and finally a pair appeared on the trail. We got good looks at them, took some pictures, and then headed back to the lodge for breakfast.

Chestnut Wood-Quail

Breakfast was simple, scrambled eggs, a thick flatbread tortilla, and some fresh white cheese. After breakfast we spent an hour or so out on the porches, enjoying the various birds.  I had brought my full camera setup including tripod and flash and was able to use it throughout the morning to get some great pictures.

The only other couple that had been at the lodge left early this morning, so we had the place to ourselves.

White-necked Jacobin - male

Green Honeycreeper - male

Sickle-winged Guan

At around 9:00 Daniel led us down the access road to the lodge to find some different birds. This is a gravel road with virtually no traffic, so it made for a great wide “trail”. As seems typical once you get away from feeders, the birding was hit-and-miss. We had significant periods where we saw/heard nothing, and other periods that were fairly active. It just depends on where the feeding flocks are and how quickly they are moving. We did find a great spot overlooking an estate with large gardens and spent an hour there enjoying a variety of birds. Daniel used recordings to call in some of the species, while many others just happened along.

Road birding

Golden-headed Quetzal - male

Red-faced Spinetail

Montane Woodcreeper

In addition to birds, we saw this colorful wasp.

After almost four hours on the road, we returned to the lodge for lunch.

Kitchen

Lunch 

Daniel asked if we wanted to do some forest birding later in the afternoon, but we were both tired from two semi-sleepless nights and the morning walk and decided to hang around the lodge for the afternoon.  We took more pictures, found some more new birds, and relaxed a bit.  

Masked Flowerpiercer

White-sided Flowerpiercer

We got great looks at a couple of Andean Motmots. They nest in burrows that they excavate in dirt banks, and we'd seen a couple of these holes alongside the road. This Motmot appears to have been doing some recent digging. 

Andean Motmot

One advantage of a custom trip is that it can be adjusted to whatever we want. We did take a walk with Daniel around the lodge gardens late in the afternoon and enjoyed it.

Since we were leaving La Minga early the next morning, we got mostly packed up and organized so we wouldn’t have much to do in the morning.

 Next time: Day 3

 

Colombia 2022 - Day 1 Journal

We were originally scheduled to make our first ever trip to Colombia in March of 2020, and were within days of departing when Covid-19 brought travel to a screeching halt. We rescheduled for October 2020, thinking that the situation would resolve itself within six months, but we all know how that worked out... We finally got to take the trip, almost two years after the originally scheduled date. 

Colombia has the largest number of bird species of any country in the world. While ecotourism has only been happening for around ten years in Colombia, it is becoming a popular destination for birders. 

Sunday 2/13/2022 – We drove to San Antonio and checked into the La Quinta Airport Hotel at 5:00 pm.  We made arrangements to leave the car parked there for the duration of our trip for $20.00. It’s the best airport parking deal in town. We also pre-ordered an Uber for 3:30 the next morning. As we discovered last time pre-ordering an Uber is fairly expensive, but we didn’t want to risk being late to the airport and missing our flight.

Monday 2/14/2022 – When the alarm is set for 3:00 a.m. and a big trip starting the next day, we don’t typically sleep very well, and this time was no exception. We were up at 3:00 and got notification that our Uber had arrived at 3:10, so we went down around 3:15 and got in.  Fun fact: Uber doesn’t allow the driver to start the ride more than ten minutes before the scheduled time, so we sat and talked for a few minutes before we headed out

We arrived at the airport quickly, got our bags checked, boarding passes, through security, etc. with no issues. Our flight to Miami left on time at 5:45 am, and we landed as scheduled at 9:21. Our flight to Cali, Colombia left at 10:45 and arrived at 2:20.  I had made sure to get us a flight on a wide-bodied Boeing 787, so we enjoyed the first-class “pods” that we had discovered on our trip home from Ecuador the previous fall. They actually make flying comfortable and fun!

We made it through immigration okay.  It seemed to help that I speak some Spanish because our immigration official preferred to use it. He’d “parked” the lady ahead of us off to the side while she figured out what he was asking her for and waved us up. He seemed pleased that we’d correctly filled out the required Colombian “Check MIG” paperwork and that we had our vaccination records in order. We then grabbed our bags and headed through customs, where once again the official asked us some questions in Spanish. I was able to answer them, and she waved us right through. 

We’d been in touch with our guide Daniel through WhatsApp and we knew he was waiting for us just outside. We loaded up into his 4x4 Toyota Land Rover SUV and headed out of Cali.  

Loading up.

It was 25 degrees when we’d left San Antonio, and 85 when we landed in Cali, so we were glad to be headed up into the western Andean cloud forest where it would be cooler.

The original plan had called for us to spend our first night in Cali, but our early afternoon arrival allowed us to go directly up to our first lodge, La Minga Ecolodge. 

Waiting at the front gate.

The road up to the lodge

is very narrow.

This is a well-known birding lodge and features beautiful gardens and an impressive array of both hummingbird feeders and fruit feeders for the birds. 

Front of the lodge.

We arrived there at 4:30 and immediately headed out to the patio overlooking the feeders. We were immediately treated to swarms of hummingbirds and colorful tanagers. 

Blue-winged Mountain-Tanager

Saffron-crowned Tanager

Long-tailed Sylph - male

We got six life birds (birds we’d never seen before) in the first hour that we were there. 

One of our lifers was the well-named Multicolored Tanager. This was a particular target species of ours and we were pleased to get looks at it the very first afternoon. 

Multicolored Tanager

Birding on the deck.

When it started to get dark we headed up to our room, which had three beds and a private bath. Simple but adequate. Dinner was a nice bowl of warm soup and a pasta/chicken entrée. We’ll be staying at several different lodges and hotels, and it will be interesting to see how they compare in terms of room amenities, food, feeders, etc. 

One side of our room.

The other side of our

very large room.

The beds were crazy firm, and there was no fan in the room to circulate air, so it felt both cool and muggy. Neither of us slept particularly well, but that is typical for us on the first night of a trip. Once we get tired enough we’ll sleep! 

Next time: Day 2

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Part 3: New Bird, New Magnet, New Mexico

We were up and checked out of our hotel early the next morning.  The weather had gotten worse during the night and our car was showing 13 degrees.  We started back to Sandia Crest for our last opportunity to see Rosy-Finches.  The streets were slick and icy and, even in town, had not been plowed.  We decided not to attempt going back up the mountain.  It was disappointing to only see one of our target birds.  Maybe next year we will try again.

Our next stop was a couple hours away. I love these giant pots that are in the median.

It’s hard to get a picture at 70 mph.

The road to Socorro was clear. We did see some snow in the fields but the weather was much better than in Albuquerque.

We arrived at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge about 10:00 am.  We have been here many times. 

The refuge is 57,331 acres and was established in 1939 to provide a critical stopover site for migrating waterfowl.  The refuge is well known for tens of thousands of cranes, geese and ducks who winter here.

Cranes, Geese and Ducks

Northern Pintail

Sandhill Crane

American Wigeon

This refuge is mostly a driving loop.  We did get out of the car a few times to walk to a viewing platform. We saw a large number of hawks, mostly Red-tailed. 

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk 

We also saw an American Kestrel, which is our smallest falcon. 

American Kestrel

We stopped at the Visitor Center on our way out. It was closed, but there were some bird feeders that had attracted a few nice birds. 

Gambel's Quail on a feed block

Pyrrhuloxia

Woodhouse'se Scrub-Jay

After a long day, we headed into Socorro to our hotel and an early dinner.

The next morning we were on the road by 6:30 am.  It was cold with a little snow but we had one stop we wanted to make before getting back to Texas.

Percha Dam State Park is a small park with 30 camping sites.  We’ve never been here before.  There were reports of some good birds being seen here so we decided to make a quick stop.

We saw more Phainopepla here than we've ever seen in any single place. This is the sole member of the Silky-Flycatcher family that occurs in the United States. They love mistletoe berries, and the trees in the park were full of mistletoe. The males are a glossy blue/black, while the females are gray. 

Phainopepla male

Phainopepla female

Phainopepla female 

After about an hour we had seen everything there was to see so we headed out. 

After six hours of driving and knowing we had another four hours to get home, we decided to stop for the night in Fort Stockton, Texas.

We have spent many nights in Fort Stockton while going back and forth to New Mexico and Arizona.  One attraction we have never stopped to find is Paisano Pete.  We headed out for an early dinner and to find “Pete.”

Paisano Pete

Built in 1979. He’s 22’ long and 11’ tall.

Paisano - Spanish for “from the same country” or “compatriot”

The next morning we were on the road by 7:30 am for a nice, relaxing drive back home.

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