Colombia: Bogota, The Magdalena Valley and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Feb 02—17, 2011
Posted by Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty is the senior author of A Guide to the Birds of Colombia, and the recently published Birds of Venezuela, both by Princeton University Press. Other credits inclu...Related Trips
Colombia is rapidly becoming a "must see" destination, as most areas within this beautiful country can now be safely visited by birders. This fact has not been lost on the birding community, which is now flooding numerous tiny reserves, as well as national parks, and now pressing into new uncharted sites. In fact, so many individuals and groups, organized and unorganized, informed and uninformed, are now flocking to the same sites, all of them equipped with newly-purchased iPods and easily-downloaded songs, that some much-sought birds, especially endemics, are already experiencing playback exhaustion. This, perhaps, is unfortunate—birders literally loving to death the species they have come to see, and I foresee some form of playback restrictions in the future.
Finding Colombia's seventy plus endemic species and nearly double that number of near-endemics (those which occur primarily in Colombia, but have been recorded just across the border in a neighboring country, i.e. Panama, Venezuela, or Ecuador), however, is very much a game of averages (think of a baseball batting average). Numerous factors can affect the number of endemics one finds during a two-week period, and it is only rarely that all factors align for a perfect score. As a result, our journey scored some successes, and some notable failures, as well—all to be expected in a country where travel is complicated and unplanned adventures are commonplace.
Trips provide memories and ours was no exception. When a local reserve manager casually mentioned that he knew where a potoo was sleeping, we followed up immediately, expecting a Great Potoo or a Common Potoo (the elevation was 1,300 m). What we found was something quite unexpected. We saw a notably dark potoo with grayish-white great wing coverts broadly tipped black—the marks of an Andean Potoo, a species seldom encountered and here more than 400 m below any previous known record.
Other sites proved frustrating. Case in point, the bushbird reserve where we set aside a full day, but at the end of a long morning and massive amounts of playback, heard but one bird virtually at the limit of human hearing, and this individual called weakly only a couple of times before falling silent. Our search for the endemic subspecies known as Todd's Parakeet was equally fruitless, and proved to be an exhausting drive as well, especially given rustic jeeps and the long arduous road. A long vigil in front of a feeder frequented by a Chestnut-bellied Hummingbird also proved fruitless. On the other hand, in the Santa Marta Mountains we had excellent luck with almost all expected species except the owl (how could four individuals elude us so completely?); playback has now rendered this species extremely suspicious. We also failed to hear even a single Santa Marta Bush-Tyrant, but added many welcome species in the foothills. The Guajira desert also provided us with virtually every expected species except the park's namesake, the Greater Flamingo (Los Flamencos National Park) which was notably absent. On the other hand, a rare Long-billed Curlew and two Lesser Black-backed Gulls (one in breeding plumage) were a surprise.
And there were other adventures—horseback rides; an early morning excursion into the Río Claro kitchen; landslides and washed-out roads (to San Vicente); long bumpy rides (Santa Marta); a novice bus driver who lost his way twice trying to exit Bogotá the first morning (and a local guide who seemed hardly better versed); a brief and memorable meeting (complete with photographs) with a remarkably friendly but massively-armed military and police patrol near Victoria (Caldas); Jill's blackberry wine (good cleaning product she deduced); some long bus rides; several unannounced hotel changes and at least one route change (none of which I was not notified about in advance). These were but a few of our adventures, all par for the course in Colombia, which is only just gaining its ecotourism footing. Nevertheless, it makes for good adventure, although sometimes stressful travel for those of us who think that, as guides, we are in charge of things. On the brighter side, the food was excellent and clean everywhere with nary a single stomach problem, a major departure from travel in some countries where such ailments often plague travelers. Furthermore, we experienced no problems with security, thanks no doubt to an unusually heavy police and military presence throughout, and the presence of hummingbird feeders at several sites enhanced our hummer list far beyond what it would have been otherwise.
All in all, a good trip for birds, no serious logistical problems, no security problems, and enough bumpy roads and trucks for even the hardiest travelers. We are planning even more trips and adventures for the future.