Bird Watching Trip in Colombia, January 2020, Part 1, Introduction

🔊 Listen

Two overseas trips this year—yes, in 2020—have distracted me from writing. So please don’t expect a new novel from me this summer! In January, my husband and I went on our first-ever Audubon Society birding trip to Colombia. The trip was arranged by Audubon Society Northern Virginia.

A local birding expert—Alejandro Nagy with Holbrook Travel—guided 13 of us for 10 days to several Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia and other natural areas. The trip’s focus was indigenous and endemic bird life, but we’re all-around naturalists, and plants are easier to photograph, so we explored all of the outdoors available to us. That included getting up at 4 am to view (with a birding scope) the Southern Cross and adjacent galaxy clusters—sorry no photographs of those!

Before we left, many folks questioned our sanity in visiting a country with known drug cartel activity. That’s in the past! In fact during those decades, most Colombians didn’t travel, and many people are now enjoying visiting their own national parks for the first time.

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Fortunately, many natural areas have been saved from the ever-increasing clearing of forests for sun-grown coffee.

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We loved the trip and would recommend it, or if you are only in Bogotá, our private tour with Luis Felipe Ramerez and Bogota Driver Guide Service was top-notch. He’s a fabulous storyteller, who brought the history culture and landmarks of the city and vicinity alive!

Colombia is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. We visited four park areas in the Central Andes region that I’d like to share with you over additional blog posts. All are located in the center of this map, near the mark for PNN Los Nevados.

I’d hesitated to post our birding trip, because I only took my iPhone as a camera and didn’t capture many avian close-ups. But luckily, another couple on the trip had diverse interests. To have something to do while joining his avid-birdwatcher wife Amy, Aubrey Nolan took up wildlife photography. They shared their photos by sending everyone a flash drive. You’ll see his credits on many photos. (Click on smaller photos to enlarge.)

Whew, that was a long introduction! We made two stops before we traveled out of the city. Parque Regional La Florida, outside of Bogotá, is a wetland dedicated to restoring habitat and conserving birdlife.

The land bordering the wetlands was planted extensively with a diversity of shrubs and trees, most flowering. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn the names of them.

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The main bird we came here to see was the Bogotá Rail, an elusive wetland resident. We spotted several and this striking yellow-hooded blackbird, among many other waterbirds, and a beautiful moth.

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We traveled north to San Fransisco to the Enchanted Garden, a private home that hosts hummingbirds and birdwatchers.

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It’s impossible to describe the activity of decades of feeding birds at more than 60 feeders (they were numbered!). Hopefully this video helps.

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Pictured above are the Sparkling Violetear, Black-throated Mango and Indigo-capped hummingbirds. Below are a male Saffron Finch and a Ground Dove.

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We stopped for a traditional meal–the plantains were my favorite!

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We flew out of Bogotá to Pereira, enjoying views of the central Andes terrain and the 17,457 foot high volcano Nevado del Ruiz.

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My story will continue in Part 2 with our time at Otún Quimbaya Flora and Fauna Sanctuary.