Bird Watching Trip in Colombia, January 2020, Part 2: Otún Quimbaya Flora and Fauna Sanctuary

🔊 Listen

From Bogotá (read Part 1), we flew into Pereira and drove country roads through La Suiza village to Otún Quimbaya Flora and Fauna Sanctuary, arriving after dark. Our bird watching days began at 5 am with views of fern trees.

Coffee service was left on the veranda, followed by a few hours of craning our necks to the tallest Cecropia trees with their silvery foliage. I’m not kidding; we easily spent 2 hours in this yard watching birds fly through and feed. Please note that again I am thankful and honored to be able to use the photos of a photographer on our trip, Aubrey Nolan. I have watermarked his photos to give him credit. Click on individual photos to enlarge and read captions.

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Many tree species were filled with lichen, orchids and bromeliads. This much plant life hosts a lot of insects! And hides flittering birds.

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One chicken-sized species was easy to spot, the Cauca Guan.

Smaller birds teased us and frustrated our guide with repeated appearances that we spotted over and over again, until we recognized and ignored the common birds like Tropical Kingbird and Rufous-collared Sparrow.

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Other species weren’t as common, such as the Golden-faced Tyrannulet and Red-ruffed Fruitcrow.

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A special spotting of a Sparkling Violetear nesting in a juniper.

Woods surround the grounds of the old ranch that historically raised cattle, a tree plantation and provided carbon as an industry. I can’t remember these photo dates, but you can see the change in the vegetation from ranching to post-1995 when it was turned over to the park system.

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For a few years these buildings housed park guide and ranger trainees, but now are open to the public as a visitor center, dining hall offering traditional Colombian meals and lodging.

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The surrounding park land (nearly 5 km2) falls in the sub-Andean forest along the Otún River, and contains wetlands, forest plantations, and natural forests in different stages of succession as well as old-growth forests.

Daily bird watching took us into several of these habitats. Hikes down the public road were alternately quiet and busy, and incredibly lush.

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My favorite finds were the hornworts (a primitive plant) with their sporophyte ‘horn’ and the purplish flower / seed pods of a 6-foot-tall philodendron plant. The howler monkey sightings were in a category by themselves!

Torrent Ducks live along the nearby Otún River, so we made several forays out to find them, with success! The male has the fancier black and white head.

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A hike with a park guide led us into the uncut sub-Andean forest. This young man, Ozwald, has trained for 8 years at several Colombian parks, becoming an expert bird caller and knowledgeable about plant relationships. A few fascinating features were the varieties and size of the philodendron plants and palms and the aerial roots coming down from the trees to transport nutrients back up to the canopy.

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Our visit at Otún Quimbaya ended midday on January 5th. Part 3 will explore Tinamú Birding Reserve outside of Manizales.