Bird Watching Trip in Colombia, January 2020, Part 4, Rio Blanco Natural Reserve

🔊 Listen

I’ve been slow in posting the remainder of my trip! Bear with me as I slip in the additional highlights before the end of the year. Read Part 3 here, or start at Part 1!

While staying at the Tinamú Birding Reserve, we made several day trips. The first, on January 6th, was to Rio Blanco Natural Reserve and had to be timed very carefully–the antpittas expect their breakfast to arrive on time each day!

The reserve above Manizales was originally preserved to secure the water for a local company. Today, that 9000 acres is a Reserva Ecológica reported to be one of the best birdwatching sites in the world, and is accessible by reservation only.

At the gate to the reserve, the van came to an abrupt halt when we spotted an Andean Motmot!

This was the only sighting of this beautiful bird on the trip. Unfortunately, we were racing to get to a timed program with even rarer birds.

At 5250 feet, the montane forest habitat supports a nice mix of species: 348 have been recorded, including 13 endemic species and 9 antpittas. Antpittas were our goal bird in this park. These little birds tend to walk quietly over the forest floor searching for their favorite foods, insects and earthworms.

Over years of quiet feeding at consistent times, the birds come to specific areas near the lodge. We met our guide Daniel, the son of the reserve manager and lead guide, and hiked up to a shelter. Silently, we slid onto the benches.

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Daniel put out a number of earthworms that he collects in the woods. The birds won’t eat any other kind. He knelt and began to call the song of the Bicolored Antpitta.

We repeated this at two more stations to also view the Brown-banded Antpitta, the Rufous Antpitta and the Chestnut-crowned Antpitta. Click on the photos for identification.

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A Green and Black Fruiteater spontaneously came in to receive an easy breakfast and pose for fifteen minutes for photos.

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Aubrey Nolan, the man on the right, is the source of many of the closeups I’m sharing with his permission. (see individual photo credits) He kindly provided each participant with a thumb drive so we’d have images of our sightings. Thank you, Aubrey!

We did a bit of hiking in the reserve to enjoy the local vegetation and access a roosting spot of another unusual local bird the staff keeps track of for visitors. A Stygian Owl.

Among the plants were tree ferns, a familiar begonia-like flower and spectacularly huge ferns everywhere!

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And up in the trees–a Masked Trogon! Our best look at one.

We took in the views from a hilltop and admired the local trees, including a native pine on the hillside and the reddish-barked trees called Seven Skin.

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One of our hikes took us past the guide residence where the chance to play a local game was offered up. My husband tried tossing a clay ball that contains a bit of gunpowder to land on a clay bed. It’s exciting if it doesn’t!

It is common to keep a grotto for the Virgin Mary at residences.

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After our morning’s birdwatching, we returned to the lodge to observe at the feeders and have a local lunch.

Of course many hummingbirds were feeding at the feeders, my favorite of which were the Long-tailed Sylph Hummingbird and the Copper-bellied Puffleg Hummingbird.

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And like in any backyard feeding station in North America, the local endemic squirrel, microsciares sp., was also searching for lunch!

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At lunch in the lodge, we dined on chicken, rice, plantain, two types of root vegetables and soup , accompanied by a local fruit juice. For dessert we had crystallized guava.

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After a successful trip, we returned to Tinamú Reserve for naps and later afternoon birding hikes described in another post. Another early rising was waiting for us the next day. Read about our ridge hike above Manizales in Part 5.