The rare and endangered Fuertes Parrot is highly sought after by birders in Colombia.  I knew that ProAves had a reserve south of Armenia, the Giles Fuertes Reserve.  I had contacted them to inquire about a visit but was told that the reserve was not open to visitors.  So I turned to eBird to see where other people had been seeing them and found a few sightings near the Termales San Vincente which was easily reached from Pereira or Santa Rosa de Cabal.  But what really turned this expedition around for me was finding a blog (Birds of Passage) by two American birders – Josh & Kathi who were traveling around South America in a camper van.

This is what it looks like from Pereira to Termales San Vincente, then the small road leading up the mountain to the Fuertes Parrot site.

This post on their blog had detailed instructions on how to get to the Fuertes Parrot site!  Now all I needed was transport.  This was when I chose the Kolibri Hostel in Pereira as an overnight staging point.  I knew backpacker places would have drivers available at backpacker prices………….and they did!  Although I don’t remember the exact cost, it was around 130,000 COP for the morning and we would be dropped at the airport afterwards..

This is the junction of the Termales San Vincente and the road on the left is where you turn.

This is the checkpoint at 3000m and it was manned.  We told them we were birding and there were no problems.  We signed in and back out again as we left.

Rough road best done with an SUV at least.

We kept driving past the farms as instructed.

Drove over the little yellow bridge.

Time we arrived after leaving Pereira at 5am.

We drove slowly with windows and ears open.  I was dismayed with the weather, the clouds (yes it is a cloud forest) would make finding the parrots very difficult.

We parked at a good vantage point and waited well over an hour with only this bird (whatever it is) being seen.

More waiting until FINALLY some Fuertes Parrots appeared out of the mist and flew into a tree.  I couldn’t get a focus on them.

They were flying from tree to tree but unfortunately came nowhere near us.

Interesting group of people driving up the road.

Meanwhile the weather was getting worse and I was no longer hearing the parrots squawk and couldn’t see them flying anymore. 

We headed back down the mountain past the yellow bridge, weather getting worse by the minute.  I really HATE cloud forests, especially ones at high altitudes.  Why can’t these awesome birds pick more accessible places to live?

We decided to visit the Termales San Vincente to see if there were any interesting birds.  As we got near, the heavens opened up so we weren’t able to walk around the grounds.

This Andean Motmot felt sorry for us having such a lousy day so posed for a photo to cheer us up.

Continuing back towards Santa Rosa, we found another Andean Motmot.

A pretty Fork-tailed Flycatcher on a wire.

Random raptor in the mist.

It was still raining as we drove back through Santa Rosa.

The end of the trip as we enter the Pereira airport.