Avianca Flight Pereira – Bogota

I had originally planned to do this trip by bus for the scenery but when I stumbled onto a big sale on Avianca’s website, I couldn’t resist booking the two one-way tickets for under $100 AUD!  I had run out of Lifemiles but you can also book domestic Colombian flights for 3000 Lifemiles.   It turned out to be a good thing as my husband was feeling the altitude sickness and Bogota is lower than the Central Andes Paramo region.

We were dropped after the Fuertes Parrot Quest at Pereira Airport.

dscn3484

I was surprised at how good the facilities were – lots of eateries, shops and seating space for a small domestic airport.dscn3485

Just the thing to cheer me up after the “Curse of the Cloud Forest” – Cinnabon!  It’s a more limited menu than you find in the USA but still yummy!dscn3486

Flights were going out on time.dscn3487

Waiting roomdscn3488

Standard garden-variety all-economy Avianca plane.dscn3489

Andean Motmot or Highland Motmot (Momotus aequatorialis)

The Andean Motmot or Highland Motmot (Momotus aequatorialis) is a colorful near-passerine bird found in the forests and woodlands from northern Colombia to western Bolivia. This species and the Blue-capped Motmot, Lesson’s Motmot, Whooping Motmot, Amazonian Motmot, and Trinidad Motmot were all considered conspecific.  There is something magical and majestic all at once with this beautiful racket-tailed bird.

img_6690 img_6686 img_6689 dscn3238 dscn3239

They have a large range throughout the Central Andes in Colombia, Ecuador & Peru, just barely touching Bolivia.  I saw one at great distance in Mindo, then better views at Rio Blanco and the Termales San Vincente near Pereira, Colombia.

andeanmotmot

LEARN MORE ABOUT ANDEAN MOTMOTS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEOS

“Why do all these silly humans want to watch ME?”

 

And this one has some opinions to share.

 

Indigo-winged parrot aka Fuertes’s Parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi)

The Fuertes’s Parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi), also known as the Indigo-winged Parrot, is a parrot which has a highly restricted range on the west slope of the Central Andes of Colombia.  You know a bird profile is going to be a challenge when Wikipedia doesn’t have a photo.  Birdlife does have a drawing I can hopefully use (link below).

fuertes2

Fuertes’ Parrots are endemic to Colombia in an extremely challenging location to go birding with the bad weather and high altitude cloud forest.  See my description on how to find them on my post and the Birds of Passage blog.  Pereira or Santa Rosa de Cabal are the staging points, both can be easily reached by bus but you need a hired car-SUV to get to the habitat.

fuertes1 fuertes-area

LEARN MORE ABOUT FUERTES PARROTS

You can see some photos by professional photographers on some of these sites.

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

ProAves

World Land Trust

Birds of Passage

VIDEOS

On Youtube, I found a video taken by Peter Odekerken during his trip to Colombia.  He managed to get into the Giles Fuertes Reserve that I couldn’t get into.

You can see what a cute little bird this is!

You can see how well they blend into the trees but Oswaldo Cortes got a good clip.

One more clip by Alejandro Cartagena, very clear footage!

 

 

 

 

Quest For The Fuertes Parrot

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.

fuertes-area

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.

dscn3426

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.dscn3429

Rough road best done with an SUV at least.dscn3430 dscn3431 dscn3433 dscn3435

We kept driving past the farms as instructed.dscn3437 dscn3440

Drove over the little yellow bridge.dscn3442

Time we arrived after leaving Pereira at 5am.dscn3443 dscn3444

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.dscn3447 dscn3452 dscn3463 dscn3466

We parked at a good vantage point and waited well over an hour with only this bird (whatever it is) being seen.img_6632

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.img_6638

They were flying from tree to tree but unfortunately came nowhere near us.img_6645 img_6650 img_6661 img_6670

Interesting group of people driving up the road.img_6676

Meanwhile the weather was getting worse and I was no longer hearing the parrots squawk and couldn’t see them flying anymore.  img_6683

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?img_6685

dscn3454 dscn3456

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.dscn3457 dscn3458 dscn3459

This Andean Motmot felt sorry for us having such a lousy day so posed for a photo to cheer us up.dscn3460 dscn3461 dscn3463 dscn3466 dscn3467 dscn3469

Continuing back towards Santa Rosa, we found another Andean Motmot.img_6686 img_6689 img_6690

A pretty Fork-tailed Flycatcher on a wire.img_6692 img_6698

Random raptor in the mist.img_6702

It was still raining as we drove back through Santa Rosa.dscn3470 dscn3471 dscn3473 dscn3474 dscn3475 dscn3476 dscn3477 dscn3481

The end of the trip as we enter the Pereira airport.dscn3482 dscn3483 dscn3484

Lodge Review: Kolibri Hostel, Pereira

For an independent birder who was basically “winging it” in Colombia, we had specific needs when we arrived in Pereira.  Our target bird was the Fuertes Parrot in a remote area near Santa Rosa de Cabal but we would need hired transport, preferably at backpacker prices.  So that is why I chose a backpacker lodge for this part of the trip.  The Kolibri Hostel was well recommended on Trip Advisor and it turned out to be a very cool hostel with friendly staff who speak English well and were very helpful.

The decor in the public areas is very cool, lots of unique artwork which I love!

dscn3419

dscn3422 dscn3421 dscn3420

Friendly staff who understand the needs of budget travelers and booked our car & driver at a good price.  dscn3418

Upstairs there is a common use kitchen and a few bathrooms & toilets which are shared.  We had a double room with use of shared facilities.  dscn3417 dscn3411 dscn3410

I want these hummingbird decorations!dscn3409

Basic room which was fine for the night.dscn3408

Nice verandah with view over the city.  dscn3412 dscn3413 dscn3414 dscn3415 dscn3416

A few birds seen from the verandah below the hostel.

Blue-grey Tanager

img_6592 img_6594

?img_6614 img_6625

Blue-and-white Swallow img_6629

?img_6630

More hummingbird decorations!dscn3425

Clean, modern bathroom.dscn3424

Seriously, for less than $20 you can’t beat it!  The car they booked for us was around 150,000 COP iirc so around $50 USD-ish which was an excellent value and they have some cool handicrafts for sale at the front desk, especially beaded bird earrings so I went a bit nuts.  Credit cards are accepted.

Planning A Birding Trip To Colombia

Planning our birding trip to Colombia was a much bigger challenge than planning the Ecuador trip.  Even though the countries are next to each other, there is a huge difference between the tourist infrastructures.  Ecuador has been a travel hotspot for years and places like Mindo, Napo, Southern Ecuador & the Galapagos are well equipped to handle travelers of all types and budgets.  But Colombia was off limit for many years due to safety concerns and has only recently been returned to birders’ itineraries.  Even now, there is a preference for organized package tourists.  Many of the large birding tour operators are going to Colombia but there is still a good market for us budget minded independent birders!  We just have to work harder to manage it!

IMG_4085a

SET YOUR BIRDING GOALS FIRST

With over 1900 bird species, Colombia has a lot to offer and unless you have unlimited time and money there is no way you are going to see it all.  Before you can choose which reserves you want to visit, you need to know what species are your priorities or which reserves have the biggest bird lists if you are looking to build up your life list.

My #1 target is to see as many parrot species as possible and lots of other bird species who live in the same habitats.  While I am not a “life-list ticker”, I do want to see as many different species of parrots in my life as I possibly can.  Therefore, when choosing between destinations within a country I consider these elements:

  1. Endemic species (can only be seen in one country such as Yellow-eared Parrot ( Santa Marta Parakeet).
  2. Species that I haven’t seen before.
  3. Species that are more easily seen elsewhere (Ecuadorian Amazon vs Colombian Amazon for example).
  4. How easily can I get to the reserve and is it in a safe location?
  5. Are some species just too rare that we probably have no chance of seeing them? (Sinu Parakeet – Pyrrhura subandina)?
  6. Can I hire guides in the reserves or nearest town?

So after looking at the 57 species of parrots that can be found in Colombia, I prioritized species that I hadn’t already seen on previous trips to South America and that I wasn’t likely to see in Ecuador, then I eliminated species that had no sightings on eBird and I was unlikely to be able to find.  Actually eBird played a HUGE part in planning this trip as I was able to get really good data on birds such as Fuertes Parrots which were being seen regularly near Santa Rosa and Rufous-fronted Parakeets which were being seen near Manizales.

This is a snippet of my planning spreadsheet for Ecuador, Colombia & Trinidad.  A yellow-filled box means that species is an endemic and needs to be prioritized.  Light green font indicates I have already seen the species elsewhere (but I am always happy to see them again) but I don’t need to make a special trip for that species.  Some birds are seen in both Ecuador & Colombia so I had to figure out which location would be easier logistically.  Just to get to this stage involved hundreds of hours of looking up each species on eBird, tracking sightings, cross-referencing species to get them down to as few sites as possible and making sure we can logistically get to the location.

ColParrot1 ColParrot2

ORGANIZING THE LOGISTICS

I was now down to 6 locations and less than 2 weeks to squeeze them all in.  I should probably say 5.5 locations as Minca is enroute to El Dorado.

  1.  Minca & El Dorado – accessed via Santa Marta airport
  2. Jardin – Yellow-eared Parrot Reserve – accessed by Medellin airport and a bus to Jardin.
  3. Rio Blanco & Surrounds – lots of species here, accessed by taxi or bus.
  4. Pereira – nearest city to accessible Fuertes Parrots.  I was trying for Giles Fuertes Reserve but told by ProAves that this reserve was not accessible to tourists.
  5. Chingaza Reserve – accessible by road from Bogota, planned to hire a taxi to get there.

I would need 3 flights.

  1. Quito to Santa Marta via Bogota (used Avianca Lifemiles).
  2. Santa Marta to Medellin (used Avianca Lifemiles).
  3. Pereira to Bogota (originally was going to use bus but found super cheap fare on Avianca).

This is what it all looked like on paper computer screen.

Colombia Plan

FINDING ACCOMMODATION

This turned out to be the easiest part.  Broken down by site:

  1. Santa Marta – flight got in at 9:30 so used an Expedia voucher for budget hotel.
  2. El Dorado – booked online via ProAves.
  3. Minca – booked online via Booking.com
  4. Jardin – got off bus from Medellin and walked into budget hotel on main plaza.
  5. Manizales (Rio Blanco) – must have advance booking so booked by email.
  6. Pereira – booked a backpacker place as I knew they would be able to find a cheap taxi to take us to Fuertes Parrots location at low cost.
  7. Bogota – was going to use Club Carlson bogo redemption but they closed their cheaper hotel so I used Orbucks from last year’s photo contest with 15% off promo code.

DSCN2215a

This is an extremely succinct version of all the work I put into organizing a budget birding trip.  It’s very time consuming, especially if you have target species to track down and are limited by both time and budget.  But the end result was worth it for my high success rate.  Birds highlighted in peach were seen on this trip.  Those preceded by a 9 were allocated to Colombian sites (1-6 were allocated to Ecuador).  Red font on white background (ahem – parrotlets!) were total dips for this trip and my lifetime.  Lilac background was a dip on THIS trip but seen previously elsewhere.  For Colombia, out of  15 allocated species, 11 were seen, 4 were dips but the Brown-throated Parakeet had been seen in Panama so not a life dip.  Lilac-tailed Parrotlets could also be seen in Trindad so there was a 2nd chance (which ended up failing).

Colombia targets

So how can you do a trip like this?  Join me for the fantastic ride through Colombia during the next few weeks!