Rusty-faced Parrot (Hapalopsittaca amazonina)

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Tara

The Rusty-faced Parrot (Hapalopsittaca amazonina) is found in subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland. I didn’t get a shot and there is only a drawing on Wikipedia so this shot of a drawing I got at Rio Blanco will have to do. There are better photos in the “Learning More” section below and video clips.

dscn3225 They are mostly found in the mountainous areas of Colombia with a small population in western Venezuela. This is not an easy bird to get. I caught a glimpse of a pair in flight on the road leaving Manizales going towards the Nevado del Ruiz.

rustyfcdprt

LEARNING MORE ABOUT RUSTY-FACED PARROTS

VIDEOS

The only video clips I could find on YouTube were taken by one of Colombia’s top birding guides – Oswaldo Cortes. I wish I could have hired him as a guide, especially when I see how cute this parrot is up close!

A Visit To Colombia’s Páramo

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Tara

Up to now, we had visited some mountainy areas in Ecuador and Colombia but none were REALLY high up. Quito is at 2850 metres and the El Dorado Reserve in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is around 2600 metres. On previous travels long ago I had been to Lhasa at 3700 metres and we have both been to Cuzco at 3399 metres. I can recall spending one day in Lhasa pretty woozy then acclimating and being ok. In Cuzco we were out of breath a bit but otherwise fine.

On this trip, we had flown into Medellin 1495 metres and traveled overland via Jardin to Manizales at 2160 metres and barely noticed anything. I knew that many tourists use Manizales as a base to make day trips to the Nevado del Ruiz and some had complained of altitude sickness but they were going much further up than we were. I was targeting a couple of parrots found in the Páramo – the Rusty-faced Parrot and the Rufous-fronted Parakeet. I had good data from eBird on where people had been seeing them and Albeiro from Rio Blanco Reserve had organized a car & driver for us and explained to the driver were we were going and why.

The driver picked us up around 5am so we could get to the birding area by dawn. It was beautiful scenery throughout the whole trip.

dscn3253

It wasn’t far but it was uphill all the way and we were going very slow to listen for the birds. It was extremely foggy the whole day which pretty much ruined my chance to get bird shots, especially if they were in flight. After slowly driving along the area where others had reported Rusty-faced Parrots, we finally heard the calls and saw a pair fly overhead and off to the bush without stopping. This was as good as we were going to get. dscn3255 dscn3256

At this point, I was shocked to see how high we were – 3400 metres! Shortly afterward we took a turn towards the Termales del Ruiz. dscn3257 dscn3258 dscn3259 dscn3261

The fog was getting worse – bad news for birders.

I just about freaked out when I saw this sign!

From this point up to the Termales del Ruiz is the area where you are most likely to see Rufous-fronted Parakeets. So we drove slowly along listening anxiously but nothing could be heard.

dscn3263 dscn3264 dscn3267

At this point we stopped for about half an hour. I could hear what seemed to be parrot calls in the trees but none of them came out where we could see them.

dscn3270

Spectacular view of Manizales! dscn3272 dscn3273

This is the Hotel Termales del Ruiz where we stopped for a short visit. There is a fee to go inside the property to see the hummingbird feeders and I didn’t have enough cash for everyone so I went in to grab some photos while Ina & the driver hung around outside. I’ll put this birding walk on a separate post due to large number of photos. dscn3274

Ina was starting to feel the effects of the altitude by this time so we had to go back down the mountain. Surprisingly, all I got was a bit out of breath but nothing serious. Ina got pretty woozy. dscn3320 dscn3323

Not sure what this is, I was just happy to see a bird close enough to get a photo of! dscn3324 dscn3329

The road is pretty bad so if you come here, make sure you have a 4×4 or at least high clearance. dscn3326 dscn3327 dscn3333

At this point we were almost back to Manizales when we got a call from Albeiro letting us know the Golden-Plumed Parakeets were hanging around the lodge area so we high-tailed it back to Rio Blanco. dscn3340

Rusty-faced Parrot (Hapalopsittaca amazonina)

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Tara

The Rusty-faced Parrot is most threatened by habitat destruction and fragmentation. Extensive logging and clearing for agriculture, development, and mining have destroyed much of its historical habitat in the Andes.

Hapalopsittaca amazonina has three subspecies in the Andes of Venezuela and Colombia. A sight record from Ecuador in 1992 was presumed by range to be this species (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001). Subspecies theresae is restricted to the Sierra de Mérida (Trujillo [Sharpe et al. 2001], Mérida and Táchira), Venezuela. Nominate amazonina occurs on both slopes of the East Andes in south-west Táchira, Venezuela; and Cundinamarca, Boyacá and historically Norte de Santander and Santander, Colombia. Subspecies velezi is known from both slopes of the Central Andes in Caldas, Risaralda (R. Strewe in litt. 1999) and Tolima (B. López-Lanús in litt. 2000), Colombia. There are recent sightings of Hapalopsittaca species from the head of the Madgalena valley, Huila, Colombia, and northern Ecuador (Robbins et al. 1994a, G. H. Rosenberg in litt. 2000), probably all amazonina (Juniper and Parr 1998). A recent Colombian population estimate of 2,500-10,000 individuals based on a hypothetical density c.1 individual/km² and 25% occupancy of the estimated 13,890 km² of suitable habitat (Renjifo et al. 2002) may be over-generous, but it is likely that the Colombian population numbers several thousand birds (P. G. W. Salaman in litt. 2005). There are c. 250 birds of the nominate subspecies in the Soata bird reserve, Boyacá (O. Cortes and A. Hernandez-Jaramillo in litt. 2007). The Venezuelan population unknown, although it is encountered regularly in several different parts of the Mérida Andes (C. J. Sharpe in litt. 2003, Weller and Rengifo 2003, Rengifo et al. 2005, Rengifo et al. 2005).

Getting to Colombia is easy with airline miles. Since Colombia is in the northern South America region with Peru, please see this post for details on how many miles you would need. The main airport, Bogota is well served by both Star Alliance (Avianca, Copa, United, Lufthansa, Air Canada) and One World (American, LAN, Iberia).