Day 12 - Eldorado to Minca, Colombia

Owling at 4.30 am!   A great start to the day.    Several of us joined Colin and Trevor our guides for this jaunt - others who shall remain nameless (pj) decided on another hour's sleep!

My cabin in the woods

Our first two attempts once again failed, but with only two hardy souls (some would say mad!) determined not to let the birds beat us Trevor decided that we  should try a rather strenuous yomp up a very muddy track (bear in mind dear reader that it is still only 5 am, and pitch black).   Eventually we had gained sufficient height  for Trevor to try again.   One screech owl started to respond to the tape, and then a second, finally a third joined in.   At this stage no further taping was required as the birds were responding to each other - a great experience to be in the midst of.   

Suddenly Trevor called us both forward - he had found the bird.   No binoculars were required as it sat on a small cross branch just feet from us.  As we watched in quiet awe, the bird turned to look at us with it's amazing eyes gleaming in the light from the torch.    We continued to watch with the other two birds calling from a distance, in response the bird before us flew off into the early morning light not to be seen again.    We decided that it was a young bird as some of the feathers were a little lighter than we would have expected from an adult.

Coffee beans drying

We needed to do a route-march back to base to arrive just a few minutes late for breakfast, but elated with our experience.

For our morning's walk we took the road below the lodge, with the jeeps moving with us in case of need.   A male golden-breasted fruiteater, showed well just outside the lodge.

On a small side trail we caught up with grey-throated leaftosser, montane woodcreeper, long-tailed antbird, and had the most fantastic views of rusty-breasted Antpitta,  Santa marta tapaculo proved elusive with several heard before we finally managed to see one.   Olive-sided flycatcher, dusky-capped flycatcher, a juvenile rusty flowerpiercer.  

After an early lunch it was time to move on to our next site and the hotel at Minca which we had visited on our way up the mountain a couple of days before.   Not wishing to miss any opportunity to see some new birds we stopped regularly along the way to check for new species.   Streaked xenops, Santa  marta foliage-gleaner, bran-coloured flycatcher, a great sighting of orange-billed nightingale-thrush, adult male rusty flowerpiercer, to name but a few.

Green violetear

We arrived at Minca just as darkness fell and were all only to keen to have dinner and retire for a well earned rest.   Around midnight a Colombian gentleman was heard calling out "buenous noches" apparently in a vain attempt to gain a bed for the night.