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| Clarito Botero |
Another 4.45am start, and it was off in jeeps for a quick breakfast in a local 24 hour cafe. Pastries with ham cheese and pineapple were chosen by most of the group, accompanied by milky coffee. Breakfast over and it was time to make our journey up the hillside in our two jeeps to the area of Clarita Botero. For some of us it was reminiscent of our jeepney experiences in Vietnam a couple of years ago.
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| Butterfly |
Unfortunately, we were stopped about half way up the hill track by a fallen tree and one of the many landslides we were to see. We started to walk, and along the way we saw: crimson rumped toucanet, red-crowned woodpecker (we heard both lineated and spot-breasted woodpecker and pale-breasted spinetail), slaty spinetail, plain xenops,bar-crested antshrike, plain antvireo, sooty-headed tyrannulet, pale-vented pigeon, southern-beardless tyrannulet, golden -faced tyrannulet, apical flycatcher for a second day, rufous-naped greenlet, black-bellied wren which gave even better views than the previous day, grey-cheeked, swainson's, and pale-breasted thrush all added to the day. Scrub, bay headed, golden, and blue-necked tanager, were joined by black-faced and blue dacnis, bananaquit, dull-coloured grassquit, buff-throated and streaked saltator, yellow-bellied seedeater, summer tanager, rose-breasted grosbeak, tropical parula, blackburnian warbler, American redstart, rufous-capped and buff-rumped warbler, lesser goldfinch and a pair of yellow-backed oriole sat in a tree in the mid distance but their yellow plumage showed well against the green background of trees. White-necked jacobin, green-fronted lance bill, white-vented plumleteer, and violet-crowned woodnymph added to our hummer list.
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| Roadside Bar |
Around 9am we left the hillside in the jeeps and met our mini-bus driver with the main luggage, after a stop for drinks and snacks of banana, pears, and biscuits we were on our way to El Paujil - a 4-5 hour journey. We stopped around 12.30 for lunch at a roadside cafe, and also did some birding as we neared the El Paujil area. Northern screamers were our main hope, and we found 3 in nearby fields, along with black-capped donacobius, yellow-chinned spinetail, great, snowy and cattle egret, a striated heron, white-headed marsh-tyrant, great kisskidee, fork-tailed flycatcher, a tropical mockingbird was mobbing a white-tailed kite and red breasted blackbird was spotted in between the reeds.
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| The journey to El Paujil |
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| El Paujil Lodge |
At our second stop we saw blue-and-yellow macaw, chestnut fronted macaw, saffron finch, blue-black grassquit. On the journey we saw ringed kingfisher, black-bellied whistling duck, Colombian chachalaca, neotropical cormorant, bare-faced ibis, turkey, black and lesser yellow-headed vulture, pearl kites seemed to enjoy sitting on the telegraph poles alongside the road, savannah and oadside hawks, a couple of laughing falcons, crested and yellow-headed caracara, purple gallinule, southern lapwing, wattled jacana, ruddy ground dove,rock pigeon, blue-headed parrot, squirrel cuckoo, greater and smooth-billed ani, vermillion flycatcher, blue-and-white swallow, southern rough winged swallow, grey-breasted martin and rufous-collared sparrow. Eventually we had arrived in a small town literally "at the end of the road". Here we got into boats watched by the locals just waiting for a bit of entertainment of some tourists tripping in the thick mud that led the way down to the riverside. All safely on board it only took 20minutes or so to reach our home for the next three nights. I had one of the further chalet rooms near the river, over rather tortuous bamboo steps and a bridge.
As we had dinner and did the checklist crested owl and tropical screech-owl called.
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