Colombia - Day 1 - Chingaza NP

Our first day of birding in Colombia, and a great start with good birds and weather.

Chingaza NP

We left our hotel at 5am to drive to Chingaza National Park which lies at up to 3200m above sea level. The weather was cool when we first arrived, but warmed up as the day wore on. Sunny spells gave way to overcast skies in the afternoon.

On a rock in a stream on the way to the main birding area Phil spotted a white-capped dipper so the bus stopped to let everyone have a good view.    Whilst we were checked into the park by our guides we watched a rufous wren.    We moved off to investigate two other nearby sites, where we saw white throated tyrannulet, rufous-browed conebill and golden-fronted whitestart.    Soon it was time to move on to a more secluded part of the park which is sectioned off with a locked gate - a guard came with us to unlock.    Our primary target in this area was brown-breasted parakeet, but on the way to them we had a long, steep walk (not helped by being at altitude) and a lot more birds to see.   We panted and puffed our way up the slope.

Chingaza NP

Red-crested cotinga, great thrush, scarlet-bellied, hooded and buff-breated mountain-tanager, blue and black tanager, plain-coloured seedeater, pale-naped brush-finch, glossy flowerpiercer, plushcap, slaty brush-finch, black-crested warbler, mountain and yellow-billed cacique, white-chinned thistletail, white-browed spinetail and Andean siskin were seen.

Black-billed mountain-toucan made us work for the sighting, but it was well worth the effort. Hummingbirds were also seen with tyrian metaltail, glowing puffleg, shining sunbeam, and amethyst throated sunangel showing well.

White-throated tyrannulet

The parakeets we were seeking flew noisily overhead a couple of times but always out of view so it was decided that we would have to continue down the track to an area where there were
nest boxes, and hopefully sight of these delightful parakeets.    After our guide had done some exploratory work we trooped into a field where we soon saw a bird perched on a tree in the middle distance.   Good views with the scope and even some digiscoping.   White-collard swift flew over our heads as we picnicked in the field with more of the parakeets flying about.

We took the return journey uphill very slowly with our lungs working at full stretch, we hadn't been in Colombia for a whole day yet!   Mountain caciques were seen as were yellow-billed cacique. Black-chested buzzard-eagle soared overhead, white-tailed kite, roadside hawk and broad-winged hawk were all seen whilst in the park.

Brown-breasted Parakeet

Once back at the bus we had the job of pushing the vehicle out of a mud bath, not easy with several of us getting covered in flying mud as the wheels failed to get a grip.   After about 20 minutes we finally got on our way, and were off to Guasca National Park.   On the journey we saw band-tailed pigeon, Andean guan and great egret. After we had negotiated a couple of bridges made of pallets we were on our way to some ponds for water birds, and Bogota rail in particular.  
The rail was seen easily by Colin B, and soon we all had the chance to look at it through the scopes. Andean teal, blue-winged teal, masked duck, striated heron, a black vulture, and a couple of white-tailed kite, common and spot-flanked gallinule, american coot and southern lapwing were all added to our day's list.

Eventually we had to leave for the journey back to the city, dinner and an early night as we were all exhausted from our first day's Colombian birding.

Greeb eyed fly

On the way back to the hotel we were stopped by the police who decided that we needed to have yellow lights rather than the White ones that had been used around Bogota for the last year or so. After about 15 minutes we negotiated our departure, and arrived back around 7.15 pm, with dinner and checklist at 8.