MKinHK
Mike Kilburn
Another airport meeting brought me via a maddening transit in Dallas (it took 2 hours to get through immigration for a transit, and to almost miss my flight) to a rainswept Bogota. Given my restrictions around travel I was fortunate to have most of the first of three days, a short afternoon on the second day and an early morning and a rather longer afternoon and evening before heading back to Hong Kong on the third.
I arranged guides through Bogota Birding Tours who did a great job of arranging a plan to avoid rain on the first day and, at very short notice, to fit in a full afternoon’s birding in a different habitat on the last day. I would highly recommend them.
Having rained all night I was worried my one full day would bring more of the same. Instead the day broke to high cloud with sunny patches and Camilo met me for a 5:30 start to visit the Parque la Florida, a restored wetland on the eastern side of El Dorado airport. A couple of the enormous and rather long-tailed Great Thrushes flew across the road on the drive – impressive birds – they were big enough for me to wonder if they were grackles!
As we approached the wetland flocks of Bare-faced Ibises and a few Cattle Egrets flew over the road and just as I got out of the car at the carpark another Great Thrush was on the lawn and a Sparkling Violetear - a large iridescent green and dark blue hummingbird – was hovering to feed vertically upwards from a bright red hanging flower. A very nice start!
As we walked down to the lake the first bird I clapped eyes on was a short-tailed swallow with a pale collar, which after a few more passes confirmed itself as a Cliff Swallow. It was hawking above the lake in a loose flock that also included Barn and Bank Swallows, twenty–odd of the larger Brown-chested Martin and a few smaller Brown-bellied Swallows – the latter two both residents.
Out on the water were fifty or so Andean Ducks, sometimes split from Ruddy Duck, in a range of plumages including the distinctive black cap, white face and blue bill on a rich chestnut body of the adult male. Amongst them was a darker, greyer and smaller duck, which we could not identify. I’ve also posted it on the ID forum, and would welcome any feedback. Other waterbirds included a couple of Pied-billed Grebes and a few Common Gallinules, plus half-a-dozen Neotropical Cormorants and several Striated Herons, including one that perched well, showing a distinctive reddish-brown patch on the bulge of the neck. Yellow-headed Blackbirds ruled the reedbeds, the males magnificent in their yellow hoods and black eye-masks.
Several Swainson’s Thrushes lurked in the trees along the banks, with a couple of Red-eyed Vireos and an ever-wonderful Black-and-White Warbler. They brought back great memories as the first two American warblers I saw in the UK back in the 1980s. Three Andean Siskins feeding on seed heads, and a pair of affectionately preening leaf-green Spectacled Parrotlets added some local colour, as did the restricted range endemic Silver-throated Spinetail, which called a few times before a pair, almost as affectionate as the parrotlets, showed on a bare branch. They look most similar to a somewhat scrawny version of the African mousebirds, but with rufous-brown backs and long tails, a short crest and bill, and pale underparts. A Smoky-brown Woodpecker called distantly, but never showed and a smallish- long-tailed flycatcher turned towards us to show the yellow forecrown and supercilium of a Golden-faced Tyrannulet.
Our main target here was the even more range-restricted Bogota Rail. The entire valley in which Bogota sits used to be a giant marsh. Most of this has now gone, initially to dairy farms, and increasingly to urban sprawl, so the few remaining and restored wetlands provide an important refuge for this skulky endemic. At the far end of the park a hide overlooks the edge of the marsh that stretches off towards El Dorado airport. Here we found eight Blue-winged Teals hunkered down on the edge of a grass-fringed channel in front of the reeds and thicker growth. A couple of Southern Lapwings flew off calling loudly and two Spotted Sandpipers, a Solitary Sandpiper, and the distinctive all-black race of Wattled Jacana picked its way along the edge of the channel.
Initially the rail was playing it coy, and I wasn’t quite sure whether to be delighted or disappointed when a movement in the deeper reeds eventually revealed a Sora – an uncommon North American migrant rail with a distinctive black face and throat. As I was watching it another movement turned out to be the Bogota Rail – nice! Somewhat less willing to feed in the open, three of these birds, which look not a million miles away from the plain blue-faced Western Water Rail eventually provided some very good views. The marsh also produced a surprise Yellow Warbler, which was followed as we walked back towards the car by another at wonderfully close range in the same area the B& W Warbler had been in earlier that morning.
Other birds at the edge of the water included a Roadside Hawk – a smallish accipiter with a distinctively banded tail, a couple of grey-headed and yellow-bellied Tropical Kingbirds plus another migrant lifer – a black-crowned Eastern Kingbird that I had somehow contrived not to see in several visits to the US East Coast. A House Wren popped up in the reeds, which seem not to have housed the endemic Apolinar’s Wren for some time, but a couple of chubby wild Guinea Pigs were a good mammal to see in the habitat and colour that God intended.
As we headed back to the car we were distracted first by a male Black Phoebe hunting across an area of new-planted saplings, and then much more significantly by a minor fall that included six or eight Red-eyed Vireos, three or four Summer Tanagers, including a lovely all-red male, a couple of black-winged female Scarlet Tanagers, ten Swainson’s Thrushes, a rather nondescript treetop Blackburnian Warbler and, best of the lot, a larger long-tailed bird that flipped from one treetop to the next showing a flash of chestnut in the wings before revealing itself as my first ever Yellow-billed Cuckoo! I always love migration, and this was a terrific example of hungry migrants feeding busily with out much concern for the birders watching them. As we began driving out movement overhead turned out to be the first four of sixteen Broad-winged Hawks, which Camilo said were the first seen in Bogota that autumn. The stop also allowed us to catch up with a pair of Yellow-backed Orioles – we had heard them calling without having the slightest sniff of them throughout the morning.
Cheers
Mike
I arranged guides through Bogota Birding Tours who did a great job of arranging a plan to avoid rain on the first day and, at very short notice, to fit in a full afternoon’s birding in a different habitat on the last day. I would highly recommend them.
Having rained all night I was worried my one full day would bring more of the same. Instead the day broke to high cloud with sunny patches and Camilo met me for a 5:30 start to visit the Parque la Florida, a restored wetland on the eastern side of El Dorado airport. A couple of the enormous and rather long-tailed Great Thrushes flew across the road on the drive – impressive birds – they were big enough for me to wonder if they were grackles!
As we approached the wetland flocks of Bare-faced Ibises and a few Cattle Egrets flew over the road and just as I got out of the car at the carpark another Great Thrush was on the lawn and a Sparkling Violetear - a large iridescent green and dark blue hummingbird – was hovering to feed vertically upwards from a bright red hanging flower. A very nice start!
As we walked down to the lake the first bird I clapped eyes on was a short-tailed swallow with a pale collar, which after a few more passes confirmed itself as a Cliff Swallow. It was hawking above the lake in a loose flock that also included Barn and Bank Swallows, twenty–odd of the larger Brown-chested Martin and a few smaller Brown-bellied Swallows – the latter two both residents.
Out on the water were fifty or so Andean Ducks, sometimes split from Ruddy Duck, in a range of plumages including the distinctive black cap, white face and blue bill on a rich chestnut body of the adult male. Amongst them was a darker, greyer and smaller duck, which we could not identify. I’ve also posted it on the ID forum, and would welcome any feedback. Other waterbirds included a couple of Pied-billed Grebes and a few Common Gallinules, plus half-a-dozen Neotropical Cormorants and several Striated Herons, including one that perched well, showing a distinctive reddish-brown patch on the bulge of the neck. Yellow-headed Blackbirds ruled the reedbeds, the males magnificent in their yellow hoods and black eye-masks.
Several Swainson’s Thrushes lurked in the trees along the banks, with a couple of Red-eyed Vireos and an ever-wonderful Black-and-White Warbler. They brought back great memories as the first two American warblers I saw in the UK back in the 1980s. Three Andean Siskins feeding on seed heads, and a pair of affectionately preening leaf-green Spectacled Parrotlets added some local colour, as did the restricted range endemic Silver-throated Spinetail, which called a few times before a pair, almost as affectionate as the parrotlets, showed on a bare branch. They look most similar to a somewhat scrawny version of the African mousebirds, but with rufous-brown backs and long tails, a short crest and bill, and pale underparts. A Smoky-brown Woodpecker called distantly, but never showed and a smallish- long-tailed flycatcher turned towards us to show the yellow forecrown and supercilium of a Golden-faced Tyrannulet.
Our main target here was the even more range-restricted Bogota Rail. The entire valley in which Bogota sits used to be a giant marsh. Most of this has now gone, initially to dairy farms, and increasingly to urban sprawl, so the few remaining and restored wetlands provide an important refuge for this skulky endemic. At the far end of the park a hide overlooks the edge of the marsh that stretches off towards El Dorado airport. Here we found eight Blue-winged Teals hunkered down on the edge of a grass-fringed channel in front of the reeds and thicker growth. A couple of Southern Lapwings flew off calling loudly and two Spotted Sandpipers, a Solitary Sandpiper, and the distinctive all-black race of Wattled Jacana picked its way along the edge of the channel.
Initially the rail was playing it coy, and I wasn’t quite sure whether to be delighted or disappointed when a movement in the deeper reeds eventually revealed a Sora – an uncommon North American migrant rail with a distinctive black face and throat. As I was watching it another movement turned out to be the Bogota Rail – nice! Somewhat less willing to feed in the open, three of these birds, which look not a million miles away from the plain blue-faced Western Water Rail eventually provided some very good views. The marsh also produced a surprise Yellow Warbler, which was followed as we walked back towards the car by another at wonderfully close range in the same area the B& W Warbler had been in earlier that morning.
Other birds at the edge of the water included a Roadside Hawk – a smallish accipiter with a distinctively banded tail, a couple of grey-headed and yellow-bellied Tropical Kingbirds plus another migrant lifer – a black-crowned Eastern Kingbird that I had somehow contrived not to see in several visits to the US East Coast. A House Wren popped up in the reeds, which seem not to have housed the endemic Apolinar’s Wren for some time, but a couple of chubby wild Guinea Pigs were a good mammal to see in the habitat and colour that God intended.
As we headed back to the car we were distracted first by a male Black Phoebe hunting across an area of new-planted saplings, and then much more significantly by a minor fall that included six or eight Red-eyed Vireos, three or four Summer Tanagers, including a lovely all-red male, a couple of black-winged female Scarlet Tanagers, ten Swainson’s Thrushes, a rather nondescript treetop Blackburnian Warbler and, best of the lot, a larger long-tailed bird that flipped from one treetop to the next showing a flash of chestnut in the wings before revealing itself as my first ever Yellow-billed Cuckoo! I always love migration, and this was a terrific example of hungry migrants feeding busily with out much concern for the birders watching them. As we began driving out movement overhead turned out to be the first four of sixteen Broad-winged Hawks, which Camilo said were the first seen in Bogota that autumn. The stop also allowed us to catch up with a pair of Yellow-backed Orioles – we had heard them calling without having the slightest sniff of them throughout the morning.
Cheers
Mike
Attachments
-
IMG_9054 Bare-faced Ibis @ Bogota la Florida.jpg91.9 KB · Views: 23
-
IMG_9051 Brown-chested Martin @ Bogota la Florida.jpg1.2 MB · Views: 53
-
IMG_9037 Rail channel @ Bogota la Florida.jpg1.6 MB · Views: 30
-
IMG_9046 Wattled Jacana (black-winged) @ Bogota la Florida.jpg1.6 MB · Views: 51
-
IMG_9042 Bogota Rail @ Bogota la Florida.jpg1.7 MB · Views: 58
Last edited: