Saturday, March 07, 2009

Colombia Day 3; Medellin area


La Romera, on the outskirts of Medellin, home of the Red-bellied Grackle (an endemic bird)


Red-bellied Grackle




Emerald Toucanet


Check out the webs on the cactus at the airport

Butterfly sp.

Groovy grasshopper with its legs on at right-angles

Stripy skipper sp.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Colombia Days 2-3; Bahia Solano - Medellin

On the road between El Valle and Bahia Solano airport...

Poison arrow frog

White-tailed Trogon

King Vulture

Red-lored Parrot

Ringed Kingfisher

Tiny Hawk (yes that really is its name; this is the rufous morph)

Lord knows what this signifies

Did you know there is a live pig on your van?

Permanent advertising tiles at the airport

Look carefully, there is a Black-tipped (Snowy) Cotinga on the top of this tree

This evil dog savagely barked in my general direction, but Richard Webster was seemingly unconcerned

Dangerous birding...

King Vulture (you can't get much closer than this!)

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Colombia Days 1-2; Medellin-Bahia Solano Part 2



Bienvenidos

El Almejal lodge

Colourful yet tough local transport

Male Red-legged Honeycreeper

Our friendly lodge spider (which scared the living willies out of me). Perhaps an Argiope of sorts (note pretty collections of victims it background)

The way to the river which laughably pretended to be a path,

The wettest track I have ever birded on led to soaking, appalling views of the rather unimpressive endemic called the Baudo Oropendola

The best reward, though, was this sodden Grey-capped Cuckoo, a scarce and normally-elusive bird

Dragonfly sp.

A soaked Peter Dedicoat of Avian Adventures looks unimpressed by the weather

The way back over the El Valle River

Basilisk lizard

Colombia Days 1-2; Medellin-Bahia Solano Part 1


Acorn Woodpeckers at our Medellin hotel


Black-cheeked Woodpecker at Bahia Solano airport

Spot the non-birders on our trip... the rough road to El Valle was temporarily blocked by other vehicles, but our guards were there to keep an eye hwile we we birded the road

Brown Pelicans following the Pacific shore outside the El Almejal Ecolodge, El Valle

Plain-coloured Tanager

Blue-grey Tanager

Crimson-backed Tanager (male)

Palm Tanager

Lemon-rumped Tanager (female)



A neat bit of shape-shifting...



A bit of a close up

Red-legged Honeycreepers (males are the blue ones) at the bananas

Yellow-crowned Tyrranulet

Pied Puffbird

The team at El Almejal

Ferns at the viewpoint