Central Colombia Trip Report - the following is a composite of my 2017 to 2023 trips.  

I first traveled to Colombia in 2012, making a productive scouting trip to the north where I've subsequently led annual trips.  After falling in love with the landscapes and the people on that first visit, I've taken extra time each year to explore new areas of this tremendously biodiverse country.  While traveling to several far flung places, searching for range-restricted endemics, and getting a feel for Colombia's complicated biogeography, I was, of course, looking for the right ingredients to put together another birding and natural history trip.

It took a few years, but I finally put together a route in Central Colombia with the right combination of unique lodging, fairly easy travel, good trail access, and excellent habitat and species diversity to create another memorable natural experience.  This new route explores Colombia's Western and Central Andes, the Rio Cauca Valley, and the high paramo of Los Nevados del Ruiz National Park.  We start in Medellin, which is one of Colombia's more modern and prosperous cities and is fairly easy to get to.  On the southern edge of the city, we stay at the very nice Hotel Extremadura which has some decent birds on the grounds.  While most are widespread - black-billed thrush, blue-gray tanager, southern lapwing, bran-colored flycatcher, red-faced spinetail, rusty-margined flycatcher - a few, such as Colombian chachalaca and bar-crested antshrike, are local specialties.  A few minutes away is La Romera, a regional park where patchy cloud forest is home to a variety of widespread Andean species as well as a few special endemics.  Though there are a few exotic eucalypts and pines, as well as some second growth, in just a few short visits, we've seen about 60 species here, including black-capped, metallic-green, and beryl-spangled tanagers, black-billed peppershrike, white-naped and chestnut-capped brush finches, southern emerald toucanet, Andean motmot, green jay, and the rare yellow-headed manakin.  The special attractions, however, are several Colombian endemics - Colombian chachalaca, red-bellied grackle, Stiles' tapaculo, and chestnut wood-quail.  While the wood-quail is almost always just a "voice in the forest", this might be the best location in the country to enjoy the beauty and the social behaviors of the red-bellied grackle, which, at least so far, we've yet to miss.  

After a morning at La Romera, we continue south towards the Western Andes, with several stops along the way.  Our first short stop is in the hills on the south side of Medellin where a small roadside restaurant serves up bananas for a few local birds.  While having Andean motmots and southern emerald toucanets perched just a few feet away is pretty cool, the highlights for me are the acorn woodpeckers, which, along with oak trees, reach their southern limit in central Colombia.  Though this is a fairly well known bird in dryish oak woodlands in the western U.S., it's interesting to see Colombia's unique race in evergreen Andean cloud forest.  Of course, it's hard to pass up the opportunity for some coffee, or better yet, one of the many flavors of fresh fruit juice.  As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of foods native to the country that you're traveling in, and while southern Mexico remains my top spot for its long list of delicious native foods, the Andes of South America have their specialties, especially among the fruit juices.  My favorites are tomate de arbol (tree tomato, which is indeed a Solanum), lulo (another Solanum), mora (a blackberry native to the mountains of Latin America), guayaba (guava), guanabana, guayaba agria (a green guava), maracuya (passionfruit), and araca (a cousin of guava).  

We then drop down out of the Central Andes and cross the Rio Cauca valley.  The Andes of Colombia are unique in that they split into three distinct and isolated cordilleras.  These ranges are separated by low, tropical valleys through which two large rivers, the Cauca and the Magdalena, run much of the length of the country from south to north.  The valleys are low enough, and the adjacent cordillera are high enough, such that they act as biogeographic barriers for some wildlife populations.  Over time, the isolation that these barriers have created has resulted in a high level of endemism, and Colombia is home to about 90 endemic birds with another 100 near endemics.  We look for several of these endemics in lowland areas soon after crossing the Cauca valley - Antioquia wren, grayish piculet, and apical flycatcher.  We have very little exposure to "lowland" species on our route, so this stop can be interesting.  In addition to the three endemics, we've also seen streak-headed and cocoa woodcreepers, sooty-headed tyrannulet, southern bentbill, blue dacnis, golden-collared manakin, slate-headed tody-flycatcher, black-striped sparrow, black-crowned and bar-crested antshrikes, yellow-backed oriole, spectacled parrotlet, and a few others here.

We then climb up and over the continental divide at the top of the Western Andes, officially entering the Colombian department of Choco and the Pacific drainage.  (Because of the nature and orientation of the triple-cordillera and the two major rivers, the entire rest of our route is in Caribbean drainage.)  As we descend a short ways down the western slope of the Western Andes, we arrive at Proaves' Las Tangaras Reserve.  The comfortable lodge has nice rooms, great food, productive banana and hummingbird feeders, and is set on a bend of the scenic Rio Atrato.  Close up Andean eye-candy is hard to resist, and we usually head straight to the feeders after our arrival.  Among the eight or so hummingbirds are mostly widespread species such as Andean emerald, rufous-tailed hummingbird, steely-vented hummingbird, sparkling violetear, purple-throated woodstar, and crowned woodnymph.  At the banana feeders are russet-backed oropendula, Andean motmot, black-winged saltator, bananaquit, and several colorful tanagers - white-lined, flame-rumped, scrub, bay-headed, silver-throated and golden.  

The main highlight at Las Tangaras, however, is the 7000-acre core of the reserve which is found about 6 miles up an adjacent dirt road.  Here we enjoy expansive views of Choco cloud forest.  Amidst the typical Andean vegetation - Cecropia, Clusia, Bomarea, orchids, melastomes, tree ferns, philodendrons, and members of the Ericaceae and Lauraceae families - is an impressive avifauna.  Not that they're all easy, but in the past we've seen most of the Choco endemics of the area - empress brilliant, brown inca, violet-tailed sylph, toucan barbet, Narino and Tatama tapaculos, yellow-breasted antpitta, uniform treehunter, fulvous-dotted treerunner, orange-breasted fruiteater, beautiful jay, Choco vireo, black solitaire, black-chinned mountain-tanager, gold-ringed tanager, toucan barbet, olive finch, black-and-gold tanager, glistening-green tanager, purplish-mantled tanager, indigo flowerpiercer, dusky chlorospingus, and yellow-collared chlorophonia.  Of course there are many other species as well and we've had good luck with olivaceous piha, bronze-olive pygmy-tyrant, variegated bristle-tyrant, slaty-backed chat-tyrant, scaly-throated and buff-fronted foliage-gleaners, smoky-brown woodpecker, black-and-chestnut eagle, barred hawk, green-fronted lancebill, rufous-gaped hillstar, greenish puffleg, masked trogon, uniform antshrike, yellow-breasted and rufous-rumped antwrens, chestnut-breasted wren, and Pacific and streaked tuftedcheeks.

After a few unforgettable days at Las Tangaras, we head to the eastern (or interior) slope of the Western Andes and the quaint town of Jardin.  Nestled in a scenic valley, this small city is a popular vacation spot for Colombians.  It also has a large tract of protected cloud forest above the town.  Here we stay at the quiet and charming Kantarrana Casa de Campo.  I often choose to stay at places where other birding and nature groups don't stay, and this is one of them.  Rather than stay at the busy and much less personal hotel (perhaps with over 100 other guests) with lots of lawn closer to town, the Kantarrana has some habitat and birds (western emerald, red-bellied grackle, Andean motmot) and a charming ambiance.

The cloud forest above Jardin is higher than that at Las Tangaras and hosts quite a few different species.  As in most other cloud forests, mixed flocks are where a lot of the action is, and the ones in this area can have blue-winged, lacrimose, hooded, and buff-breasted mountain tanagers, black-collared jay, oleaginous and black-capped hemispingus, crimson-mantled woodpecker, golden-fronted whitestart, streaked tuftedcheek, purplish-mantled tanager, plushcap, black-billed peppershrike, rufous spinetail, rufous-crowned tody-flycatcher, mountain cacique, barred and green-and-black fruiteaters, grass-green tanager, and many more.  We’ve had unusually good luck along this road in seeing the rare and local tanager finch. 

While all those cloud forest species are great, one of the reasons they're there is because Proaves has established another of its very special reserves in the area.  The forest above Jardin was the second location where ornithologists discovered a small population of the "thought to be extinct" yellow-eared parrot in 2000.  The Yellow-eared parrot Reserve was established in 2006, and the parrot population has rebounded.  Though not an easy bird to to see, and though they are sometimes a bit distant, we have had some good views of this rarity.  Some of those views have been from the "Casa de Lucia" which is one of many super special spots along the route where the scenery, the breakfast, and the birds are amazing.  Lucia's hummer feeders host about ten species (mountain velvetbreast, speckled hummingbird, collared inca, and tourmaline sunangel), and she has several tamish brushfinches as well as acorn woodpeckers and severalm flowerpiercers coming to feeders.  They also have habituated chestnut-naped and equatorial (rufous) antpittas nearby.  Amazingly, in 2023, they also had an oncilla (a small nocturnal cat) coming to a small feeding station in the middle of the day !!

At lower elevations on the edge of Jardin, there's an Andean cock-of-the-rock lek where we make an afternoon visit.  Like many people, I've had the good fortune to see this dramatic species in the forest at fruiting trees and also at several early morning leks (in dim light and often a little far away), but I've never seen numbers of them in broad daylight 20 feet away at eye level......except here.

After a few nights in Jardin, we head south to the town of Manizales (the capital of Caldas Department) in the Central Andes.  Here we stay at the nice Hotel Recinto de Pensamiento (a loose translation might be "place to quietly gather your thoughts").  Nice rooms, grounds with a little habitat, and a nice restaurant make this a perfect home base for our day trips.  The main attraction near Manizales is the Rio Blanco Reserve, a protected watershed with good forest about 30 minutes away from town.  Reserve staff have been wonderfully successful in employing the now fairly common (but not easy to do) "antpitta habituation" trick, and they have no less than four species that come to earthworm feeding stations.  In addition to two Colombian endemics - bicolored and brown-banded antpittas - are slate-crowned and chestnut-crowned antpittas.  We usually see all four of these in the morning before we walk the main road to enjoy some beautiful forest and a nice suite of birds that are "new for the trip".  While the hummingbird feeders have lesser violetear, bronzy and collared incas, buff-tailed coronet, white-bellied woodstar, and speckled hummingbird, the forest is home to sickle-winged and Andean guans, gray-browed brushfinch, rufous-crowned tody-flycatcher, smoky bush-tyrant, rufous-breasted chat-tyrant, dusky piha, Sharpe's and mountain wrens, barred becard, citrine and russet-crowned warblers, black-eared hemispingus, and the usual large variety of colorful Andean tanagers.  There are a few rare birds for which Rio Blanco is one of the better places to see them, and we've indeed had some luck with them in the past - masked saltator, golden-plumed parakeet, white-capped tanager, black-billed mountain-toucan, white-throated daggerbill, and rusty-faced parrot.

We have a full day to enjoy Rio Blanco before heading "uphill" to the nearby Los Nevados National Park.  Before getting into the highlands we make a stop at one of Colombia's new and very exciting birding sites, the Hacienda El Bosque.  Though this is a working dairy farm, they have some patches of cloud forest and have developed an ecotourism operation with multiple feeding stations for hummers, antpittas, and toucans. We have breakfast at the reserve and enjoy the hummer feeders (mountain velvetbreast, buff-winged starfrontlet, sword-billed hummingbird) before visiting some worm-feeding stations (crescent-faced and equatorial antpittas, barred fruiteater), fruit feeders (hooded mountain-toucan, Andean guan, gray-breasted mountain toucan), and a seed feeder (white-throated quail-dove, gray-browed brushfinch).  Other birds on their property include red-crested cotinga, black flowerpiercer, paramo seedeater, white-browed spinetail and more.  It's an amazing place.

At Los Nevados we enter an entirely new world in terms of elevation and habitat.  We gradually work our way up to about 13,600 feet where grasses, cushion plants, flowering shrubs, paintbrush and lupine (just like in the states), and Espeletias make up the plant community of this region's paramo.  Espeletia is a unique genus of perennial sunflower, found only in the high Andes, in which the plants have a thick stalk that grows to about 7 feet tall and is topped with fuzzy "rabbit-ear-like" leaves (hummingbird nesting material) and droopy yellow sunflowers.  While sunflowers are generally not a plant-of-choice for nectar-seeking hummingbirds, the Espeletias are, and the hummer that does come to them, primarily to eat small insects, is a gorgeous endemic, the buffy helmetcrest.  Fortunately the helmetcrest is sometimes found right near the park's visitor center (which has snacks and hot coffee).  While in the paramo, we usually see several other birds, including Andean siskin, Andean ruddy duck, tawny anpitta, plain-colored seedeater, plumbeous sierra-finch, many-striped canastero, Andean tit-spinetail, white-chinned thistletail, paramo tapaculo, and grass wren.  One of the other prizes of the area, and of course it's another Colombian endemic, is the rufous-fronted parakeet.  This unusual psittacine makes its home in the highest cloud forests and grassy and shrubby paramo where it feeds on fruits, flowers, and even grass seeds on the ground (we even look for it in cattle pasture!).  It roosts and nests on the many rocky cliffs in the area.  It took a few trips, but we finally had close up scope views in 2021.

Los Nevados National Park is of course our highest, and potentially coldest, part of the trip. Because of its variable weather, I've set up our itinerary such that we have the option of two high elevation visits which optimizes our chances of enjoying the dramatic scenery and special species of the area.  In my ongoing efforts to minimize our "in the vehicle" time, and maximize our "in the field seeing cool stuff" time, I've chosen the Hotel Termales del Ruiz for our lodging while at the national park.  This unique and spectacular hotel is at about 11,000 feet in cloud forest.  Its nice rooms, friendly service, and good restaurant are pluses, but the beautiful hot-spring-fed pools are the highlight.  So, too, are the hummingbird feeders where about ten species can be seen close up - great sapphirewing, golden-breasted and black-thighed pufflegs, shining sunbeam, black-thighed puffleg, buff-winged starfrontlet, mountain velvetbreast, viridian and tyrian metaltails, rainbow-bearded thornbill, and others.  Of course most hummers seen at feeders are at close range, but these birds will be as close as they can possibly get......as in perched on your hand !!  The hotel has small disk-shaped feeders, about the diameter of a quarter, that rest in your palm while hummingbirds perch on the edge of your hand to feed.  Pretty cool.  One spectacular species that visits the garden's flowers is the purple-backed thornbill.  Though there are never any guarantees when playing the "birding game", this might be the best place out there to see this species well, and we've had many amazing views.  We spend two nights here and have the opportunity to enjoy the cloud forest as well as all the other highlights of the area.

On our last morning in the Los Nevados area,  we'll take our time going down the mountain through one of the best patches of cloud forest of the trip.  The long list of birds here includes gray-breasted mountain-toucan, four species of chat-tyrant (crowned, rufous-breasted, slaty-backed, and yellow-bellied), scarlet-bellied mountain-tanager, blue-backed conebill, superciliaried hemispingus, golden-fronted whitestart, montane woodcreeper, black-crested and citrine warblers, glossy and masked flowerpiercers, red-crested cotinga, and lots more.

We conclude the trip at the very nice Hotel Movich in Pereira.  On our way to the hotel we'll make one short stop at a nearby reservoir where we have pretty much our only access to open water (other than the big Rio Cauca) on the trip.  Here we do a little "list padding" as we often see common and purple gallinules, bare-faced and buff-necked ibis, green and ringed kingfishers, snowy egret, pied-billed grebe, large-billed seedfinch, cattle tyrant, ruddy-breasted seedeater, and blackish rail.  This is where we also have our last chances for grayish piculet and spectacled parrotlet, both of which we've seen at close range here.

Colombia is well known as Earth's most bird-rich country.  With fascinating biogeography and wonderful people, it's becoming an ever more popular destination for nature-based travel.  The level of service provided by local staff is some of the best I've encountered anywhere, and it's been a privilege to make many friends and have the pleasure of working with them.  It's now become one of my favorite places in what I think of as my home away from home, Latin America.  I'm excited about and greatly looking forward to sharing this new route with may of you next year !! 

Last updated: June 30, 2023.