gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

With the whole group now assembled we left Bogota at 0445 local time for the two-and-half hour drive to Chingaza NP. It’s not very far as the Mountain Cacique flies but it’s a long way by road.

We had a lot of success, my key birds were Flame-winged (or Brown-breasted Parakeet) which showed very well, Blue-throated Starfrontlet and Pale-bellied Tapaculo which weren’t quite so co-operative. We also saw another good hummer Longuemare’s Sunangel but it is usually lumped in Amythest-throated Sunangel these days.

There are only four punters on the trip and all are Birdquest regulars, between us we have done at least 210 tours, so although we saw plenty of other nice birds during the day it was these four endemics that drew most attention.

The hillsides near Bogotá are largely deforested …..

The Chingaza NP protects a large area of montane forest but it is very difficult to access.

I’m no botanist so I can’t tell you the name of these red flowers but they were attractive to several species of hummingbird.

Many of the people from Bogotá drive out of the town on Sunday afternoon for a meal in the countryside, but this leads to dreadful congestion when they return about five pm so we left quite early and got back to the hotel by four. We have an even earlier start tomorrow so we were glad of the time to unwind.