Author Archives: Tara

IHG Pointbreaks 31 Oct – 31 Jan But Nothing Exciting As Usual

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This quarter’s Pointbreaks list (bookable for 5000 IHG Rewards Points) is less than inspiring for birders/eco-tourists but considering that it encompasses the holiday season it may have something of interest.

Loyalty Lobby has the complete list for your perusal.  Out of all the properties, I can only personally recommend the Crowne Plaza Kathmandu-Soaltee where we stayed a couple nights back in 2011 after returning from birding the Chitwan National Park (on my list of historical trips to blog about).

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It’s not walking distance to the shopping district of Thamel but taxis & auto-rickshaws are very cheap – at least they were in 2011!img_0151

 

Rainbow-bearded Thornbill (Chalcostigma herrani)

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The Rainbow-bearded Thornbill (Chalcostigma herrani) is a species of hummingbird in the Trochilidae family.  They can be found in the high paramo in cold high altitude areas.  They have an interesting way to survive the cold.  They enter a nightly hibernation called torpor, where their body temperature, breathing, and heart rate drastically slow so they conserve most of their energy.  My photos don’t do this gorgeous little bird justice as i didn’t get him head on to show the beard but at least I DID get a few shots at the feeders!

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They are found in Ecuador Andes regions & Colombia  in the high paramo south of  Manizales.  The best place to see them is in the gardens of the Termales del Ruiz.   You will be at 3500 metres so plan for altitude sickness.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT RAINBOW-BEARDED THORNBILLS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

American Bird Conservancy

VIDEOS

Now you see him, now you don’t!

The trick is to get him facing you with the sun behind you to show off his iridescent beard, not an easy task!

 

Rufous-fronted Parakeet, (Bolborhynchus ferrugineifrons)

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The Rufous-fronted Parakeet, (Bolborhynchus ferrugineifrons) is endemic to Colombia and can be a real challenge to see as they like very high altitudes between 3000-4000 metres.  Wikipedia doesn’t have a photo but I do have a picture from Rio Blanco.  Photos are available on the websites in the “Learn More” section.

dscn3227Not only are they a Colombian endemic but their range is very small in the high paramo near Manizales & Pereira.  The best place to see them is in and around the Termales del Ruiz.   You will be at 3500 metres so plan for altitude sickness.  Once you get within 5km of the hotel, keep your windows down and ears open, they are the only parrot species in this area so listen for the squawking.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT RUFOUS-FRONTED PARAKEETS

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds.

VIDEOS

Not an easy bird to photograph or film, even with a scope! Top Colombian guide, Oswaldo Cortes got a few clips.

 

 

 

Birding The Termales Del Ruiz Garden

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High in the Nevados del Ruiz, the hotel at the Termales del Ruiz has a lovely little garden with lots of hummingbirds.  You have to pay 18,000 COP admission to the thermal pool to enter the gardens even if you aren’t planning to swim.  I wouldn’t have minded a swim but the high altitude was making my husband woozy so I just ran in for about 20 minutes to see the hummingbirds and any other birds that happened by.

It’s quite an attractive hotel and I would have liked to spend a night here if it weren’t for the 3500 metres altitude.

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Great view of Manizales!dscn3272 dscn3274 dscn3277 dscn3278 dscn3275 dscn3276

I should have prayed harder for those elusive photos!dscn3303 dscn3305 dscn3307 dscn3308 dscn3314 dscn3316 dscn3315 dscn3313 img_6168

Even a quick walk around the garden produced hundreds of hummingbirds that were buzzing around everywhere!  I couldn’t keep up with them and the guide didn’t speak English or know all the species even in Spanish.  He wasn’t a birding guide, just a hotel employee.

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Shining Sunbeam dscn3286

Black-thighed Puffleg dscn3295

Buff-winged Starfrontlet dscn3298 img_6161 img_6163 img_6166 img_6176 img_6177 img_6185 img_6190

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When I first entered, I had shown a picture of a Rufous-fronted Parakeet to the guide and asked him to be on the lookout for the “periquitos”.  We had heard them in the trees down the road from the hotel but didn’t get a good look.  So I was really excited to hear some parrot-y squawks while walking through the garden.   I asked the guide “periquitos” and he nodded and led me to a better vantage point.  I barely had time to watch a pair of Rufous-fronted Parakeets zoom overhead and disappear into the fog.  Unfortunately “Hail Mary” wasn’t on my side that day as all I got was this shot.img_6368

At least I did see them, albeit very briefly!  I wanted to get Ina back down to a lower altitude so we left right afterwards and headed back to Manizales.  When we got back, the drive got a call just as we were about to go to the bus station with the news that the Golden-plumed Parakeets were at Rio Blanco, so off we went!

 

United’s Excursionist Perk Not Available In Some Zones

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I was just reading a post from Drew at Travel is Free on some very interesting uses of the new United Excursionist Perk.  He has come up with some clever ways to get a free one way within the routing rules.  I was looking at some of my planned future trips trying to see if they worked on my itineraries.  What I found out is that if you transit a third zone, you do not get an excursionist perk even if the route starts and ends in the same zone.

Attempt #1 – Lima to either Guyana or Valencia, Venezuela  (Caracas being too dangerous to visit right now) all of which are in Northern South America zone.  The only way to reach either GEO or VLN is via PTY in Panama which is in Central America so I could not get this route included in an Excursionist Perk.  LIM-BOG works as this route is served by Avianca.

Attempt #2 – Rarotonga to Apia falls within the Oceania zone but you can’t travel between any of these South Pacific Islands without transiting Auckland in the Australia & New Zealand zone.

Here is a list of all the zones.   A green dot indicates that it is possible use the Excursionist Perk within the zone because one or more Star Alliance airlines serve the zone without transiting a third zone.  A yellow dot indicates options are very limited.  In Southern South America it is only possible on Avianca Brazil on some domestic routes.  In Oceania there are only flights in the northern Pacific such as Guam to Palau, etc.  A red dot indicates that there are no airlines that serve the airports in that zone without transiting a third zone.

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EXAMPLES OF WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T

In all examples, I used BNE-AKL & AKL-SYD as my round-trip and attempted to sandwich random routes located in another zone, wholly within the zone.

Example #1 – Excursionist Perk is KTM to CMB.  It works if you use Air India, even though it requires 3 segments but doesn’t work via BKK.

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Example #2 – Using LIM to MDE as the Excursionist Perk.  Works on direct flight on Avianca subsidiary but not via PTY on Copa.excursionist3 excursionist4

This complication probably won’t affect 95% of customers as most people will be looking for intra-Europe or within South-east Asia or similar but it does mess up a birding trip in more remote areas of South America or a hop around the South Pacific.

Rusty-faced Parrot (Hapalopsittaca amazonina)

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The Rusty-faced Parrot (Hapalopsittaca amazonina) is found in subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland.  I didn’t get a shot and there is only a drawing on Wikipedia so this shot of a drawing I got at Rio Blanco will have to do.  There are better photos in the “Learning More” section below and video clips.

dscn3225They are mostly found in the mountainous areas of Colombia with a small population in western Venezuela.  This is not an easy bird to get.  I caught a glimpse of a pair in flight on the road leaving Manizales going towards the Nevado del Ruiz.

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LEARNING MORE ABOUT RUSTY-FACED PARROTS

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEOS

The only video clips I could find on YouTube were taken by one of Colombia’s top birding guides – Oswaldo Cortes.  I wish I could have hired him as a guide, especially when I see how cute this parrot is up close!

 

 

A Visit To Colombia’s Páramo

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Up to now, we had visited some mountainy areas in Ecuador and Colombia but none were REALLY high up.  Quito is at 2850 metres and the El Dorado Reserve in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is around 2600 metres.  On previous travels long ago I had been to Lhasa at 3700 metres and we have both been to Cuzco at 3399 metres.  I can recall spending one day in Lhasa pretty woozy then acclimating and being ok.  In Cuzco we were out of breath a bit but otherwise fine.

On this trip, we had flown into Medellin 1495 metres and traveled overland via Jardin to Manizales at 2160 metres and barely noticed anything.  I knew that many tourists use Manizales as a base to make day trips to the Nevado del Ruiz and some had complained of altitude sickness but they were going much further up than we were.  I was targeting a couple of parrots found in the Páramo  – the Rusty-faced Parrot and the Rufous-fronted Parakeet.  I had good data from eBird on where people had been seeing them and Albeiro from Rio Blanco Reserve had organized a car & driver for us and explained to the driver were we were going and why.

The driver picked us up around 5am so we could get to the birding area by dawn.  It was beautiful scenery throughout the whole trip.

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It wasn’t far but it was uphill all the way and we were going very slow to listen for the birds.  It was extremely foggy the whole day which pretty much ruined my chance to get bird shots, especially if they were in flight.   After slowly driving along the area where others had reported Rusty-faced Parrots, we finally heard the calls and saw a pair fly overhead and off to the bush without stopping.  This was as good as we were going to get.dscn3255 dscn3256

At this point, I was shocked to see how high we were – 3400 metres!  Shortly afterward we took a turn towards the Termales del Ruiz.dscn3257 dscn3258 dscn3259 dscn3261

 

The fog was getting worse – bad news for birders.img_6140 img_6149 img_6152

I just about freaked out when I saw this sign!img_6153 img_6160

From this point up to the Termales del Ruiz is the area where you are most likely to see Rufous-fronted Parakeets. So we drove slowly along listening anxiously but nothing could be heard.

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At this point we stopped for about half an hour.  I could hear what seemed to be parrot calls in the trees but none of them came out where we could see them.

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Spectacular view of Manizales!dscn3272 dscn3273

This is the Hotel Termales del Ruiz where we stopped for a short visit.  There is a fee to go inside the property to see the hummingbird feeders and I didn’t have enough cash for everyone so I went in to grab some photos while Ina & the driver hung around outside.  I’ll put this birding walk on a separate post due to large number of photos.dscn3274

Ina was starting to feel the effects of the altitude by this time so we had to go back down the mountain.  Surprisingly, all I got was a bit out of breath but nothing serious.  Ina got pretty woozy.dscn3320 dscn3323

Not sure what this is, I was just happy to see a bird close enough to get a photo of!dscn3324 dscn3329

The road is pretty bad so if you come here, make sure you have a 4×4 or at least high clearance.dscn3326 dscn3327 dscn3333

At this point we were almost back to Manizales when we got a call from Albeiro letting us know the Golden-Plumed Parakeets were hanging around the lodge area so we high-tailed it back to Rio Blanco.dscn3340

Hotel Review: Quo Quality Hotel, Manizales, Colombia

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We had been birding for the last few weeks and  were about halfway through the trip and exhausted so we decided to take a time out and relax in a hotel with a spa where we could get a massage.  I did some hunting online and found the Quo Quality Hotel which is a decent small hotel in Manizales.  The reviews looked good so we booked a night for some R&R.

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That yellow building next door is a small shopping centre with a supermarket and a few fast food places.dscn3242

The rooms are spotlessly clean and very modern looking.  The wifi worked great too!dscn3245 dscn3244

Great views from the spa area on top.dscn3248 dscn3247

There was a group monopolizing the area during the day (which I was pretty annoyed about) and we had to wait for them to leave before we could use the spa and have our massages.  Finally we were allowed in and could relax!  The spa changes colours which was pretty cool!dscn3249 dscn3250 dscn3251

Quo Quality fit the bill for our need to chill out and relax but  I’d recommend making sure there are no private events that clash with your stay.  I booked with Hotels.com so I could get closer to a free night after 10 paid nights deal but they are available on most online hotel agencies.

Chestnut-crowned Antpitta (Grallaria ruficapilla)

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The Chestnut-crowned Antpitta (Grallaria ruficapilla) is a species of bird in the Grallariidae family. It is found in subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, usually at elevations of 1,900 to 3,100 m.  I wasn’t very familiar with antipttas before this trip but they sure are cute!

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These shy birds have a large range throughout the higher elevations in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.  At Rio Blanco Reserve in Colombia, they feed worms to the antpittas which gives a good chance to see this otherwise hard-to-get species.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT CHESTNUT-CROWNED ANTPITTAS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEOS

These videos show the experience of birders watching antpittas being offered worms.  Worms are part of their normal diet and they don’t let you go too close to the birds.