Colombia - August 2023 - Day 3 - Sabanalarga

The daily routine at Sabanalarga was simplicity itself. Half of the morning would be spent asleep at the holiday camp. Mid-morning you would rise and meander over to Albert's Mum's house for some coffee and a snack. Early afternoon a lady and her assistant would arrive with a tremendous amount of food - an entire pig, different parts of which were consumed over the four days. There would be constant music and if you wished it, a cold beer would make an appearance. Replete, you would then go back to sleep, usually on the floor inside which was a little cooler. Late afternoon people would rise and sort themselves out, perhaps have another beer. Then, as the day cooled, we would gather around the swimming pool at the holiday camp and splash about in the water, playing with the various kids or just floating around. I am very buoyant. Mid-evening we would drift into town and assemble at one of the fruit salad cafés and have what was essentially a gigantic icecream sundae - with cheese if you were feeling particularly Colombian. Which I was on the first evening, but for round two I decided to stick with icecream as the sole dairy product. It's an acquired taste I think.

Naturally I could not cope with spending the morning asleep in a town filled with tropical birds, and so I got up nice and early and went for a three hour walk, through the town and out the other side. I found an excellent track down to not quite the river. This first foray netted 40+ species. No doubt there were loads more than that but birding in the Tropics when you know very few of the calls is pretty hard work. I was particularly pleased with Two-banded Puffbird, Spectacled Parrotlet and Straight-billed Woodcreeper, but there were birds everywhere, some of which I managed to identify! White-winged Becard, Yellow-Olive Flatbill, Yellow-crowned Tyrannulet, Piratic and Social Flycatchers, Russet-backed Oropendola, Oriole Blackbird, and Silver-beaked Tanager.

Habitat down towards the river

Sabanalarga

I returned to the house at roughly the same time most of family were getting up, ideal really, and then fell into the routine described above, albeit that I went on a couple of short walks when everyone else had a siesta. I added Black-faced Tanager, lots of Saffron Finch, a very tame Double-striped Thick-knee, both Caracara, Lesser Elaenia, Sepia-capped and Dusky-capped Flycatchers, and Crested Oropendola. At the pool later in the day a flock of 22 Oriole Blackbirds gathered before heading to roost, and a Bat Falcon hunted on the slope down to the river at dusk. 

That evening there was a birthday party held for Albert and I had to play charades in Spanish along with various other silly games compered by one of his nephews who, amongst other things, also runs kids parties in Bogota. A lot of fun, I felt part of the family at this point.