With my stomach bug behind me I was once again up at dawn and birding. This time I went a little further beyond the track down to the river and birded an area of rough ground around some agrticultural smallholdings, and where some friendly horses gathered. I had a list of eBird targets from the general area but wasn't sure how useful they were given how little data there was. But I felt sure that there were certain birds that I hadn't yet seen were almost certainly here, and this morning's walk was a deliberate effort to try and find them. So it was that I eventually found Scaled Piculet, a tiny woodpecker, in some trees on the outskirts of town, and also picked out a Spectacled Thrush in with the more numerous Pale-breasted Thrushes.
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| As ever the plants I struggle to grow at home in pots grow like weeds in Colombia. This is Phildendron gloriosum. |
It was time to pack up and go. I flew back tonight and we were a seven hour drive from Bogota airport. Don Gilberto had arrived with his van and we all packed into it again. It was slow going, with numerous landslides stopping the traffic. During one of these an Andean Cock-of-the-Rock flew over the van, sub-species equatorialis, so different to the ones I'd seen in Jardin in Antioquia which were sanguilonentus. Somewhere on the outskirts of Bogota the van died, insufficient prayers perhaps, and so I swapped out with a one of the people in Albert's father-in-law's car and he drove me the rest of the way to ensure I did not miss my flight. It had been an excellent trip and so different from most holidays I take. I had hugely enjoyed the experience and Albert and his families had been amazing hosts. I returned as I had arrived, with Iberia via Madrid, which was uneventful - I think I slept almost the whole way. Like all good holidays it had been very tiring!
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