Eibar joined us for the afternoon/evening during both of our full days at Santa Maria. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we visited Sector Cachipay on the first day. As dusk fell we waited by the entrance to the military base. Eibar had seen two species of owls right here in the past - Black-and-white Owl and Band-bellied Owl. Black-and-white is somewhat widespread in Centra America and northern South America, though it is one that Laura and I had only ever heard before. And Band-bellied is found in the foothills of the eastern Andes but it can be scarce in parts of its range. We had not even heard this species before.
We were in luck and a Black-and-white Owl began to call shortly after dark. The military base turned on their spotlight for us as the owl apparently likes to hunt (for moths, presumably?) near the light. With minimal effort we spotted the individual, and later a second one.
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| Black-and-white Owl - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Black-and-white Owl - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
We soon heard a pair of Band-bellied fire up as well! They have a really unique song that is sung in tandem. It is a pulsating series of low hoots, with the second owl starting up a second after the first, at a slightly higher pitch. The guys at the military base let us in to search for the owls near one of their bunkers, the location where the sound appeared to originate from.
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| Military base at Sector Cachipay - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
Unfortunately the owls stopped vocalizing when we arrived. But on our way back out, as we began backtracking down the road towards our car, we spotted one more owl in a roadside tree. This one was a young Band-bellied! Compared to a Black-and-white, note the thick lines across the belly, and the broad, brownish band across the upper chest.
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| young Band-bellied Owl - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
We kept an eye out for snakes and frogs on the return walk but herps were in low abundance. The dry weather certainly wasn't helping. Of course there were many cool insects and arachnids to point our flashlights at.
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| Pristimantis frater - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Orb-weaver - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Edessa sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Sundarus sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Edessinae sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Pyrgus sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
At first i thought this was a type of stick insect but it is in fact a species of stick grasshopper (family Proscopiidae).
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| Stick grasshopper (Proscopiidae sp.) - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Stick grasshopper (Proscopiidae sp.) - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Unidentified leafhopper - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
The following afternoon/evening we visited a river island/finca near the town of Santa Maria, staying until after dark. We poked around the river for an hour once night fell, finding a few frogs here and there.
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| Boana boans - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Rhinella marina - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
Laura pointed out this Saddleback Caterpillar (
Acharia sp.), a widespread genus that even has a representative species back home in Ontario.
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| Acharia sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
We drove a short distance back towards Santa Maria and got out beside a creek. Since the water levels were low we were able to easily walk along the creek, and the relatively flat topography in the area afforded an easy walk.
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| Leptodactylus colombiensis |
Frogs were well-represented and we identified six species, as well as a couple of additional ones that I haven't figured out yet.
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| Rulyrana flavopunctata - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Boana boans - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Pristimantis medemi - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Rulyrana flavopunctata (tentative ID) - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Pristimantis medemi - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Boana boans - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Boana lanciformis - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
This leafhopper was pretty spectacular! It is
Abana horvathi, quite a variable species morphologically.
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| Abana horvathi - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Curtain-web spider (Dipluridae sp.) - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Zale sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
At one point we stumbled across a Black Phoebe roosting above the creek.
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| Black Phoebe - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
A large branch fallen across the watercourse had been repurposed as a leaf-cutter ant highway. It was at chest height, giving me a good opportunity to practice leaf-cutter ant photography.
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| Atta sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Atta sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
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| Atta sp. - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
Two sphinx moths were accounted for during our creek-walk. The first had seen better days, as it was dead, in the clutches of a spider.
Laura spotted the second roosting on an overhead branch. It was incredible! A friend of mine, Michael Butler, has identified this one as
Oryba kadeni.
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| Oryba kadeni - Santa Maria, Boyacá, Colombia |
Near the end of the hike my flashlight beam picked up a massive stick insect, easily the largest I have seen in the new world (and only rivalled by one monster I found in Borneo).
And so concludes my posts from Santa Maria. Next up - high elevation mountainous areas near the city of Duitama.
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