Birding the Upper Anchicayá Valley, And A Change Of Plans

We traveled westward from Finca Alejandría, following the winding mountain road to the town of El Queremal. We had a plan for the next few days. First, explore an area of forest in the upper Anchicayá Valley (around 1300 m in elevation) near a restaurant called Doña Dora. The next day we would leave El Queremal and head further down the road, deep into the Chocó lowlands where we would spend two nights in the town of El Danubio in the lower Anchicayá Valley. A whole suite of interesting species awaited us there, including tantalizing possibilities like Purple Quail-Dove, Baudo Guan, Berlepsch's Tinamou, Blue-whiskered and Golden-chested Tanagers, Lita Woodpecker and other Chocó endemics. But, as you will read later on, these plans had to change at the last minute. 

But first, our day of birding the upper Anchicayá Valley at Doña Dora. As I had birded these elevations fairly extensively in Ecuador and Colombia there were no potential lifers for me. But that doesn't mean the birding would be dull - far from it! The birds found in these mountains are pretty spectacular, and a day spent here will always produce surprises. 

Toucan Barbet - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

We parked at Doña Dora which is a family run restaurant that has become famous amongst birders due to its array of hummingbird and tanager feeders. We received the OK to park our vehicle there for the morning and began hiking back uphill. Though it was already nearing 8 AM, the morning held a lot of promise. 

 Upper Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

It was quality over quantity at first and it took over an hour to tally our first twenty species. But in those twenty were gems like Purplish-mantled Tanager, Violet-tailed Sylph, Indigo Flowerpiercer and Green Thorntail.

Indigo Flowerpiercer - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

We found a few mixed flocks here and there and had fun picking through them. I heard a Uniform Treehunter vocalizing from down a ravine - my first in Colombia - but it was too far to tease in with playback. A little while later we passed a guy on a motorcycle staring at something at the base of a cliff beside the road. He beckoned us over and casually pointed out the nightjar roosting unobtrusively! We later found out that this is a well-known bird, a female Lyre-tailed Nightjar on a nest.

Lyre-tailed Nightjar - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Our only previous experience with this species had been in Mindo, Ecuador. Laura and I had succeeded in watching a few Lyre-tailed Nightjars at night, alongside our friends Tobias and Steph, though those views hardly compared to this. 

Lyre-tailed Nightjar - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

A frenzy of activity further up the road produced goodies like Glistening-green Tanager, Rufous-throated Tanager and this Uniform Antshrike. 

Uniform Antshrike - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

A unique sound caught my ears. The display of a Club-winged Manakin! We tracked the little guy down and watched him do his little dance. The sound is produced when the bird raises the wings over the head, and rubs a particular secondary feather on each wing against an adjacent one over 100 times per second (!), creating a distinctive humming tone. 

Club-winged Manakin - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

We eventually turned around and headed back to Doña Dora for a well-deserved lunch after a birdy morning. 

We sat at a table overlooking the feeders, while hummingbirds fed from small cups of sugar water placed beside our plates. The wind from the wings of the White-whiskered Hermits, Empress Brilliants and Rufous-gaped Hillstars felt rather refreshing while we ate our lunch! 

Selfie with a Rufous-gaped Hillstar - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Some of the hummingbirds overlapped with Finca Alejandría from the previous day, but more than half of the 16 species were new. Here is a small selection of some of them...

Female Green Thorntail - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Female Western Emerald - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Velvet-purple Coronet - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

White-whiskered Hermit - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Purple-bibbed Whitetip - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Toucan Barbets were nesting in a cavity in a dead tree behind the restaurant. At least four individuals could be periodically found in the nearby trees. The colours on these things....

Toucan Barbet - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Toucan Barbets - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Toucan Barbet - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

This young bird can be aged on the basis of its dark eye (adults have red eyes).

Toucan Barbet - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

We had a lengthly chat here with a local Cali birder named Gilberto Bolaños who gave us some great intel on birding the lower Anchicayá Valley near El Danubio. We also ran into a familiar face whom we had met in Nariño several years ago while on our scouting tour for Quest Nature Tours in southern Colombia. Maria Angelica Contreras was birding in Valle del Cauca department with her boyfriend Alexis for a week or so. It was great to chat with the two of them (and to practice our Spanish!). It turned out that Maria and Alexis hoped to visit the lower Anchicayá Valley, hitch-hiking to get there, so we offered to share our small car with them and bird the area together.

Rufous-throated Tanager - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Laura and I continued to watch the feeders and I finally managed some good photos of the stunning Rufous-throated Tanagers. The subtle colours and scaling on the back feathers are just exquisite, as shown in the photo above. 

Rufous-throated Tanager - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

One of the last new birds to our eBird checklist was a Black-headed Brushfinch as I spotted one scratching around below the feeders. This was a lifer for Laura and only my second ever encounter with this species (and first time photographing one). I have a soft spot for brushfinches and this one won the coveted Bird Of The Day for me.

Black-headed Brushfinch - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

In the late afternoon Laura and I began the short drive back to our hotel in nearby El Queremal. But we were met by cars coming from the opposite direction, the drivers frantically waving at us to turn around. Apparently, there had been an incident between some members of the FARC and the police just outside of El Queremal and it was not safe for cars to proceed back along the road. We followed the line of vehicles back to Doña Dora. Eventually, well over 50 of us gathered at the restaurant and waited. We talked to a few others to try to get a handle on what was going on. 

On the bright side, Laura and I found a snake on the road while we were driving back to Doña Dora, though in the mad rush we only had time for a few cell phone pictures. Identification to be determined!

Eventually it was deemed safe(ish) to proceed and so all of the vehicles, us included, traveled in a convoy back to El Queremal. We arrived as various police forces canvassed the neighbourhood, using our hotel as their home base. 

It was exciting but also nerve-racking to be sort-of in the middle of everything! We later read in the news that there had been a brief firefight between suspected FARC members and police, but that there were no injuries. Several people had been detained. 

Because of the situation, Laura and I made the call not to visit the lower Anchicayá Valley and the town of El Danubio. This area can be a little bit sketchy as is, and the recent events (as well as strong recommendations from several of our Colombian contacts) caused us to make the tough decision to forgo visiting this area of incredible Chocó lowland forest. I will have to return sometime later on, I guess!

Green Thorntail - Doña Dora, Anchicayá Valley, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Laura and I talked with Maria and Alexis since El Danubio was no longer in the plans. We decided to drive together to the small town of San Cipriano, and spend two days and nights exploring the lowland Chocó forest here. Laura and I had wanted to visit here anyways, but the events in El Queremal just expedited our plans. Our visit to San Cipriano will be covered in the next post. 

I do not want the events in El Queremal to cause anyone to think negatively about Colombia or the Colombian people. This was one isolated event in a part of the country that is still impacted by FARC presence, and the police quickly got everything back under control. The vast majority of the country is completely safe for tourism, and things keep improving. Colombia is probably my favourite country to travel independently in. It is said that Colombians are some of the friendliest, most hospitable people in the world and I whole-heartedly agree. Laura and I have fell in love with this country, its people and its biodiversity and we will continue to visit here in the future.