In the far east of Colombia near the Venezuelan border lies Inírida, a town of approximately 30,000 people that is the capital of the department of Guaínia. Until the last few years, the only tourists that ventured to Inírida were backpackers and adventure seekers who wished to visit the Cerros de Mavecure - a trio of domed volcanic hills that seem to magically rise out of the rainforest - and a sacred site to the Indigenous groups residing in the area. In the last five years, however, Inírida has slowly been put on the birding map.
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| Bronzy Jacamars - Flor de Inírida, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
The main draw is the Orinoco Softail, a furnariid which is endemic to the Orinoco River and nearby tributaries, and which is practically only ever seen at Inírida. However, there is so much more to see in this mega-diverse region, where species with Guianan and Amazonian origins intersect. Extensive savannas and white-sand forest tracts provide habitat for specialists like the White-naped Seedeater, Yapacana Antbird, Pale-bellied Mourner and Brown-banded Puffbird. Extensive tracts of seasonally-flooded varzea forest are home to the Orinoco Softail as well as hundreds of other Amazonian species. Pink Amazonian River Dolphins are a common sight along tranquil rivers that stretch for hundreds of kilometers through beautiful forest. In short, it was a destination that I had been eyeing up for a few years, and Laura and I finally had our chance.
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| Roadside Hawk - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
Finding information on logistics was difficult, simply because Inírida is such a new destination for birding. None of the (very few) trip reports I could find online provided any useful details. However, thanks to my friend Luis Urueña, I was put in touch with a local bird guide from the area: Camilo. I reached out to Camilo but he was unfortunately busy for much of January. He gave me the contact number of Mario Cardona, the driver that he uses during birding tours. While Mario is not familiar with the birds, he knows the locations of all of the birding sites and he assisted with logistics such as arranging entry with the local indigenous communities. He charged us around 30 Canadian dollars a day, a reasonable amount in our view. We used Mario's van for transportation until it broke down, at which point he borrowed his wife's Tuk-Tuk (three-wheeled mototaxi) to take us between each birding site. Mario also helped us arrange boat transportation to reach some of the other sites not accessible by road, as well as to visit the Cerros de Mavecure.
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| Cerros de Mavecure, Guainía, Colombia |
We booked our Satena flights in late December and in hindsight, should have booked sooner. Luckily, we were able to snag some of the last tickets for the dates that worked for us. I would highly recommend that birders book their flights with Satena two months in advance since they sell out quick, and there are only a few flights each week.
We planned 9 days in Inírida, a really solid stretch of time that allowed us to have multiple chances to find all of our target species. We booked a hotel through booking.com called Hotel Tucunare. Located on the waterfront right downtown, it was far from quiet at night due to the constant revving of car engines and blasting of music, but we were so tired from long days in the field that it did not matter too much, anyways. The hotel was otherwise perfect for our needs, had a large spacious room and balcony, and was equipped with AC and wifi (which sometimes worked). The price was right as well.
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| View from our balcony - Hotel Tucunaré, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
January 29, 2022
Our early morning flight touched down in Inírida at around 9:30 in the morning, and after the usual airport formalities we were met by a blast of warm air outside of the terminal. Ah, the heat of the lowlands. Mario picked us up and drove us into town, and we spent the first few hours checking into the hotel and running some errands - groceries and an ATM. The city centre provided our first lifer of the trip, the Orange-fronted Yellow-Finch. We saw this species daily in front of our hotel and elsewhere in the downtown core, but did not see it on any of the trails.
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| Orange-fronted Yellow-Finch - Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
Laura and I were itching to get out and explore, despite it being the hottest hours of the day. Mario picked us up at 12:30 PM and we made the short drive over to Caño Culebra for some exploration. This is an easy site to visit since it is only a ten-minute tuk-tuk ride from town and it does not require any special permissions from any indigenous community to visit. Caño Culebra consists of a wide track through different forest types, all on white sand. Some areas contain excellent quality forest, while other areas have been cleared relatively recently. Many of the white-sand specialties of the region have been found at Caño Culebra.
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| Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
Despite the stifling temperatures and lack of bird song we were determined to scrape together a decent bird list. One of my big target species for Inírida was one of the first species to be seen. I heard a distant vocalization which caught my ear as I had been studying this species in the preceeding days. Could it be a Pale-bellied Mourner? A snippet of playback caused a medium-sized, Myiarchus-like flycatcher to perch in a nearby tree. It was the mourner!
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| Pale-bellied Mourner - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
Even though it resembles a Myiarchus (think Great-crested, Dusky-capped, or Swainson's Flycatcher, for example), the Pale-bellied Mourner is actually the only member of the genus Rhytipterna. Locally distributed and poorly known, the Pale-bellied Mourner lives in scrubby habitats on white-sand soils in Amazonia. Inírida is one of the more reliable places where it can be encountered.
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| Pale-bellied Mourner - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
Though the birding was slow in the midday sun, various lizards were active. We noted several Green Thornytail Iguanas, an ant-eating species of lizard, perched several meters off the ground. Such a cool lizard...
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| Green Thornytail Iguana (Uracentron azureum) - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
A Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth walking across the path certainly was the most unusual sighting of the day!
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| Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
A familiar bird vocalization caught my ear, but at first I could not place it. Eventually we tracked down the culprit - a Scaly-breasted Woodpecker - and the association between the species and the sound clicked. Birding in the Amazon is like that. Even with a lot of prep work, it takes time to re-learn all of the bird vocalizations. I was thankful for the nine full days we had planned in Inírida (and a further week in Mitú), since it would give me a lot of time to learn as many sounds of the forest as possible.
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| Scaly-breasted Woodpecker - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
As the afternoon wore on we ran into more and more of the white-sand birds that call this area home. The Black Manakin is one that Laura and I had seen previously in Guyana but we were thrilled to improve upon these views. Besides, it was Laura's first sighting since she became a proper birder (with an eBird account, no less!).
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| Black Manakin - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
Swallow-winged Puffbirds are common birds of the Amazonian and Orinocan lowlands in South America. We enjoyed watching several individuals at close range and even found a nest. Swallow-winged Puffbirds nest in long burrows that are dug into the sandy ground.
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| Swallow-winged Puffbird - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
At times the forest was more mature, providing habitat for a different suite of species. We noticed this Spotted Puffbird sitting quietly off of the trail.
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| Spotted Puffbird - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
We added more birds as we walked - Yellow-breasted Flycatcher, Amazonian Antshrike, Coraya Wren. I also caught up for the first time with two widespread species: Swainson's Flycatcher and Versicolored Emerald.
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| Coraya Wren - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
The Pale-bellied Mourner was not the only contender for the "boring bird which is actually exciting because it is rare" award. In a clearing, a bit of speculative playback produced a Rufous-crowned Elaenia.
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| Rufous-crowned Elaenia - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
This is another white-sand specialist which favours open savannahs and edge habitats. Though localized in distribution, it can apparently be somewhat common in suitable habitat.
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| Rufous-crowned Elaenia - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
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| Rufous-crowned Elaenia - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
But not every bird in Inírida is a drab flycatcher of some kind. Behold, a Scarlet Macaw in all of its glory. As we would come to discover during our visit to Inírida, the vast, pristine habitats outside of the town have allowed parrots, parakeets, macaws and other Psittacids to flourish. Parrot-types would be flying over all day long and we frequently enjoyed great views of them, too.
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| Scarlet Macaw - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
We turned around after covering several kilometres on the trail and backtracked to the beginning. And there were more surprises in store.
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| Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
We stumbled across a small mixed flock that contained a few common species - White-fringed Antwren, Amazonian Antshrike - as well as several of our big targets. Back to the "drab but exciting" category, a Brown-headed Greenlet. At least four individuals of this range-restricted species were traveling with the mixed flock. The Brown-headed Greenlet is, you guessed it, a white-sand specialist that can be found in eastern Colombia, southwestern Venezuela and northern Brazil.
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| Brown-headed Greenlet - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
We also keyed in on a pair of piculets that were working some twigs deep within a shrub. The piculets in Inírida are confounding. In addition to the range-restricted Orinoco Piculet, two other very similar species have been reported here: the LaFresnaye's Piculet and the Golden-spangled Piculet. These latter two species look (and sound) very similar, and some individuals cannot be safely separated in the field. Their ranges apparently overlap in Inírida, as well as in some parts of Brazil. I think that this individual is a LaFresnaye's, but I could be wrong. They are tough!
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| LaFresnaye's Piculet - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
The sun was sinking lower in the sky as we made our way back out to Mario's waiting van. We spotted a few more things as the birding was really picking up. Laura and I spent some quality time with a pair of Red-shouldered Tanagers, a new species for us.
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| Red-shouldered Tanager (female) - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
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| Red-shouldered Tanager (male) - Caño Culebra, Inírida, Guainía, Colombia |
We called it a day after a very successful first afternoon in Iníida. Our hike at Caño Culebra tallied 60 species of birds including many of our targets for that particular habitat type. The following morning we would visit a site called Sabanitas. Stay tuned for the next post.
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