Laura and I originally planned to rent the car from Cali for ten days. This would provide sufficient time to explore the El Queremal area, the lowlands near El Danubio, San Cipriano, and the Buga area, without feeling rushed at all. With El Danubio plans falling through due to the security situation in the area, we had a few extra days on our hands without any idea where to spend them.
Alexis had wanted to visit an area called Reserva Natural Río Bravo and since Laura and I had really enjoyed traveling with him and Maria, we decided to convoy there together for a few nights.
Río Bravo protests a swath of montane and submontane forests in the western Andes. Located at the west end of a large reservoir (Embalse Calima), a dirt road descends from the highway and travels through the reserve. While several small farms line portions of the road, for the most part it passes through decent quality forest. It was a place that I had never heard of before, but I was excited to check it out!
January 15, 2022
We arrived during the mid-afternoon, following a very successful morning of birding at Laguna de Sonso. Given the time of day and heavy overcast conditions along with a moderate breeze, we were not expecting much for birds. The mist-shrouded mountains, however, were beautiful.
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| Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
We turned up a few interesting birds, despite only exploring the first 500 meters or so. Highlights included several heard-only species (Rufous-breasted Antthrush, Yellow-breasted Antwren) along with flyover Bronze-winged Parrots, several Green-fronted Lancebills, and a solid selection of tanagers including this crisp Purplish-mantled (one of my top ten favourite tanagers in the world, I think).
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| Purplish-mantled Tanager - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
January 16, 2022
Being from southern Ontario, I am spoiled with lakes. Three Great Lakes can be found within a few hours of where I was raised, while several other lakes and reservoirs are even closer. And, of course, cottage country to the north provides an unlimited number of beautiful lakes. But in the mountains of Colombia, lakes come at a premium. Embalse Calima, the massive reservoir near where we were birding, was apparently a hugely popular tourist attraction among locals. Thousands of people descend to the area on the weekends to jet-ski, wake-board, kite-surf and party. Who knew that a single human-made reservoir could create so much fun?
Of course, this meant that finding cheap accommodations for our visit was a little challenging as we did not want to pay for an overpriced lakeside hotel, or resort to another popular option - camping. But with some persistence we found two inexpensive rooms in a cheap motel in the town of Darién, about a 25 minute drive from the start of our birding road. We had an early (but not too early) start the next morning, arriving at the road just before 7 AM.
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| Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
We parked the car near the top and spent the entire morning slowly exploring the road on foot. The first stretch passed through nice montane forest and we added species like Yellow-breasted Antpitta, Tatama Tapaculo, Sickle-winged Guan, Toucan Barbet, Montane Foliage-gleaner and an endemic Parker's Antbird. A great start.
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| Montane Foliage-gleaner - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
This weevil (genus Brentus) was certainly eye-catching.
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| Brentus sp. - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
Eventually, the road passed through some edge-habitats and a few homesteads. The human alteration to the landscape meant that our bird list grew quickly, all common species though. Of note were our first Double-toothed Kites, Fawn-breasted Tanagers and Yellow-billed Caciques of the year.
The butterflies started to come out of the woodwork at this point of the day. Mid-morning until early afternoon are the peak butterflying hours. The various puddles and muddy areas alongside the road proved irresistible to many species.
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| Archaeoprepona chromus - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Rusty-tipped Page (Siproeta epaphus) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Eresia polina - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Theagenes albiplaga - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
This next one is not a butterfly. Rather, it is a species of geometer moth called Siosta bifasciata.
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| Siosta bifasciata - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
We passed a small creek and I tried some speculative playback for one of my target species, the Yellow-breasted Antwren which is a species that I had heard before, but never seen. It worked! One came flying in, eager to do battle with the intruder.
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| Yellow-breasted Antwren - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
A rare Black-headed Brushfinch was lurking nearby. This species had only been reported along this road on a couple of previous occasions so I made sure to take some record shots, as poor as they were.
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| Black-headed Brushfinch - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
When researching the road I came to the conclusion that I would likely not find any lifers, or bird species that I had never encountered before. I had birded these elevations in the western Andes fairly extensively in Colombia and northern Ecuador. However, there was one possible exception - the Semicollared Hawk. This Accipiter is generally quite rare in its limited range in Andean cloud forest. They are not common anywhere and it is one of those birds that, with enough time spent in suitable habitat, you will eventually stumble across one. I had not. But there had been around four previous reports from this road - not a huge amount by any means, but enough for me to take notice of the possibility.
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| Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
The day was getting quite warm and the birdsong had quieted. I was admittedly focused more on butterflies by this time. But then Alexis stopped us dead in our tracks. A few hummingbirds freaking out about something above the trail caught his eye and he found the object of their dissatisfaction. A small Accipiter with a distinctive collar....
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| Semicollared Hawk - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
There it was in all its glory, a Semicollared Hawk!! It tolerated our presence and we watched it, unobscured, for several minutes until it flew further back into the forest. A gorgeous bird...
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| Semicollared Hawk - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
We continued to walk down the road and the butterflies (and day-flying moths) were now out in full force. It was incredible to see the different colours and shapes, some familiar and others not. Here are a few of my favourites from the day.
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| Pansy Daggerwing (Marpesia marcella) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Cindy's Leafwing (Fountainea nessus) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Alala Sister (Adelpha alala) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Cindy's Leafwing (Fountainea nessus) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Josia sp. - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Tropical Yellow (Abaeis xantochlora) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Orange Daggerwing (Marpesia berania) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Altinote alcione - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Lamplight Altinote (Altinote ozomene) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Pyrrhogyra sp. - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
And while the birding had slowed, it hadn't stopped. I noticed a dapper male Multicolored Tanager in a small mixed flock beside the road. It was a lifer for Maria, and the first good view that Alexis had had of this Colombian endemic. Shortly after, a pair of White-winged Tanagers appeared, the male just glowing red.
While lacking the flashiness of some of the tanagers, the Cinnamon Flycatchers were quite cute in their own right.
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| Cinnamon Flycatcher - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
We reached a set of waterfalls around mid-day and took a break to have lunch, followed by a visit of the waterfall. I did not take many photos around this time, the exception being a few butterflies, of course.
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| Archaeoprepona demophoon - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Common Morpho (Morpho helenor) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Anna's Eighty-eight (Diaethria anna) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Falcate Skipper (Spathilepia clonius) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
Alexis and Maria needed to catch a bus back to Cali since they were meeting a friend that evening, and had plans to explore a different reserve with him. Since we had a long walk back to make it to our car, we hitched a ride on the roof of a 4x4 heading back up the mountain road!
January 17, 2022
Laura and I returned to Río Bravo for one last kick of the can before bringing the rental car back to Cali, and from there, flying to Medellín. This time we enjoyed a later sleep in. Our next week was shaping up to be quite busy and this would be our last rest day for a while.
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| Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
The birding was similar to the previous day but, as always, there were enough differences to keep things interesting. For one, Multicolored Tanagers appeared in greater numbers, and one even stuck around long enough for some distant photos.
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| Multicolored Tanager - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Ornate Flycatcher - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
We also found a few cooperative Yellow-breasted Antwrens as well as a Rufous-rumped Antwren. This was a new species for Laura, and it was one I had only encountered on one previous occasion. A little while later we heard the distinctive calls of Crested Ant-Tanagers, a bird that looks like a cross between a "regular" ant-tanager and a Northern Cardinal. With some work we both managed adequate views of the skulkers, though photos were not possible.
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| Yellow-breasted Antwren - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Rufous-rumped Antwren - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
During the early afternoon we explored a different set of waterfalls. The area was downright quiet, compared to the throngs of weekend tourists from the previous two days, and we only had to share the waterfalls with a couple of other people.
The butterflies were really taking advantage of the sunny conditions at this time.
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| Tegosa sp. - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Lamplight Altinote (Altinote ozomene) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Memphis sp. - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Smudged Crescent (Castilia eranites) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Green-eyed White (Leptophobia aripa) - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
Other interesting birds included a Barred Hawk and a Green-fronted Lancebill. Lance even posed for photos!
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| Green-fronted Lancebill - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
I will finish the post with a few other insects that I photographed before leaving Río Bravo behind. It was a great visit and a worthwhile place to spend a couple of days.
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| Paramastax rosenbergi - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Unidentified Tachinid - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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| Unidentified Tiger Moth - Reserva Natural Río Bravo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia |
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