People who have traveled with me know that one of my favorite destinations and the one I enjoy the most is Colombia, both for its birds and for the friendly people who welcome us in each place we visit.
This year I had the opportunity to lead 4 photography tours in this beautiful country and precisely the last trip was in the second half of September.
In previous posts I have mentioned the low bird activity due to the extreme drought that our region is experiencing and happily on this tour we witnessed the slow start of the rains and of course an improvement in bird activity at feeders.
During this tour we visited the best bird photography spots in the central Andes, including a small part of Chocó in the charming place of Doña Dora. So we started our trip in Cali, passing through the Manizales area and ending in the beautiful little town of Jardín de Antioquia where we photographed the enigmatic Cock-of-the-Rock.
Before finishing this trip we had the opportunity to visit a new reserve near Medellin in search of new bird species but without a doubt the biggest highlight was being able to photograph this family of Night Monkeys.
For years I had dreamed of photographing these monkeys and despite having seen them before, the conditions were never as good as in this photo.
Another awesome set of photos Javier!
The details of the feathers of Thornbill are amazing, especially the ones on the wings that seem to be transparent.
Beautiful photos without a doubt. I just cannot wrap my head around birding in an environment where you are just sitting at feeders. I do it sometime but I like getting out and birding... I guess I am old school. I love Colombia, but I try to stay away from those places.... No fun for me. I do stop in once in a while and eat lunch and watch the tours coming in.. A lot of the places you have to make reservations to even get in and the price is pretty steep. Strictly for tourists.
I was shooting with a guy at a local park about a month ago and he used to be a so called guide at Rio Blanco. He said it was required , if you guid there the basically bribe the staff. He quit and many talk pretty bad about it. But, it is a tourist attraction. And easy birding.
