Night at El Dorado EcoLodge and Reserve, Colombia

At night they fed the monkeys just after dinner and shortly after had a night walk just down the road to a small creek. They tried to call in owls with no luck but we did see glass frogs, endemic frogs, endemic tarantulas and a climbing salamander very very deep in a bromeliad. If only we had a bit more rain there might have been even more out.

I believe the many anoles sleeping on leaves were only one species of Anolis sp. but I am not sure what it is yet. I do suspect it is a Solitare Anole (Anolis solitarius).

Pristimantis megalops
Pristimantis sanctaemartae

Pristimantis sanctaemartae

Scinax ruber
Ikakogi tayrona are small bright green glass frogs and sadly I didn't get to see more than one of them.

 Ikakogi tayrona

I only got to see one Bolitoglossa savegei, a species of climbing salamander and it was very very stuck in the nooks of a bromeliad.
Spider scorpions

Kankuamo marquezi is the only species within the Genus and is endemic to the Santa Marta Mountain Range area but it was incredibly abundant around the ecolodge.

Kankuamo marquezi

Kankuamo marquezi

Minca, Colombia

We spent from Jan 5th to Jan 8th in Minca before heading up to El Dorado EcoLodge at higher elevation. Minca is a lovely town and it sits at the intersection of river a river and smaller creeks. The town is busy with 'local tourists' aka Colombians from other places coming up to see the waterfalls and swim in the river. The locals don't appear to be phased by the tiny blackflies that come out in mass around 4-6pm every day and eat chunks out of your legs. That being said the river is very refreshing in the hot weather.

The food is much better than I expected after being all to familiar with the simple rice and bean dishes of other Latin American countries. We eat at Restaurante Santisabella for every dinner we were there for. They serve massive steaks with a lovely peppercorn gravy for only about 15 dollars. You can choose from a large variety of drinks to go along with it and all of them are fantastic. My favorite was the Mora Mojito which was packed with fresh blackberry and mint.

Restaurante Santisabella

I got very sick while we were in Minca so I missed out on visiting Pozo Azul Waterfall and Balneario Los Piedras (a rock chute where people usually go to swim). I got some fantastic birding done around the Hotel Minca but I do regret not seeing more of the area. I am sure there would have been lots more to see just walking around the roads and seeing some different habitats.

Collared Aracari

 The Motmots and Black-chested Jays were my favorite birds that I saw. The mass numbers of hummingbirds is always quite thrilling. The jays were eating the long yellow flowers of Combretum fruticosum.

Black-chested Jay

Black-chested Jay

Black-chested Jay

Red-crowned Woopecker

White-vented Plumeleteer

Whooping Motmot

Whooping Motmot

Social Flycatcher

My only rarity for the area (according to eBird) was a Brown Violetear. This  hummingbird was coming to the feeders at the hotel. I didn't actually realize it would be uncommon in Minca until I went to enter it.

Brown Violetear

I was able to find a few snake skins in some ideal places but never any live snakes. There were frogs calling near a small creek beside the road one night.

Savage's Thin-toed Frog (Leptodactylus savagei)

I did quite well for mammals in Minca and I was surprise to see about 2 new species a day including a ridiculous domestic rabbit, 1 unknown nocturnal mammal that reminded me of a ferret with a very long tail, an opposum, bats and Red-tailed Squirrels.

Red-tailed Squirrel

 From a restaurant called Lazy Cat there was a perched view into the trees beside the river below. We had the chance to see a lot more of pretty much all the same birds that were at Hotel Minca plus a large male Green Iguana displaying and chasing away younger males.

Lazy Cat, Minca

Green Iguana

Arriving in Minca, Colombia

We arrived in the Santa Marta airport and were met by a taxi driver arranged through the Hotel Minca. This took us along the highways and to the winding roads up to the small mountain town. Along the road there was natural cactus scrubland with many vultures circling in the sky above.  It was a scene straight out of an old west movie.

The scenery drastically changed as we went up the winding roads of the Santa Marta Mountains. The city shrunk into the distance but you could still see it over the steep drop over the side of the road. The trees were tall and old and the houses we passed were literally hanging right off the the side of the mountain.

Hotel Minca

When we arrived at Hotel Minca it was the prefect time for some late afternoon birding. We didn't even have to go anywhere though. The hotel itself was a hotspot for birds. We saw over 20 species very quickly and a fair number of them were ones I had never seen before.

Hotel Minca

The gardens around the hotel were lush and birds were abundant in the trees and gardens. A few were even going for a quick dip in the pool. The hummingbird feeders were bustling. The most common were White-vented Plumeleteers, Steely-vented Hummingbird and Rufous-tailed Hummingbird but there was also the odd Brown Violetear and White-necked Jacobin.

Hotel Minca

The total list of what we saw:
White-tipped Dove
Eared Dove
Squirrel Cuckoo

Squirrel Cuckoo

White-necked Jacobin
White-vented Plumeleteer

White-vented Plumeleteer

White-vented Plumeleteer

Steely-vented Hummingbird

Steely-vented Hummingbird

Steely-vented Hummingbird

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Black Vulture
Red-crowned Woodpecker
Orange-chinned Parakeets

Orange-chinned Parakeet

Yellow-bellied Elaenia

Yellow-bellied Elaenia

Yellow-bellied Elaenia

Great Kiskadee
Boat-billed Flycatcher
Social Flycatcher

Social Flycatcher

Tropical Kingbird
Bicolored Wren

Bicolored Wren

Bicolored Wren

Pale-breasted Thrush
Grayish Saltator

Grayish Saltator

Grayish Saltator

After a few hours of relaxing we walked around the town but the birding hardly compared to the area around the hotel. Despite the small size Minca is quite busy with people. There are motor taxis everywhere and even the small dirt roads on the outskirts are full of people coming back from swimming in the waterfall or river.

Iglesia Minka

By night you can see the light reflect off the eyes of spiders and noctural mammals. I saw a large rabbit that looked more like an escaped pet and a long skittish mammal that reminded me of a large ferret. There were lots of the typical house geckos running along the walls of the hotel (much less insect diversity than I would have expected and only a few moths were around the lights) and I did manage to find one large gecko and an anole in the shrubs around the hotel.

Turnip-tailed Gecko (Thecadactylus rapicauda)

Turnip-tailed Gecko (Thecadactylus rapicauda)

Turnip-tailed Gecko (Thecadactylus rapicauda)

Neotropical Green Anole (Anolis biporcatus)