Sunday, April 1, 2012

A magic place... or should I say enchanted?

We were in a hurry... we just came back in the morning from our birding trip in Venezuela and already were packing our stuff for our night flight to Quito, Ecuador, in order to continue birding! I was now in Bogota, Colombia, at the house of my birding trip companion Rafael Cortes, who wanted to take advantage of every second available before our flight, so we decided to spent a couple of hours at a magic place one hour away of the capital city, in the Municipality of San Francisco de Sales: the Enchanted Garden... and it really worth the effort!!!
The number of hummingbird feeders was impressive, but not as impressive as the number of individuals drinking at them!
When you say that the most common hummer at your feeders is an endemic one, well, you have an enchanted garden... just watch these pics of this cooperative Indigo-capped Hummingbird!

More widespread species (like the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird or the White-vented Plumleteer) were also present... after all, the list of species recorded at this site is impressive.
We only saw this Green Hermit once, and for just few seconds... enough for a couple of pics.
The Black-throated Mango is a common and widespread species... the female is very attractive with its contrasting black-and-white underparts... but the male is simply astonishing!
But the stars (literally) of the show were the woodstars... At least four different individuals of White-bellied Woodstars appeared at the same time... always noticed first by their audible zmmm while flying.
And last, but not less, a tiny gem made our day.  A male Gorgeted Woodstar shyly visited the feeders... its flying gorget was special!
After all, we only spend 1 hour at the place, enough to enjoy all these beauties and still have time to catch our flight to Quito, Ecuador... but that is another story!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Jan.
    Thank you for sharing such an amazing place! Colombia must be a lot like Costa Rica, where we have been photographing hummingbirds now for 2 years.
    Here are some images you might enjoy.
    Cindy
    http://www.focusfrog.com/Pages/NavHummerGallery.html
    When you get to a gallery, click on the small thumbnails on the left for a larger image with an explaining caption.
    Enjoy!

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    1. Wao! Those are absolutely gorgeous photos of spectacular hummingbirds! That black background really emphasizes the birds... and the accompanying flowers... sublime!

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