December 4 - Birding Iguaque Sanctuary

This day we got up and went to Claudia and Robin’s for breakfast before heading off to Iguaque Park/Refuge/Sanctuary, which to Robin was the only good place near Villa de Leyva explore for wildlife and birds. Claudia works for the Humboldt Institution of Colombia which studies sustainable conservation practices and tropical ecosystems and is originally from Villa de Leyva. Robin’s father was British and his mother was Nicaraguan, and he has spent most of his life in Central and South America as a naturalist and artist.

After breakfast we climbed into Robin’s Daihatsu four-by-four, which he called the contraption, and headed off to Iguaque. Robin explained that he owned a Land Rover Defender – y’know, the quintessential 4-by of Africa - in Guatemala, but when he and Claudia moved to Colombia, he couldn’t bring the Defender in as the taxes would have been horrendous because the vehicle was not made in Colombia. Sound familiar?

We arrived at Iguaque HQ and paid our entrance fee. Robin and the guy behind the desk got into a terse discussion as the desk-guy declared that Robin should pay the ‘foreigner fee’ of 12,500 pesos/person (~$6.25USD) as Kathleen and I had to pay. Robin produced all kinds of identification proving he was a resident of Colombia. Further discussion ensued and the guy charges an additional 9,000 pesos for parking. This was getting odd. Finally, the guy hands me a receipt where I was to pay 62,000 pesos. Add the parking and that’s 71,000 pesos. Robin and the guy talk some more and some money is exchanged between the two. We walk out. Robin felt we were being conned.

We walked up the trail heading to the tent camping site. The tent camping area looked good with covered cooking shacks with benches and tables facing the views. If Kathleen and I had our motorbikes and knew of Iguaque, we would have camped here as they had showers and fairly level sites to pitch a tent. Lots of dew on the grass.

Robin was still grumbling about the fee transaction and was going to discuss the matter with Claudia that afternoon. Claudia apparently had connections.

We hiked about looking for any bird that came into view. I was using Claudia’s binoculars – a pair of Nikons’ that were better than the pair I had brought, which may as well have been two soda straws fitted with glass. Robin commented that binoculars are very expensive in all of Central and South America. The pair of Sworsky’s he used were given to him 15 years ago for some illustrations and paintings he had done for some folks.

Birders/ornithologists, like Robin, living in Latin American countries use the scientific name to identify birds rather than common name. The reason being, a name applied to a bird in one village, will be drastically different than the name applied in another village 100km’s away. The sci-name never changes. Unless you’re a botanist in which case you’ll seemingly change the scientific name like you would underwear. But those are botanists.

Robin commented numerous times on how dry the last couple of years had been in the region. Two rainy seasons occur in Columbia; one around March-May, and another October-November. Both seasons haven’t produced the amounts of precipitation of years past. This was creating a water shortage. Farming and municipalities were beginning to show inklings of being at odds with each other. Indeed, news reports were circulating that some farmers were wielding machetes at each other with lethal results.

The birds were layin’ low for most of our outing. We saw a few new hummingbirds, flycatchers, and flower-piercers. A flower-piercer . . . a bird about the size of a house sparrow which spastically flits about and pierces the base of flowers with a long hooked beak and drains the nectar. This trait is not conducive to pollination as the bird never extracts the nectar from the front of the flower thus getting dusted with pollen. Evolution can be trippy sometimes.

By early afternoon Kathleen and I were walking down the road from Igauque HQ as Robin would leap frog with the contraption. Remember the contraption? Still not much happening wildlife wise. We called the day and headed back to Ville de Leyva. We parted ways with Robin with the plan to reconvene tomorrow at 7am and head out straight away.

Kathleen and I sauntered into town for our daily meal and fruit acquisition. On our way out of the small market we saw Robin sitting in the contraption. He was waiting for Claudia to finish some shopping. They ended up giving us a ride back up the hill to Colombian Highlands.