Colombia Day 13; La Florida

 Before our flight to Bogota in the mid-afternoon, we wanted to visit the famous La Florida sanctuary, which has some famous feeding stations for a variety of birds. Sadly, through prior contact, we had learned that the Scaled Antpitta was not currently visiting the sites feeding station, and that timings meant we would not be able to visit the Little Tinamou, but on paper everything else looked promising.

Sadly, we lost a bit of time during the morning over breakfast and did not reach the site until mid-morning, leaving us with just two hours. While this would still leave us with time to enjoy the tanagers and the hummingbirds, it would not give us any chance to explore. Still we had a lot of fun in the time we spent there, with a wide variety of species visiting the hummingbird feeders especially; the highlights being Long-billed Starthroat and Purple-collared Woodstar. The tanager feeders were a bit slower, and the star attraction of Multicoloured Tanager failed to show itself during our visit, but we still enjoyed a few commoner species like Golden Tanager, Black-capped Tanager and Saffron-crowned Tanager. All nice to see.

The parks other target species, the Chestnut Wood Quail apparently only visits the feeders at seven in the morning, which we did not know, but by chance they had not visited that day, so we had missed out on nothing. Whilst moving between the feeders the site guide called us over, telling us he had found the quails in the forest and to follow him. He threw a banana onto the path and immediately a squad of some six Chestnut Wood Quails, with their baby in tow, came running out of the vegetation and scoff down the Banana. Although glorified game birds, seeing Wood Quails of any kind is always special, and it was good to get such excellent views.

After that, at 11:00, we drove back to the airport and prepared for our flight back to Bogota. Once we arrived in Bogota, we hired the car and set off to the town of Guasca, from where we would be birding the following days. 

Species List:
La Florida: Chestnut Wood Quail, Ruddy Ground Dove, Eared Dove, White-necked Jacobin, Brown Violetear, Black-throated Mango, Speckled Hummingbird, Long-tailed Sylph, Greenish Puffleg, Bronzy Inca, White-booted Racket-tail, Fawn-breasted Brilliant, Long-billed Starthroat, Purple-throated Woodstar, Steely-vented Hummingbird, Andean Emerald, Black Vulture, Roadside Hawk, Red-headed Barbet, Acorn Woodpecker, House Wren, Black-billed Thrush, Rufous-collared Sparrow, White-naped Brushfinch, Shiny Cowbird, Slate-throated Whitestart, Flame-rumped Tanager, Blue-winged Mountain Tanager, Palm Tanager, Black-capped Tanager, Saffron-crowned Tanager, Golden Tanager, Green Honeycreeper, Saffron Finch, Bananaquit,