We began our last full day at Los Flamencos Sanctuary, on the Caribbean coast.
The name “Los Flamencos” refers to the flamingos that are found there,
but sadly not at this time of year.
We stayed at El Remanso, which is a beach restaurant that also has two guest rooms.
The two guest rooms are in this building.
The coastal lowlands are quite arid. Morever, we were there near the end of the dry season,
and the dry season has been extra dry this year (with El Niño taking the blame).
So things were super dry here.
We hired local guide, Jose, to take us around for the morning.
Here we are with Toño, our driver for the week. Toño wanted to be sure that we posed in front of his Land Rover.
This Acacia at El Remanso was carefully pruned into a flat-topped canopy.
The southern shore of the Caribbean.
Back to birds. Bare-eyed Pigeon was one of the specialties that we sought here.
Another Russet-throated Puffbird
Russet-throated Puffbird
Orinocan Saltator, another specialty of the area.
Pale-legged Hornero
Pileated Finch was pretty common in the area.
White-whiskered Spinetail, a Furnariid that actually has field marks.
White-whiskered Spinetail
Vermilion Cardinal, one of our most-sought species here.
Even redder than our Northern Cardinal, with a more upright crest.
Carib Grackle
Scaled Dove
Yellow Oriole
Yellow Oriole
Orange-crowned Oriole
Tocuyo Sparrow was a special prize sighting, as it can be found only in this small area.
I was lucky to get even a bad photo, but you can make out the striped head pattern.
After leaving the Los Flamencos area, we stopped briefly at Tayrona National Park.
One of the birds we saw there was this
Straight-billed Woodcreeper
We also saw a few Cottontop Tamarins, an endangered primate found only in coastal Colombia.
The bird that we were especially looking for here was Lance-tailed Manakin.
Brown-throated Parakeet
