I was planning to go to Peru in 2022 but there were riots and road closures in the areas we were planning to go. So at the last minute I went back to Colombia and saw some other places.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of overlap, so I did not get a lot of new birds on the trip. However, many areas now have set up feeding stations and several were built for photography. I used the same guide Pablo Florez and I had my daughter with me on the trip this year.
However on the bright side, the setups for photography and the number of places that had feeders allowed me to get many improved photos of birds I had mediocre photos previously.
The tanager family (thraupidae) is another huge New World family of birds with 386 species currently. The range from the plain seedeaters to the gaudy Tangara genus of beautiful birds.
The 6.5" Blue-grey Tanager (Thraupis episcopus) is probably the most common tanager I have seen as I think I have seen it every trip. The range is from southern Mexico to Bolivia and Amazonia. It is also listed in Miami as an escaped cage bird. It is a beautiful bird and easily recognized. There is another variant with a white wing bar in the eastern part of the range. Maybe a split???
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| Blue-grey Tanager |
The 6" Black-backed Bush-Tanager (Urothraupis stolzmanni) is listed as 'local and usually uncommon'. This was my second time to see it. We were on the same mountains Los Nevados.
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| Black-backed Bush-Tanager |
The 4.5" Dull-colored Grassquit (Asemospiza obscura) is a plain grayish brown bird. The guide book says it has a pale lower mandible. So I looked online and I see some photos are like mine with an all black bill. It was IDed by my guide. It was a lifer.
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| Dull-colored Grassquit |
Conebills are another group of tanagers. The 5.3" male Capped Conebill (Conirostrum albifrons) is a black bird with blue on the wings and a white cap.
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| Capped Conebill - male |
The 6.8" male Crimson-backed Tanager (Ramphocelus dimidiatus) is a mostly red bird with a dark head and wings and a white lower mandible. This genus of tanagers is one of my favorites, as black and red colorations.
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| Crimson-backed Tanager - male |
The 5" male Black-capped Tanager (Stilpnia heinei) is a beautiful blue and black bird that was formerly in the tangara genus. There were several 'tangara genus' tanagers moved to a different genus based on DNA studies.
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| Black-capped Tanager - male |
The female is green with a speckled black cap.
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| Black-capped Tanager - female |
Lastly is the beautiful 5.3" Silver-throated Tanager (Tangara icterocephala). This is another bird I remember from my first trip to Costa Rica in 1994. it is confined to the western slope of the Andes. However on an Ecuador trip, on the Amazonian slope we saw one and I photographed it. It was only the second record I could find for the Amazonian slope. It was a first at that lodge and the owner did not know what it was..hahahah
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| Silver-throated Tanager |
I put the different bird/mammal families in single folders for easy viewing
David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com
photos copyright 2006 - 2023 David McDonald
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