Mitu Tour Recap — Antbird Tours

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TOUR RECAP: MITU, COLOMBIA

Recently, Antbird Tours completed a trip to Vaupés, Colombia. This underexplored department of Colombia straddles the Guiana Shield and lowland Amazon Rainforest and hosts a number of endemic bird species. Over the course of 7-days, we detected 197 total bird species in myriad unique habitat types and interacted with numerous local indigenous community members. Overall, the tour was a huge success, both from a birding and a conservation perspective.

The tour began with our arrival into Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. This heavily populated city sits perched at 8,660 ft in the Andes Mountains. Despite sitting at 4-degrees North Latitude, the climate in Bogotá is cool and comfortable and the birds are amazing and unique in their own right. Upon landing in Bogotá, we headed to a city park to search for Yellow-backed Oriole, Striated Heron, Bare-faced Ibis, Lesser Violetear, Rufous-browed Conebill and others. The cool, high-elevation walk was a great way to stretch our travel weary legs.

The next day, we headed to Cerro Monserrate, a mountain perched on the southeastern edge of the city and reaching an elevation of 10,341 ft. To reach the top of the mountain, we hoped on a cable car and walked downslope to a bird-feeding area filled with bird baths and hummingbird feeders. Here, we saw Black-tailed Trainbearers, Tyrian Metaltail, Blue-throated Starfrontlet, White-bellied Woodstar, White-throated Tyrannulet, Streak-throated Bush-Tyrant, Great Thrush and Pale-naped Brushfinch. After the morning of birding, we headed back to our hotel to grab our bags and straight to the airport for our flight to Mitú, the capital of Colombia’s Vaupés department. After a short one-hour flight, we arrived in our destination – as we approached the runway, the Amazon Rainforest could be seen stretching the edge of the horizon in all directions. Upon stepping off the plane, we were met with the extreme heat and humidity that typifies the region and the contrast between the cool, high elevation habitats of Bogotá and the immense and lush tropical vegetation of the lowland rainforest was dramatic.

Flying into Mitu, the Vaupes River stretches to the horizon as it flows through the Amazon Rainforest

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