In January, I had the privilege of participating in a two-week birding/photography trip to Colombia. It was an eye-opening and enriching experience.
Colombia is a country of staggering beauty and megadiversity, boasting the highest number of bird species in the world (over 1,900). My trip, which included short visits to the Eastern Andes and Central Andes, was only long enough to see a (relatively) few bird species and to experience only a few of the country’s many diverse landscapes.
Photographing birds in the wild, especially in rainforests, presents formidable challenges because most tropical species spend their days hidden in the underbrush or high up in the canopy; capturing good photographs is often impossible.
The solution to this problem is to set up bird-feeding observation/photography stations!
As the Resident Naturalist for Chin Ridge Seeds (where I get to share my love about backyard birds and bird feeding) and as the author/co-author of three bird feeding books, I was intrigued by the bird feeding stations that have been set up around the eco-lodges we visited. All lodges offered both sugar water feeders for the dizzying variety and number of hummingbirds, as well as forest-bird feeding stations where mealworms, bananas, grapes and cracked corn were served. The hummer feeders were placed around the grounds and complemented a wide variety of hummingbird-attracting shrubs while the other feeding stations were hidden in the forest and have been carefully designed to enable discreet photo shoots of the birds in their natural habitat.
Once we birders/photographers were settled into viewing blinds, the birds were enticed to visit the feeding stations. Some, like the several species of antpittas we viewed, were actually called by name(!) while other species have simply learned to associate a group of visiting humans with food. Bananas were the most popular feeder fare, bringing in a wide variety of species.
These being wild birds, not all our visits yielded appearances of the target species, but we were thrilled with the species that did show up.
I will soon post images of the many feeder species we saw on my website (myrnapearman.com). Shown here are two of many fascinating species we encountered—the Mountain Velvetbreast hummingbird and the Cresent-faced Antpitta.
Myrna Pearman is the Resident Naturalist at Chin Ridge Seeds. She is a nature writer, photographer, retired biologist and author of several books. Her books are available at www.myrnapearman.com. She can be reached at myrna@myrnapearman.com.
