Birding in Colombia according to a Professional Bird Guide – Colombia Birdwatching

today a professional birth guide will tell you his story and his view of Colombia welcome to Colombia today we are in Casa platypus thank you for hosting us for today's talk Casa platypus is also in my neighborhood and it's situated right at the entrance to la candelaria the historic town of Bogota right next to the back a de los policías so it's actually the perfect duplication if you're going to move around its old house with nice rooms you have it's it's a mix between hostel and hotel you have single rooms you have double rooms and you also have dormitories today I want to introduce you today I want now today I want to introduce today I would like to introduce you to shell he's also in other videos where we did some traveling searching for birds in Colombia he is a professional bird guide in he's actually brewed nuts he's really hardcore burger also and yeah why don't you just present yourself I thanks a lot yeah my name is Jerome as Frank mentioned before Jerome Fisher which native birding hardcore for more than 32 years now and always being focused on the ratification traveling it started in Switzerland and then exploring more and more till discovering the the most dialed Ivers especially for birds and most other organism continent which is a South America from there onwards I started to expand my knowledge about neotropical bird traveling through big parts of South America and finally deciding that decision took place last year to move not only to travel and to visit Latin America but to move here to make myself a home as their your freelance guide as well committing myself to other projects is linked to link to sustainable tourism so Sharon and I we have some things in common we both grew up in Switzerland we have the same age and the two of us we decided to leave Switzerland and living abroad for different reasons but although we are having like a wonderful life there is also some sacrifice being away from the family being away from the friends he's still single so all the girls who are looking for the border so the border girls you can write in the comments and that will pass the phone number and let's see we might connect you would which Arum also myself I'm working day night I'm happier than ever but I'm working tonight I'm also single so you can also put that in the comments besides that so yeah cherem he contacted me through a common friend and was telling me that he's coming to South America Colombia for birding and I just invited him he stayed in my house for a couple of months he came to trip with us he's not only experienced in new tropical birds but also now in Colombia so what I'm interested in you as a professional you know different countries in middle and South America what makes Colombia so especially in in terms of birds Colombia is still like unexplored in many places there is many places with a huge by dire biodiversity which lack infrastructures which in turn other countries like Ecuador Peru or a step further Colombia has a way to go we will get to that point but that makes for me a country very very appealing and interesting and is well the element of discovering rare birds who knows maybe even new to science as happened in the last couple years here in Colombia so what we see right now we have mostly hardcore birders coming to Colombia and in the recent years why should Burges come to Colombia which are not that hardcore which also want to have luxury Lodge once you reach an interesting area good birding hotspots there are so many everything is right at your doorsteps because Colombia has said less put fresh ROM by general tourism birds birds are birds are everywhere so that makes it very special and in some places easy as well to watch birds may be easier than in some other places or countries you've read some books those are the most important books if you come to Colombia for birding can you say something about them of course yeah that's the birds of Colombia for miles in McMullen and that's from Fernando I bet he knows that book slightly newer it has better illustrations I think well that's always subjective I won't get into detail or comparing them but the illustrations appeal a little bit more or more correct for difficult difficult families or generous than that one this is more artistical this one as well is available in English and gives you as well some identification details in text that one's lacking that one's lacking any identification text except for a quick introduction of generous it has a up-to-date distribution maps and as you can see the quality of the illustration is really really high and that helps for identifying very difficult families having that said maybe needs to have a little bit more knowledge about your tropical bird because there is no text at all not about voice not about identification detail which in some species would be crucial you will find that here in that book that gives you on some information about song call and distribution as well or a behavior behavior features as well but paintings the illustrations are a little bit less accurate less detailed than the other one still both books are an invaluable source of information if you opt to visit Colombia for ornithology either pick four you will be a very good pick what would you suggest to people coming here to Colombia for birding how should they organize the trip planning of a trip with such a huge of a founder or biodiversity is always key and crucial there is many good tour operators and one of the best hopefully is just rising right now and we are talking to you were talking to wave and it always helps to take a guide or to book a guide in advance to get in contact with somebody who has a deep knowledge not only as country of the culture of the language but also of the very complex are we found not so in terms of poking yet birders they have different possibilities you can either go with one of the most famous agencies out of England or the US for example if you go away let's say booked West so they will also stretch out to operator in Colombia which takes over all the operation so you have a layer on top what you will get is probably one of their famous guides or photographers or whatever I personally I don't see a benefit for going with big foreign company because lots of your money you're going to spend will stay in let's say England or the US where these companies based in Colombia we have today some very good companies not just my new brand which is called Sula here's the link we also have established good companies like birding Colombia or Colombia birding or tayrona birding mannequin those are all excellent companies that offer your complete package that can advise you on the regions of old birds and those are all Colombian companies with Colombians and this is also something Colombia needs it needs direct access to tourism for development because if you're going to contract Colombian based companies they make sure that in the regions you also have development that you have investments in in the use that new guides are developing that people see a career in in becoming bird guides and so on and so on so I advise you not just with me but whenever your thinking of going on a bird tour to Colombia keep in mind directly booking with the Colombian company if you google it you will you will find them make you do the elections that's important check their homepage just social media talk to them talk to them before taking a decision you have to be sure this is the right person so let's talk about your favorite regions and your favorite birds in Colombia definitely my favorite bio geographic region is difficult choco choco bio geographic region it has a lava lava and amazing original endemics it shares that by your region with Ecuador and even Eastern Panama as well there's some country endemics which are like very colourful very spectacular some of them are very rare some of the choco birds are not necessarily endemic but still very rarely encountered another favorite area for me is the Amazon still very weapons unit of course but a little bit less rain and lowlands the charcoal reaches from sea level back to about 2000 years and Colombia is well known for having huge tracts of Amazon rainforest and that's probably after all a biome I know best having traveled to several sites in the Amazon rainforest so these are my two most favorite areas here in Colombia the Amazon part and choco bio geographic region that's interesting those I would say are regions apart more difficult to travel but when you for example considering traveling with your family your girlfriend your wife your kids who are not too much into birding there are also many regions actually where there is not just birdie you go to the coffee triangle which is one of the hotspots in terms of birding in Colombia and there's lots of different things to do like going on a coffee for hiking horse riding it's one of the most beautiful regions in Colombia too you can go to the Caribbean coast Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta you also have lots to do you have a bucket aiona the Sierra Nevada Santa Marta is the highest coastal mountain range and there's lots of activities you can do we can just hang out in Santa Marta Colombia is very cool because there is so much stuff you can do besides birding and it offers so much and it's not spoiled by tourism so far it's not overrun which makes it very very cool because the interaction with people it's very normal it's very authentic so shehram your favorite three birds in colombia what's your pick out of over thousand nine hundred different bird species difficult question bells let's see well almost impossible to answer bah I won't put them in sequence but three birds I love is one as the banded ground cuckoo is a very rare bird terrestrial bird it has myth of being almost invisible a ghost of the forests I've been fortunate enough to see that species and it's actually a very interesting one a very nice bird as well from Eastern Colombian Amazon biome is the Guinean cock of the rock it's a very brightly colored bird of the family of the cotton guy has a special display behavior so-called Lex where many males are gathered together in order to attract females mother bird I love is Goldring Tanager is a bird of the choco biogeographical region and despite being an endemic bird quite easy to observe observe at specific sites so if you're considering traveling to Colombia for birding tour and also weight share um you speak Swiss German you speak German you speak French you speak English you speak Portuguese you speak Spanish that's it that's it only six as I said if you consider traveling to Colombia I'm more than happy to help you you can contact me directly if you want include share them as a professional guide no problem we're working together also the plan is in the future to build up that business and yeah that's it for today thanks for watching if you liked that video give us a like and if you like the channel subscribe we will publish more videos for birding we will travel to more regions in Colombia to see what we're gonna find in terms of bird species we'll try to discover new species of course and let's see if that's going to happen or not would be very cool difficult let's see and yeah that's it for today thanks for watching and hopefully see you soon in Colombia bye-bye see you hopefully soon in the fields

Channel: COLOMBIAFRANK

Views: 1,408

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Traveling Colombia, Colombia travel, Colombia travel vlog, Colombian travel guide, Colombia tourism, colombiafrank, Colombia bird watching, Colombia bird identification, Colombia birding, Colombia ornithology, Kolumbien Vogelbeobachtung, Kolumbien Vögel, Kolumbien Vogelfotografie, bird watching colombia, Birds in Colombia, best places for bird watching in Colombia, birdlife of Colombia, bird watching in Colombia, bird species Colombia, Colombia bird guide, bird guide Colombia

Id: r-uMLBnK-Pc

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 11 2019