S2603 - OWE off-piste Matute forest, Colombia 28 March
- ph87gb
- Apr 10
- 7 min read
An overnight stop in Cartagena de Indias gave the OWE team (Peter Howlett and Jeff Clarke) the chance to take an early morning trip into the dry forest of Matute. Our guides from Matute Birding, Adriana and Israel, would give us a first-class tour of this dry forest area. Biodiversity is rich in this part of South America and even people with previous experience of any given area will always find much that is new to them.
We spent the first couple of hours walking rough roads with a mix of open wooded habitat and pastures on either side, part of our route abutted the local botanic garden, a superb birding site. We had barely started when we came upon our first Three-toed Sloth of the day; we would find several more.
Crested Oropendolas were attending their nests and were thankfully a little easier to photograph than they had been in Panama. Just like in Panama we also had the sonic backdrop of roaring howler monkeys, but this was a different species, namely Red Howler. There were clearly several troops in the vicinity. They are very smart looking animals with their rich chestnut fur shining in the morning light.
Passing through the northern region of South America and then Central America we had regular encounters with migratory birds from North America, the one we saw most consistently was Summer Tanager, and today would be no different, clearly the region is an important wintering ground for this bird; the colour of the males plumage apes the colour of the local howlers.
We also encountered a couple of Great Crested Flycatcher, even these large flycatchers aren’t always easy to identify, so it was handy having guides on hand who know the local birds. We also added another species of woodcreeper to the trip list, this time Straight-billed, it’s large, ivory-coloured bill looking very impressive.
As we reached the highest elevation of the tracks, we rounded a bend and chanced upon a Russet-throated Puffbird. This was a sweet moment for Jeff as he’d visited this general location three times previously and missed this fabulous bird on each occasion. In the same place we also encountered a family group of Boat-billed Flycatchers, their fledglings still noisily demanding to be fed. A movement above the trees alerted us to a Crane Hawk flying over, annoyingly it mainly kept behind the branches, making a photo tricky.
Fruiting trees are a big draw in the tropical forests, and we found one that was pulling in birds from all directions, vireo’s, grosbeaks, kingbirds, flycatchers and tanagers all coming to take their share. Hooded Tanager and Grey Kingbird were the most numerous, but so many birds were in the tree they looked like Christmas baubles decorating the fruit laden branches. Of the vireo’s and warblers present we managed to get shots of Yellow-green Vireo and Bay-breasted Warbler, it’s a shame the Bay-breasted was so distant, they are fabulous birds.
We were soon diverted by the sound of manakins in a nearby dense tangle of scrub. We were then treated to something a bit special. A male Lance-tailed Manakin was training up his young apprentice, they were duetting and dancing next to each other on a branch, Jeff was so mesmerised he completely forgot to take any photographs of the performance. For this particular OWE team it would be one of the stand-out moments of their two-week trip. Luckily, despite the dense foliage, a few images were captured.
As we dragged ourselves away from the manakins a movement in the corner of the eye suggested the arrival of a raptor. We adjusted our position to clear the obscuring vegetation and there on top of a large tree perched another adult Grey-lined Hawk. We barely had time to lift the cameras and fire off a couple of images before it promptly departed. In the fields alongside the track a family party of Smooth-billed Ani moved through the low vegetation.
Birding an unfamiliar region always brings ID challenges and in this part of world the flycatchers can leave you rather puzzled, but modern digital cameras give you a chance for a little post-sighting review. We were able to confirm a few to our own satisfaction, including Ochre-lored and Yellow-olive Flatbill. It’s useful when its name does exactly what it says on the tin.
Thankfully most of the wrens in this part of the world are generally a little more distinctive, none more so than two species we had repeated views of during the day, in the guise of Bicoloured Wren and Stripe-backed Wren. European birders only have one miniscule wren to concern them, Eurasian Wren, but in this part of Colombia there are at least twelve to consider. Most are giants in comparison to Europe’s tiny troglodyte.
Up until this point most of our toucan sightings had been rather brief or distant. However, our next encounter with a Keel-billed Toucan was prolonged, as it plucked ripe fruits, tossing them into the air with a head jerk and throwing them down its gullet like somebody flicking up peanuts to catch. Toucans are probably responsible for a whole generation of Brits falling in love with Guinness, such is its famous association with that alcoholic beverage.
If there is one group of birds that is most closely associated with South America it is probably the parrot family, many are small, largely green and fly like the wind, so determining their identity can be a real head-scratcher. We saw many whizzing about in the Matute Forest area, our guide Israel was able to confidently identify most of them by their calls, but we needed eyes-on, or at least a decent image to be sure of what were looking at. Orange-chinned Parakeet was thankfully one that was kind enough to show us its identifying marks.
By mid-morning we reached the Matute Forest Nature Reserve, a privately owned reserve that up until 45 years ago had been a cattle ranch. However, when the current owner inherited it, he saw the possibilities of the land and consequently it is now a wildlife haven. We took a trail away from the rough track which led to a couple of small cattle ponds, the muddy fringes held a couple of Solitary Sandpiper pretending to be an avian oxymoron. A Rusty-margined Flycatcher was nearby but the light didn’t make for a great photo. We flushed a Green Kingfisher, which sadly disappeared long before we could even think about raising a camera.
As part of the the Matute Birding tour we were served breakfast at the house on the reserve, a lovely old farmhouse surrounded by flower-rich gardens. We were welcomed to the house by the sight of a Caribbean Hornero on the roof, the only one to be seen all day. It was wonderfully absorbing and relaxing eating delicious food and being entertained by Black-chested Jays, Red-crowned Woodpecker, and Cotton-top Tamarin monkeys.
Many butterflies danced across the sunny glade, but few stopped. Something quite large fluttered and disappeared against a tree trunk opposite our dining area. A quick check with binoculars suggested it might be a large moth, but on closer inspection it proved to be a cryptic butterfly known as the Brown Cracker Hamadryas iphthime.
Soon it was time to set off again back into the forest. We hadn’t gone far when we came across another troop of Red Howler monkeys. Most of them were digesting their morning meal and taking it easy in the shelter of the canopy. In the same area a party of Greater Ani were feeding alongside the track and moved into the forest as we approached, one lingered long enough for a photo.
As we had anticipated, the increasing heat was making things harder to find, but with persistence we found a fair few gems. After a succession of glimpses, a Red-throated Ant-Tanager finally settled in view long enough to get a photograph. A Rufous-browed Peppershrike also proved particularly difficult to pin down and the photo certainly won’t win any competitions.
The top prize of the afternoon was probably the White-bellied Antbird, it was in an area of thick scrubby woodland, after a lot of effort we finally secured a few decent, if fleeting, views, and Pete somehow found a gap to get an image of this noisy, but frustratingly elusive, bird.
A short distance later we came across a mixed bird flock with more Hooded Tanager, Yellow-green Vireo and perhaps best of all another North American migrant, Chestnut-sided Warbler. A male, although this bird wasn’t yet in full breeding plumage, still a delight to see for a UK birder as they have been known to occur in the UK.
We returned for lunch, another delicious meal, though truth be told we were still full after the substantial breakfast. Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds were still flitting around the flowers and two male Yellow-headed Gecko looked rather colourful on a tree trunk, despite only being a few centimetres long. We said goodbye and thanks to our hosts from Matute Birding and headed back into the forest, for one last, short walk.
Shortly after leaving the house, we had one of those blink-and-you’d-miss-it moments. Something whipped up onto an angled tree trunk, we turned to see a Collared Forest-Falcon scanning the surrounding woodland in search of prey. It was there for barely a minute before disappearing as quickly as it arrived.
We eventually came back to the ponds we had visited earlier; the Solitary Sandpipers were still there but now they had been joined by a Bare-faced Ibis. In ibis-terms it’s not really a ‘looker’, and the harsh light wasn’t doing it any favours in a photographic context. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and it would be the best and closest views we would get of this species while we were in the region.
We had seen adult Brown Basilisk lizards around the edge of the ponds earlier, but none of them close enough to warrant a photo. This time a small juvenile stayed still long enough for a lovely portrait shot.
We just had time for one moment of divine comedy and thankfully not tragi-comedy. A large iguana clattered down from the high canopy and landed with a mighty thud just a few metres from where we all stood on the trail. It’s not unknown for people to be killed by falling Iguanas. It was a close shave.
Our young guides were both biology students at the local university. We enjoyed their company and their guiding. In a telling moment Israel asked us if we wanted him to use playback to pull the birds in. We said no, as we wanted to minimise our impact and not disturb the breeding birds. He put his hands together and thanked us, he clearly feels pressurised to use playback by some clients, but he really wanted to put the interests of the bird first. It was a good moment; our feelings were aligned. What’s more, we saw a bucket-load of birds, so we really didn’t need it. It was a great day!
It was a true pleasure to share the dry forest of Matute with you and accompany you during such an enriching day surrounded by the biodiversity of the Colombian Caribbean. Beyond the incredible diversity of birds, mammals, and other wildlife that we had the opportunity to observe, I deeply value the respect, patience, and ethics with which you approached every observation in the field. Experiences like this show that birding tourism can become a powerful tool for conservation when it is carried out with genuine admiration and care for nature. As a guide and biology student, moments like these motivate me even more to continue working for the protection of tropical dry forests and for the promotion of responsible birding tourism…