Venezuela trip Dec 2004

Venezuela with Mark, Dec. 2004 - Part 2

Su Dec 19

Roger and his driver Ramon picked us up in a nice roomy van at 7:00 am for our Llanos trip. There were only 4 others on the trip, so it was very comfortable traveling – 2 young Dutch women from Aruba, and a couple from New York – Rea, who was Japanese, and Andrew (?) from Australia.

We drove up, up, up out of Merida’s valley, stopping at a café at Los Aleros for a nice breakfast.

The apparently well-known view of the high Andes from the café’s restroom window.

Birds at Los Aleros:

Blue-and-white Swallow:

Tropical Kingbird:

We continued on up towards condor country, passing these terraced fields, which Roger told us date from ancient, pre-Columbian times. (The terrace lines are on the steep part of the hills, too.)
Near Santo Domingo (?) we passed this rather out-of-place hotel built by an Italian (presumably homesick).

Our next destination was here in condor country, almost to the top of the mountains.

We stretched our legs at Mifafi Biological Station, where there is a captive-breeding program to reintroduce condors into Venezuela. There are 2 birds in a cage; three have been released and can sometimes be seen flying free – but not by us, not today.

[Like most vultures, the Condors are rather more elegant at a distance than up close and personal]

A nice little museum has a video about the reintroduction program, and will let you try flapping with a condor flight feather – it’s hard work!

We drove on up to the top of the world – or at any rate the top of the road:

And stopped at an overlook to a reservoir on the east side of the Andes.

After driving a few more hours on down the east side of the mountains, headed for a Cock-of-the-Rock lek in a ravine in the San Isidro valley. This is apparently the only known lek for them in Venezuela. (Hilty reports another in Tachira on the Columbian border).

The trail starts at a quarry.

And heads along this road for a while

We took an hour or so strolling along with Roger on a nature walk to give the birds time to gather at the lek.

Below is a view from the trail, in the cloud forest zone – note deforestation in distance – the area is federal and cannot be purchased, but protection is not enforced and if people clear land they gain some kind of squatters’ rights and are allowed to farm it.

Roger shows off a spider:

This leaf actually a butterfly (feeding inelegantly on manure) - you can see a leg or two sticking out if you look close.

Some of the flowers and a particularly cooperative butterfly on the way to the lek.

We began to hear the Cock-of-the-Rock males squawking at each other as they moved to the lek, so we joined them, working our way down a very steep ravine by hanging onto vines and things. We sat and watched them flit around and bob, bow and squawk for about 15 minutes until everyone had had a good look, but left while we still had enough light to find our way back up the trail.

Back at the van we drove a few more hours and arrived at Arassari’s lowland camp about 10 pm. The camp is very nice, with big cabins filled with bunk beds, great gardens, river access, and both showers and toilets in the rooms.

Camilo’s group was there as well; they were doing the route in the opposite direction.

Mo Dec. 20 Arassari Camp:
Kitchen / Dining area:	River Equipment:

And the sleeping cabins:

I got up early and wandered about the camp looking at the abundant little songbirds and occasional parrots flying by. After breakfast, while the others went tubing in the clearwater river, Roger and I walked up the road a ways, birding along. We saw lots of great birds, but only a few were willing to pose.

	There's the tail-end of a Plain Thornbird on that nest - a modest little bird which builds a huge house with multiple rooms, and takes in lodgers of other species. Seems to work out for everybody - there were lots of thornbird nests all over.
Rufous-vented Chachalaca. This one was apparently tame, and was hanging around a farmyard.	Rusty-margined Flycatcher (showing pretty much the same handsome plumage one would see on about 6 other species of flycatchers):
And an unidentified but cooperative butterfly:

Here’s the morning's haul of bird sightings:
Great Egret Cattle Egret Yellow-headed Caracara Plumbeous Kite Turkey Vulture Black Vulture Rufous-vented Chachalaca Southern Lapwing Scaled Dove Chestnut-fronted Macaw Yellow-crowned Parrot Green-rumped Parrotlet	White-throated Toucan Red-crowned Woodpecker Yellow-tufted Woodpecker Rusty-margined Flycatcher Tropical Kingbird Social Flycatcher Great Kiskadee Streaked Flycatcher Brown-crested Flycatcher Stripe-backed Wren Cocoa Thrush Burnished-buff Tanager	Swallow Tanager Blue-gray Tanager Palm Tanager Silver-beaked Tanager Gray Seedeater Saffron Finch Yellow Oriole Yellow-rumped Cacique Crested Oropendola Plain Thornbird.

After the tubers returned, tended their "rock bites" and we all had lunch, we climbed back in the van and headed out to the Llanos proper.

After topping off the fruit supply, we drove through the plains for hours..

We came to our first pool of egrets and scarlet ibis late in the afternoon

The Llanos floods in the wet season, and fish spread out all over from the rivers. Then, in the dry season – which was just starting – bazillions of doomed fish are stranded and concentrated in these pools all over the plains. Birds concentrate to slurp up the bounty – which makes it such a mecca for birders.

It was dusk before we reached the last stretch of road to the village of San Vicente, on the Baguey tributary of the Apura River, where we would be staying.

The capybaras (dog-sized aquatic rodents) were beginning to come out and forage on the river banks.

When we reached Arassari’s hotel, we quickly put our stuff upstairs in the sleeping area, and took off on our first of several boat rides on the Apure

. The boatman, Carlos, and Roger were eager to find us some reptiles. However, the best sighting of the evening was an ocelot – it was perched quite comfortably on the river bank when it was caught in the spotlight, and we got a good look at its cat face and ringed tail as it decided that the neighborhood was getting too crowded.

The guys chased red eye-shine around, and caught a nice little caiman for everyone to look at and handle, but they were really after an anaconda. They found one trying to get up a bank, and grabbed it, along with a brown boa, and took them to a sandbank (full of hungry mosquitos) for a photo opportunity.

Back to Part 1 Continue to Part 3