Tarantulas etc

 There are so many colourful and interesting animals in Colombia but many of them are small. Here are a few, mostly from a patch of mountain forest just east of Bucaramanga on the road to the quiet town of Tona. If anyone can help with identifications of these, I'd be very pleased.

 This taranatula was about 12-15 cm across and was walking calmly across the road. It's only the second one I've seen, the first being much larger!

These velvet ants (Mutillidae) are very common in some places. They look like very large colourful ants but are wingless wasps. Apparently some species at least have very painful stings. I know they have very tough bodies.

Very large millipedes are also common. This was perhaps 15 cm long.

I have no doubt Colombia has a huge variety of dragonflies. This one posed long enough to get some reasonable shots.

Some of the grasshoppers here have fantastic patterns. These ones seem abundant in this area.

This very large bumble bee caught my eye.

Corinna Daggerwing (Marpesia corinna)

Butterflies are much more common and varied than I'm used to in Britain. With few guides to help, it's hard to know what species are present.

This fat beetle? grub, about 12cm long was crawling across a path in the upper parts of Chicamocha canyon. I'm sure it'll grow into something impressive!

Monkeys at last

Our trip to Tayrona and Minca near Santa Marta in the north of Colombia was excellent for seeing spectacular wildlife. Best of all for me was finally getting to see monkeys in the wild. There are some species (I don't know what) on the in-laws farm, but I've not seen them there yet. We saw Red Howler Monkeys, the loudest land animal on Earth, in Tayrona National Park, near to the main trail. They were fairly calm and obliging and I had enough time to get the tripod sorted and get some digiscoped shots. I also took a short video of one individual which you can see on this link. Red Howler on Youtube. We also saw Red Howlers in the Proaves El Dorado bird reserve.

In Tayrona we got great views of the critically endangered Cotton-top Tamarin monkey (called Mono Tití in Colombia), a species endemic to Colombia. They were very curious and came quite close but sadly without the 'scope, the pictures were useless.

Near the hammocks where we stayed the night in the park were a family of Collared Aracari. My first ever toucan. I also saw my first Jacamar, the Rufous-tailed Jacamar, and my first Manakin, a hard to identify Lance-tailed Manakin (hard because it was a juvenile bird).

There were several herons on the beach, including this Little Blue Heron. I also had a few other new species in the woods near the beaches such as the spectacular Crimson-crested Woodpecker and the less spectacular Plain-brown Woodcreeper!

There were many colorful, but very quick lizards near the beach, some very large toads, and some giant grasshoppers as well as this huge millipede on the trail.

Minca was great for hummingbirds, some of which like this White-vented Plumeleteer were new to me. I was also well pleased with good views of the fantastic Keel-billed Toucans, Crested Oropendola and Black-chested Jays which were all new to me. The only problem was the horrible biting sandflies, which drew plenty of blood on our legs as we'd forgotten to put on repellent.

Also a great new bird to see was the Whooping Motmot, on the fruit feeders at Hotel Minca, where they also have many hummers on their feeders (when they've filled them!). Sadly I didn't get better shots of these birds.  

El Dorado reserve was fantastic. It was empty of people because we were "out of season" but it is packed with endemic species all year round. There is no doubt it is one of the best sites in Colombia if not the world for endemic birding - 19 species that only occur in this area. Sadly, the weather didn't help the birding or taking pictures but I did see amongst other birds the endemic Santa Marta Brush-finch (easy to see there), Colombian Brush-finch (on the compost heap), White-tailed Starfrontlet & Santa Marta Woodstar hummers and White-lored Warblers as well as other colorful "megas" like Emerald Toucanet, Masked Trogon and Strong-billed Woodcreeper. I felt very happy despite just a few hours on the reserve in poor weather. No doubt you could add dozens more great birds with a longer visit. The road is terrible though, it takes nearly 2 bone-shaking hours to get there from Minca. Probably best to stay at the lodge which looked excellent, and the food was great. 

Overall it was a fantastic trip with the monkeys and over 50 new species of birds for me. The only really problem was lack of time! 

More creepy crawlies

Here's the gecko. He's very quick and he eats mosquitoes, so I'm happy he's around.

This moth flew into the apartment. It looked more like a bat because of its size.

This cricket was in the reception of the hotel in San Gil we stayed in one night. His body looks like a leaf which would normally be good camouflage, but not here!

A stick insect Horse head Grasshopper (Pseudoproscopia latirostris) at the viewpoint of the Chicamocha Canyon National Park. I wish I'd had a decent close-up of the strange head. It's easy to miss interesting creatures here as they can often, at first glance, appear like something else.

Finally a colourful butterfly on a door of a colonial-style house in historic Barichara.

Colombian creepy crawlies

Moving to a tropical country brings a few surprises. Our first night in our apartment, there was a gecko above the bed. I've seen a few lizards, the best one being a green basilisk or Jesus Christ lizard about 2 feet long doing what he's famous for and walking, or rather running, across water.

On the wall outside our door was a terrific preying mantis.

Of course there are plenty of cicadas ("chicharras" in Spanish) adding to the atmosphere in the evening, but some are a little too loud!

There are some unwelcome visitors which I've not had to deal with before. Dry-wood termites have set-up a home in the bathroom door frame. They've hatched a few queens so we need to spray the other wood to prevent them spreading. We're changing the door frame of course. This is just one of the white workers.

There are an enormous number of other insect types - ants, colorful butterflies both large and small, moths including some giants with at least 25cm wingspan, plenty of large beetles, some strange bees, some small variety of which took a liking to Elena's hair in the La Flora Park which had her not a little worried!

There are not too many flies here, but sadly a few mosquitoes ("zancudos" in Spanish, not to be confused with "mosquitos" which are midges, I think). I was getting bitten at night and two of the bites reacted by swelling up. Now I'm keeping windows closed and using a mild repellent every night and that is working.

Every evening large numbers of insect-eating bats set out to feed in the surrounding trees to help clear the mosquitoes! I don't know what species they are, but I brought my bat-detector, so if I can record a sono-gram, I might have a chance to identify them. They also come to drink in the swimming-pool in the evening, and I managed a blurry shot. Being swooped-on by bats makes swimming at that time a little more interesting! I did see a huge fruit-bat too briefly. Vampire bats do live around Bucaramanga and since they spread Rabies, it pays to be a little careful.

I haven't seen any other mammals yet, except for red-tailed squirrels. Best to end with something fluffy ;-)