Since 2015, the Colombia Birdfair has taken place each year over the second weekend of February. Or, as I like to think about it, between the Superbowl and Valentine’s Day. If the Minnesota Vikings ever play in the Superbowl again, this could be a problem for me, but until that happens, I plan on attending the Colombia Birdfair every year until I kick the bucket.

This year, at the last possible second renowned Mexican wildlife photographer and the ABA’s Latin America Correspondent Jesús Antonio Moo Yam was able to join me at the 10th annual version of the Colombia Birdfair. Jesús goes by “Chucho,” just as someone named Francisco might be called Pancho or Pacho or Pachito. Chucho and I met for the first time in Campeche, Mexico, the previous fall. After visiting several watering holes along Campeche’s festive 59th street, we managed to rise early and get in a full day of birding in the Ria Celestun Biosphere Reserve, where Chucho showed me my lifer Yucatan Wren and Yucatan Gnatcatcher. While searching in someone’s garden for the Mexican Sheartail, which eluded us that day (perhaps I should have hired David Bacab, who I met earlier that day), Chucho told me that he was hoping to get to back to Colombia to attend the Colombia Birdfair.

The Colombia Birdfair is held in the verdant, tropical city of Cali, located in the department of Valle de Cauca. Home to no fewer than 1,000 species of birds, Valle de Cauca provides attendees with a dizzying array of potential field trip options that include sites on the eastern slope of the central Andes, both slopes of the western Andes, and throughout the Cauca River valley. Anyone planning to do a pre-trip or post-trip is within striking distance of established birding destinations like Manizales and the greater coffee region, or to emerging destinations like Cauca, which boasts over 1,400 bird species.

At the birdfair, several dozen venders were set up outside the marquee, selling everything from coffee and optics to artwork, birding tours and shoulder harnesses. I spotted the Colombia Birdfair’s director, Carlos Mario Wagner, dressed for the occasion in his oversized, long-sleeved, white guayabera with an embroidered Grallaria on it. He’s sitting in the zoo cafe, focused intently, writing on loose leaf paper.

For birders, the opening ceremony of the Colombia Birdfair feels like the Oscars. Over the years, featured speakers—sometimes invited to serve as the birdfair’s honorary president—have included prolific authors and other birding world glitterati like Kenn Kaufman, Jennifer Ackerman, and David Lindo, while prominent Colombian scientists and ornithologists like the late Gustavo Kattan, Maria Angela Echeverry, Luis German Naranjo, and Lorena Cruz-Bernate have also been mainstays of the event. Every year or so, someone gives a talk that is so spellbinding that it leaves everyone stupefied and in awe. Wade Davis’s 2017 talk about his travels in the Colombian Amazon with mentor and fellow ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes was one such occasion.

The speaker who stole the show this year was Spanish photographer Mario Suarez. “Like most,” he began, “I used to take the type of photos of birds you’d like to see in a documentary about birds. Up close. Lots of details. There’s nothing wrong with this. But at a certain point, I got bored.” He then went on to deliver a masterclass on taking artistic bird photos. His talk included instructions for how to build a tripod out of a frying pan. And he encouraged aspiring photographers to challenge conventional wisdom about lighting, focus, and the branches that inevitably appear across the face of their subject matter.   

One moment I’ll never forget occurred just before the second Colombia Birdfair got underway, when I had breakfast with Steve Hilty. Steve is without a doubt one of my biggest heroes. For birders who remember life before the internet and social media, Hilty’s 1986 field guide for the birds of Colombia is referred to as the bible. Over pan de bono, huevos pericos, and jugo de lulo, I told Steve that I hoped he was ready to not only sign a lot of copies of his book, but to pose for lots of selfies too. Too modest to believe me initially, he later confirmed that he had indeed been mobbed several times and would end up signing dozens of books and taking hundreds of selfies.

During the birdfair, nocturnal revelers returned to their hotels after a night out on the town, surprised to find a legion of chipper, khaki-clad birders drinking coffee and preparing to depart on early morning birding excursions.

Cali is situated close to some of South America’s most iconic birding sites, including Kilometer 18 and the Anchicaya Road, which border the Farallones de Cali National Park in the western Andes, an area that only a few years ago was completely off limits to birders due to security concerns. As recently as 2007, 11 members of Valle de Cauca’s legislature were kidnapped and killed by the FARC, Colombia’s largest armed group, in that location.

In 2016, the government of Colombian President and Nobel laureate Juan Manuel Santos signed a peace agreement with the FARC. During the years leading up to the signing of the peace agreement, and the years immediately after, Colombia’s birding boom got underway as violence decreased and the country’s reputation increased, especially among those anxious to see species like the Multicolored Tanager, Blue-billed Curassow, Cundinamarca Antpitta, and dozens of other Colombian endemics and specialties.

As the Colombia Birdfair got off the ground in 2015, other important things started to happen too. Years after the American Bird Conservancy, ProAves, and dozens of local bird conservation and research NGOs like Calidris (based in Cali) began working, the National Audubon Society saw an opportunity as well. With funding from USAID, Audubon, in partnership with several organizations and local communities, would lead the development of the Northern Colombia Birding Trail. The trail visits the Guajira peninsula (full of regional endemics like the handsome Vermillion Cardinal), the Perija Mountains (the northernmost extension of the tropical Andes), and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (the tallest coastal mountain in the world). Perhaps the best part about the project is the network of local guides and birding business owners like the now famous Wayuu birder Jose Luis Pushaina. The trail was inspired by Audubon’s Great Washington State Birding Trail and is the subject of the 2019 documentary film The Birders: A Melodic Journey Through Northern Colombia, reviewed in Birding magazine: https://blog.aba.org/2019/11/birding-as-birders-see-it.html.

Just as the Northern Colombia Birding Trail became a thing, a landmark economic study by the Conservation Strategy Fund called “Peace is about much more than doves” was published and later cited by the Economist in a 2017 article titled “Colombia’s future involves fewer terrorists and more ecotourists.” Colombia’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism alongside Procolombia would essentially convert the study’s findings and recommendation into public policy.

Birding in Colombia, weathering the pandemic, is once again booming. With a network of birding trails, a multiyear run as the Global Big Day’s undisputed top finisher in species registered, and now the third-ranked country for lists submitted, birding in Colombia is now both an international phenomenon and the emerging national pastime.

On the final Sunday of the 10th Colombia Birdfair, Chucho and I headed out with two other companions, Maurico and Lorena, to bird the Anchicaya Road, where we stopped for several hours (and several empanadas and cups of coffee) at Doña Dora’s, located at kilometer 55 on the road between Cali and Buenaventura. Lorena, my better half, is from Medellín, and Mauricio picks us up at 5:15am in his two-door Mitzubishi truck.

Cali’s recently named Secretary of Tourism, Mabel Lara, was supposed to join us but ended up bailing. This is something we all suspected was likely to happen given the recent history of events. Despite all of the Colombia Birdfair’s success, political will remains its biggest challenge. The regional development corporation (CVC) excluded, the City of Cali and the Department of Valle de Cauca have provided little more than lip service over the years.

Mauricio is part of the Colombia Birdfair’s organizing committee and the owner of an audiovisual production company called Manglar TV that makes documentaries and videos about birding and natural history in Colombia. On the way to Doña Dora’s, we swing by the San Felipe Birding Nature Reserve to pick up Chucho, who is staying at the reserve along with Peruvian photographer Steve Sanchez. San Felipe is a place with around 170 species in the reserve, some of them endemic and migratory. Attended by its owners Clara and Carlos, who receive each of their visitors with great affection, something that makes every moment in this reserve very intimate, because they are always so attentive. The reserve has reforestation projects and is a must stop if you want to go to Cali for birding. Among its most sought-after birds are the Little Tinamu, Multicolored Tanager, Chestnut Wood-Quail, White-booted Racket-tail, and more.

The Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, one of the most celebrated South American birds.

Doña Dora Londoño herself was not around because she was already in Cali, getting ready to speak on a panel about women in birding during the birdfair’s final evening. Upon arriving, we shot the breeze with her children and other family members, who told us they have attended hundreds of birders from Colombia and around the world over the last several days. Sensing that the place was packed, we drank tintos and ate empanadas de queso before walking through the threshold between the highway facing store (with empanadas in the window) and the observation deck, with its feeders and splendid view of the Farallones de Cali National Park.

The experience was a little other-worldly and overwhelming, because once you walk through that door, there is almost a 100 percent chance that you are going to have a close encounter with a Toucan Barbet, or two, or several, because multiple pairs now nest in tree cavities within feet of the observation deck.

When the four of us arrived, the observation deck was packed elbow to elbow with photographers aiming their impressive rigs at the feeders and perches, full of tanagers and hummers. I’m not always a huge fan of this type of birding, but it was undeniably delightful. Within minutes we saw Rufous-throated, Glistening Green, Golden, and Silver-throated tanagers appear and disappear. Everyone appeared to be in a trance.

On the third-floor deck, we encountered wildlife biologist and raptor expert Ana Maria Morales, who was guiding a group of women birders attending the Colombia Birdfair. Ana Maria humored me with a proper interview to discuss her research with raptors in the United States and Colombia, her perception of how things have changed in her native Colombia following the signing of the 2016 peace agreement and her message to anyone interested in visiting. My favorite part was learning that Ana Maria had recently returned from a winter field season spent on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, where she captured and placed satellite transmitters on Golden Eagles wintering along the bluffs of the Mississippi River.

After the interview, Lorena and I went to go check on Chucho. As we climbed back up to the third floor, a pair of Toucan Barbets came in close, followed almost immediately by pair of Spot-crowned Barbets. Whipped into a frenzy, the photographers shot away.

Before lunch time, things started mellowing out below, and Lorena and I found some room in the front row of the observation deck and enjoyed another cup of coffee. For the next 45 minutes, we entered the Doña Dora trance ourselves. Soon, a Black Solitaire showed up.

Meanwhile, next to us, Chucho met up with photographer Mario Suarez. They were full of excitement and child-like joy while attempting to shoot Green Thorntails and other hummingbirds from point blank range.

A few hundred meters down the road from Doña Dora’s is a lovely waterfall, which unfortunately is situated in a conflict zone disputed between armed groups. I visited it a couple of years ago, on a weekend, when there were plenty of families around and everything seemed copacetic. The truth, however, is that beyond certain invisible lines, lines that you will most certainly not cross on your next birding trip, everything is not exactly hunky-dory in the country of birds. This has to do with a number of factors, beginning with Colombia’s complicated history of protracted armed conflicts, deep social inequality, the lackluster implementation of the peace agreement, and, perhaps most glaringly, the failure of an international drug policy based on prohibition. For all the Colombia Birdfair’s success over the past ten year, many challenges remain.

On our way back to San Felipe, Chucho spotted something, so Mauricio stopped the truck with Chucho bounding out in hot pursuit. Returning moments later, he showed Mauricio the image on his camara’s monitor.

“Backlit, out of focus, poorly centered, verrrrry artistic Chucho. Good job. You were really paying attention,” Mauricio jokes. We all laughed.

  Back at the zoo, I caught up with the Colombia Birdfair director Carlos Mario Wagner one last time before the closing ceremonies. It’s hard to believe that ten years have gone by since first meeting each other at the first Colombia Birdfair. Carlos Mario tells me more about the philosophy behind the birdfair.

“We invest a lot in education and outreach. Throughout the year, we sponsor free events for children, women, people with disabilities, and marginalized groups like the LGBTIQ+ community. This is why we need more support and more sponsors, especially from the public sector. My goal is to make the Colombia Birdfair a free and open to the public. This is how we’ll continue to transform lives.”

“How many lives do you think the Colombia Birdfair can transform?” I ask

“Between the Birdfair itself and the outreach events, we’ve now directly reached over 100,000 people in Cali, which is about three percent of the city’s total population. 4,000 people have participated in the academic program, we’ve engaged over 1,000 children and more than 2,700 people have gone on field trips.”

“What’s the birdfair’s legacy? Or what would like it to be?”

“Our legacy is what we do every day. The Colombia Birdfair is not just an event, it’s a year-round engagement. We have a great team, and we will continue to innovate. Last year we invited Mexico as our special, invited country. This year it was Spain. Next year we may not have one. Funds are tight. And as I said earlier, we want to get greater buy-in from the governor’s and mayor’s offices, which will help us make the Colombia Birdfair accessible to everyone. That’s how we really transform lives.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to say?”

“Yes. The 11th Colombia Birdfair will be held from February 13–16, 2025. Come down and see for yourselves.”

Acknowledgments
Total thanks to the mayor of Cali and Colombia Birdfair. Without your support this article would not have been possible.

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