The Colombian Andes.

Andean Cock-of-the-Rock peering out from the forest at the lek near Jardin 29 November 2012.

Yellow-eared Parrots leaving their roost near Jardin 30 November 2012.

Leaving the Choco the next destination was the town of Jardin in the Andes of south-west Antioquia. A population of the rare Yellow-eared Parrot was discovered here at the turn of the century and Trevor Ellery of Ecoturs tells me that that are around a thousand birds are present in the area, many using specially supplied nest boxes.  

We were on site at dawn to watch the parrots leaving their roost in the cloud forests above Jardin, a superb experience rivalling the magic moments of the Lear's Macaw roost site in North-east Brazil a couple of years ago.

The parrots were the obvious highlights as they flew across the canopy to their feeding grounds as the sun came up, but there were many other interesting species to see as we birded the cloud forests from the temperate zone down to the upper subtropics. 

Golden-fronted Whitestart.

Slaty-backed Chat-Tyrant.

 Jardin also boasts an Andean Cock-of-the-Rock lek in the forests at the edge of town. We made a visit one evening, watching the bizarre behaviour of the male birds, bowing and wing-flapping as they squealed from the cover of the tall trees in the ravine.

The race sanguinolenta lives in the wet forests of the western Andes of Colombia and Ecuador and has an almost crimson tone to the plumage; the orangey eastern Andean populations becoming more saturated with red ranging south from Venezuela to northern Bolivia.