Cartagena, Columbia

4-26-08     Great Kiskadee gets the honor of the day, as he greeted us here in Columbia, and he or his relatives were with us for the next week on every shore stop.

On the sea days to Cartagena we had the company of a Peregrine Falcon for about half a day. He kept soaring around and around the ship, providing quite a distraction for me as I was engaged in a shuffleboard tournament on the 10the deck. An osprey and a couple migrating passerines made brief appearances. As we pulled into Cartagena harbor, Gray-breasted Martins greeted us, and rested on ropes on the ship. Our tour in Cartagena, titled ‘Beach and Boating’ sounded like it would deliver us to an island for water sports, or hiking and photography in our case, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to lack of participation. We registered for a walking tour of Old Town, during which we learned some of the history of this very old city, and enjoyed some of the ancient buildings, including the Inquisition Museum, where various torture methods were displayed. There were a few old trees in Old Town, and a few birds, but not many. Saint Peter Claver Cathedral was adorned by a Black Vulture, and a Tropical Kingbird posed on a nearby tile roof. Trees at the Inquisition Museum were birdy, with a Red-crowned Woodpecker, Clay-colored Robin and a bird at a nest of which I only saw and photographed the posterior half. If anyone is good at bird posteriors, let me know and I will e-mail you the image for identification. After the obligatory but thankfully brief shopping stop, we negotiated through the dense traffic back to the ship. After lunch we walked to the nearby gift shop at the cruise terminal gate. There was a surrounding small park and woods, as well as aviary with captive parrots and a toucan, which kept us occupied for an hour or two. Birds seen here were Great Kiskadee, Common Ground Dove, Clay-colored Robin, Golden-olive Woodpecker, a tanager, an empid, and several small birds in the dense woods which were never seen well.



 

              Tropical Kingbird                                                   Great Kiskadee

Cartagena Birds

Egret--Great
Flycatcher--Empid
Flycatcher--Social
Frigatebird--Magnificent
Grackle--Great-tailed
Ground-Dove--Common
Gull--Laughing
Kingbird--Tropical
Kiskadee--Great
Martin--Gray-breasted           Flying around the cruise ship as we docked.  Let me know if I have the ID wrong!
Pelican--Brown
Pigeon--Rock
Robin--Clay-colored          Palacio de Inquisicion, and gift shop near cruise ship terminal.
Tanager--very brief view at cruise ship terminal gardens
Tern--probable Royal
Vulture--Black
Woodpecker--Golden Olive     photo, at gift shop near terminal.
Woodpecker--Red-crowned      photo, in Palacio de Inquisicion         

 Next stop  Panama Canal    Back to Home