) I thought I would try and do my bit by posting a report on the trip I've just made. First the basics / a bit of background. I went for more or less a month, and visited 6 of the Pro-Aves reserves, most of which I got to by public transport, only one I used a jeep for, as it cut the travelling time from probably about 10-12 hours down to 3 or 4.
I have been to Colombia several times in the last 13 years, it is pretty much my favourite country as the landscape is breathtaking, the people in general very helpful, polite and friendly, the food is pretty good (not just rice and beans!), and of course the birding is great. It also helps that my wife of the last 9 years is Colombian, so I have a good reason to keep going back. My spanish is fairly fluent on a conversational level, and it certainly helps to have a little basic spanish to get around by bus, as hardly anyone speaks English outside of the cities.
Most of my last few trips to the country have been mainly photographic ones, usually with groups, but this one was a pure birding one, on my own, whilst the wife and children were visiting her family in the far south of the country. I don't know if I will ever be able to wangle a month's birding pass again, but at least I enjoyed this one well enough!
Some comments are in order about the security situation. It is definitely a lot better now than it has been for a long time, and Pro-Aves will certainly advise you if they feel somewhere isn't safe to visit. They wouldnt want their clients being held to ransom by the guerillas, and there are places where it still isn't advisable to go, for example parts of the east and southwest of the country, but the six places I visited are currently classed as being safe to visit, and I never experienced any problems, nor have I ever (touch wood).
So the basic itinerary was:
Cerulean Warbler Reserve (RNA Reinita Cielo Azul)
Helmeted Curassow Reserve (RNA Pauxi Pauxi)
Blue-billed Curassow Reserve (RNA El Paujil)
Chestnut-capped Piha Reserve (RNA Arrierito Antioquia)
Dusky Starfrontlet Reserve (RNA Colibri del Sol)
Tanagers Reserve (RNA Las Tangaras)
I stayed at all of the reserves for between 3 and 5 nights, and I think this was about right, though I could have used another full day at the Piha Reserve as I only had 2 full days there.
There is a fair bit of useful information about all the reserves on the net, and I spent a good while over the couple or three months before the trip trawling other people's trip reports and patching as much information together as I could. Info was a little scarce on Pauxi Pauxi and the Tangaras reserves, but in general there is a fair bit of useful information out there. Also the "forest guards" are generally quite helpful and reasonably knowledgeable about the main birds, and a couple of them were pretty good on lots of the more regular stuff as well. The only thing is they don't speak English, and many of the birds are known only by the taxonomic name. Not a problem though if you've got the new field guide published by Pro-Aves...they all have a copy as well so will recognise what you want to see if you point at it. Talking of the new field guide, I think it is an excellent little book. Sure it tends to be a bit on the sparse side information wise, preferring to let the illustrations do much of the talking, but to have a good-to-reasonable picture in most cases, coupled with elevation info and a range map all on the same page was a godsend.
Robert Giles of Ecoturs (which is the part of Pro-Aves which organises tours / visits to the reserves) helped me with the itinerary, and was extremely helpful in general with travelling tips and also with some tips on birds. Trevor Ellory was also very helpful with travel tips.
We flew with Iberia from Heathrow via Madrid, having been lucky enough to find sub £500 flights for the first time in years. We stayed in the Hotel del Parque (170,000 pesos for four of us inc a basic breakfast) in Bogota the first night, then I saw the family off to Leticia the next day, and flew up to Bucaramanga with Avianca (roughly £50) for the first stage of the trip, the Cerulean Warbler Reserve.