The area of Chicoral is located in the southernmost part of the township of Bitaco and within the municipality of
La Cumbre in the
Valle del Cauca Department of
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
. It is home to the Hindú Tea Plantation, a major part of the Bitaco River Forest Reserve, and many small estates and farms. This region is only accessible by unpaved roads by way of La Cumbre from the north, the Cali-Buenaventura Road from the west and
Dapa from the east through a forested pass at .
The Bitaco River Forest Reserve was created in 1985 to protect a sizable portion of
cloud forest
A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...
and the headwaters of the Bitaco River, which flows northwest and drains into the
Dagua River. The reserve is located on the west slope of the
West Andes.
This is an area of high biodiversity with a high number of bird species including the endemic and highly sought after
multicolored tanager. Other important avian species include
sickle-winged guan
The sickle-winged guan (''Chamaepetes goudotii'') is a species of bird in the chachalaca, guan, and curassow family Cracidae. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. J ...
,
scaled fruiteater,
golden-winged manakin and
purplish-mantled tanager. In 2008 there was a sighting of
cloud-forest pygmy owl
The cloud-forest pygmy owl or cloudforest pygmy owl (''Glaucidium nubicola'') is a short, muscular, small-sized species of owl found throughout the Andes of western Colombia and north-western Ecuador, being confined to cloud forests between 900†...
, a rare and vulnerable species of the northern
Andes
The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...
.
References
{{Reflist
Populated places in the Valle del Cauca Department