7 Bull. B.O.C. 2003 123(1) Andrés M. Cuervo et al. New and noteworthy bird records from the northern sector of the Western Andes of Colombia by Andrés M. Cuervo, F. Gary Stiles, Carlos Daniel Cadena, Juan Lázaro Toro & Gustavo A. Londoño Received 24 September 2001 The Western Andes (Cordillera Occidental) is the lowest and geologically youngest of the three Andean ranges of Colombia. The rain and cloud forests of the extremely wet Pacific slope are relatively intact in most areas but the drier, rain-shadow vegetation of the eastern (Cauca Valley) slope has been subject to much greater human disturbance. Ornithological studies in the Western Andes, subsequent to initial collecting expeditions (see Chapman 1917), concentrated largely on the southern sector of this cordillera, in the departments of Nariño, Cauca and Valle (e.g., Hilty 1997, Miller 1963, Negret 1994, Orejuela 1987, Orejuela et al. 1979, Salaman 1994). In contrast, the northern sector, roughly that portion included within the departments of Risaralda, Chocó and Antioquia, received little study during most of the latter half of the twentieth century. The only reasonably detailed study published during this period is that of Echeverri (1986) for Parque Nacional Natural “Las Orquídeas”. During the last decade, however, the pace of ornithological work in the region has increased. Between 1991 and 1993, the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (ICN) conducted biological inventories in several municipalities of the department of Risaralda for the Corporación Autónoma de Recursos Naturales y Desarrollo de Risaralda (CARDER). The ornithological surveys were carried out by FGS with help from Sandra Arango and Inés Elvira Lozano. Two species of birds new to science were encountered (Salaman & Stiles 1996, Robbins & Stiles 1999) and several important records were obtained (Stiles 1998, Stiles & Alvarez-López 1995), as well as the range extensions reported here. Between 1999 and 2002, ornithological surveys of several localities in the most unexplored areas in the Andes of the department of Antioquia were conducted by AMC with the help of CDC, JLT, GAL and others (see acknowledgements), for the Corporación Autónoma Regional del Centro de Antioquia (CORANTIOQUIA). In addition to new information on the distribution and conservation status of several threatened species (Cuervo & Toro 2001, Toro & Flórez 2001), these surveys produced new data on the distribution of several species of the W Andes. In this paper, we have compiled all the records obtained during the above-mentioned surveys that represent substantial extensions of distribution ranges reported in recent general works (Echeverri 1986, Fjeldså & Krabbe 1990, Hilty & Brown 1986, Isler & Isler 1999, Negret 1994, Ridgely & Tudor 1989, 1994, Stotz et al. 1996) or suggested by museum specimens housed at the ICN and other major Colombian ornithological collections. We consider substantial range extensions those records that represent (1) the first