Monday, July 15, 2013

Two tropical birds: one expected, one not


Last Saturday, Roselvy and I set out to find Long-tailed Manakin and Blue-tailed Hummingbird in Choluteca, two species that we hadn't observed yet this year in Honduras. While we easily found those species in a community called La Fortuna, situated in humid middle elevation forest among coffee and mango plantations more or less in the middle of the department of Choluteca, I did not get any (reasonable) photos.

I did get photos of Tropical Pewee (top) and Tropical Gnatcatcher. While the former was expected and indeed quite common there, the latter wasn't really on our radar screen for that part of the country. 


When we heard a descending trill, we didn't immediately recognize it. Locating the singer was not difficult, and upon seeing a gnatcatcher producing that song, I instantly realized it had to be Tropical Gnatcatcher. It occurs in eastern and northern Honduras, and is no doubt common in many areas, but these are exactly the areas far from where we live, where we haven't done that much birding yet.


For us, this was a cool and unexpected find, well outside its known range.

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