On the road

Leishmaniasis

2012-02-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

Sedge Wren, Cerro de Hula, Honduras

I usually write about birds or butterflies here in these pages, and occasionally about bats, but not very often about me. However, the previous entry, Frederick's story, has a little tail, and it concerns me. If it wasn't for him, I would never have gone to the Alonso Suazo Medical Center in Tegucigalpa, where last week one of the doctors noticed a skin lesion on my right hand, and asked me "what is that, and how long have you had that?"

When I answered her that I didn't know what it was, and that I've had it for almost two years, she said: "It looks like possible leishmaniasis. You should have that checked out. Why don't you go to the laboratory here on the third floor."

This I did, but it was Friday afternoon, and they had already closed. I was asked to come back Monday.

That Monday, a skin biopsy was carried out. The next day, I went back there and was informed that I had tested positive for leishmaniasis.

Leishmaniasis is a tropical disease spread by the bite of the female sandfly. There is visceral leishmaniasis and cutaneous leishmaniasis. The former is more dangerous; I have the latter. If left untreated, this disease is often fatal, for it is a parasite that attacks the immune system. Another disease comes along and the body fails to engage its immune system, and you die. World-wide, about 60,000 people, mostly infants, die from visceral leishmaniasis each year. Treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis, however, is often successful and the cure is complete.

The skin lesion on my hand is where the sandfly bit me. Hopefully, it will disappear over the next three weeks.

Treatment here in Honduras consists of a series of 40 injections over a period of 20 days. Since I live about 45 minute drive from that medical center in Tegucigalpa, I researched the possibility to have these shots delivered by my local medical center, but it turns out that they are not adequately staffed to make that happen. So the next two and a half weeks (I started yesterday, on my birthday), I will be driving to Tegucigalpa and back every day for these shots. It is important that I follow the regimen without missing a day. The shots are not painful. On the 17th of February, I will have the good fortune to receive not two but three shots: the last one in the anti-rabies treatment, plus the two for leishmaniasis. Meanwhile, I will continue working here, monitoring bird and bat mortality at a wind farm in Honduras.

This is the second tropical disease that I've had now. I had dengue fever back in 2009 in Veracruz. That was no picnic, but ultimately harmless. (For me, that is. Not for infants and the elderly.) Both diseases were contracted through insect bites. The lesson here is that a mosquito bite in the tropics is not always just that, and that I need to be more pro-active regarding insect repellence, and more careful to have lesions or other oddities looked into.

Next time, I plan to write again about birds. We have what appears to be a large population of Sedge Wrens up in Cerro de Hula, where we live. Since a few weeks, these birds have been singing everywhere, and I've recorded several of them. Xeno-canto has a huge collection of Sedge Wren recordings, but none from Central America.

Finally, I want to advise my readers that I am temporarily without internet, and have to grab whatever little bit of wireless I can get at fast food restaurants in Tegucigalpa these days. If you write me, please be patient. I will reply, but it may take me a while.

Frederick the fruit bat

2012-02-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

Last week, we found a bat entangled in a barbed wire fence . It was hanging less than a meter from the ground, with one of its wings wrapped around the barbed wire. It was still alive.

We untangled it and took it home, where we gave it water and a rehydration solution. We fed it with a pipet, from which it readily drank.

We fed it every two to three hours, and between feedings we hung it on a little stick propped inside a closet, in the guest bedroom.

We soon grew attached to it, and named him - it was a male - Frederick. He had some wing damage from being stuck on the fence, but otherwise seemed in rather good condition. Once rehydrated, he became quite active.

Frederick is a Jamaican (or Mexican, or Common) Fruit Bat, Artibeus jamaicensis. This species occurs throughout Mexico and Central America, and northern South America. Naturally, fruit bats are a lot easier to care for than insectivorous bats. We made him a banana and watermelon smoothie, which he lapped up readily!

As Fred got more active, he also tried to fly. At one point we heard noises coming from the room, looked at each other, and said "he must be trying to fly". We went in, and there he was, spread-eagled on the floor, making short flappy jumps. When I reached to pick him up, he bit me.

At first, I didn't think much of it. I cleaned the bite wound on my thumb, and we continued to feed Frederick. A couple of feedings later, he seemed ready to be released. After nightfall, we hung him on a piece of string under a little tree in our yard, and gave him a piece of banana. Twenty minutes later, Fred was still there but the banana was gone. Later that evening, we gave him another piece. The next morning, Frederick was gone.

I researched the bat bite a little on the internet, and learned that any kind of bite from a bat is cause for concern; and that after thoroughly cleaning the bite site, I should also seek medical assistance. This I did: the local hospital did not have the anti-rabies vaccine, but they suggested I go to the town's medical center. That was already closed, so I went the next morning, after our field work.

Our medical center here did not have any anti-rabies vaccine, it turned out. They suggested I contact my medical insurance. They referred me to a medical center in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, which is a 45 min drive from here.

Once we got there and I was checked into the medical center, there was nothing else to do but wait my turn in the crowded hallway. I re-read Alice in Wonderland beginning to end, and had just started on Through the Looking-Glass, when I was called in for an exam.

After hearing my story, and after finding out the bat was no longer in our possession, medical staff there advised me that very likely I was not infected with rabies, but that I should follow an anti-rabies cure, just to be safe. I received a tetanus injection and the first of a series of anti-rabies injections.

So now I'm traveling to Tegucigalpa every day for my shot of anti-rabies vaccine. My regimen prescribes six shots over a period of six days, then one more shot ten days later. I need to be back there for medical exams two more times after that, once in February and once in April.

I'm the darling of the nurses there. There's usually seven or eight nurses attending me, and they take pictures of me receiving the shots almost every time. I'm not quite sure why. When they asked me why I was there, I explained that I was bitten by a bat, and I reassured them that they were quite safe: the bite had not turned me into a vampire.

A few days before we found Frederick, we found another fruit bat, also entangled in barbed wire. This bat (we called her Mathilda) had been hanging out in the sun for almost a day, and was severely dehydrated. Her condition was much worse than Frederick's, and despite our care, she died a day later.

Barbed wire fences, apparently, are a threat to fruit bats around the world, as this Australian poster from bats.org.au shows.

eBirding Honduras

2012-01-24T18:39:00.000-08:00

Cassin's Kingbird, Jan 23, 2012, Cerro de Hula, Honduras

eBird, an online database for bird observations launched in 2002 by Cornell University and National Audubon Society, now routinely logs over a million bird observations each month!

The vast majority of those sightings are of course from the United States and southern Canada. Certain localities - the more populated areas on both coasts - receive ample coverage.

Recently, eBird asked its community of birders to make an effort and contribute checklists from 'under-birded' areas, typically areas where fewer birders live.

The other day, upon hearing I was now in Honduras for a whole year, a friend of mine from Massachusetts asked me whether I was eBirding down here at all.

"All the time!" I said. (According to eBird, I've submitted 26 checklists so far this month.)

Not surprisingly, Honduras is a seriously under-birded country. Very few birders live here, and few birders visit (compared to countries like Costa Rica, Panama and Belize, or even Guatemala or Mexico). Thus, it is not unusual to find birds here that have few or no Honduran reports in eBird. Here's a sample from just the last few days:

Ash-throated Flycatcher, Jan 22, 2012, Los Noques, Honduras

Sunday, Roselvy and I went to a nearby valley, where we encountered an Ash-throated Flycatcher, a species rarely reported this far south. Other Myiarchus flycatchers, like Dusky-capped, Brown-crested, Nutting's, or Great Crested, are more frequently observed.

eBird records for Ash-throated Flycatcher in Central America as per Jan 24, 2012 (data courtesy of ebird.org)

The only other Central American record of Ash-throated in eBird is from a 2004 checklist submitted from Nicaragua (species crossed off as 'present', without further details).

Ring-necked Ducks, Jan 22, 2012, Los Noques, Honduras

Also Sunday, at the same place, we found a group of 12 Ring-necked Ducks (a male and two females pictured above).

eBird records for Ring-necked Duck in Central America as per Jan 24, 2012 (data courtesy of ebird.org)

The only other Honduran record in eBird for this species is from 2008, Lake Yojoa, where 4 individuals were seen. Our Ring-necked Ducks were in company of two female Lesser Scaup, a more expected species in Central America.

Ruddy Duck, Jan 22, 2012, Los Noques, Honduras

Ruddy Duck is also rare in Honduras. eBird has one other record, 10 individuals seen in 2008.

Cassin's Kingbird, Jan 23, 2012, Cerro de Hula, Honduras

Cassin's Kingbird is probably rare almost anywhere in Central America.

eBird records for Cassin's Kingbird in Central America as per Jan 24, 2012 (data courtesy of ebird.org)

There's a January 2010 record from Nicaragua in eBird, but that's it. The bird we found yesterday in Cerro de Hula could not be relocated today.

Each bird mentioned above we found within a radius of 10 minutes driving time from our house, in unprotected areas. While doing point counts today (at only 3 minutes from our house), we saw or heard several Sedge Wrens, many Grasshopper Sparrows, four Wilson's Snipe... all birds that are infrequently reported in Honduras.

This begs the question whether all these birds are genuinely rare in the region, or have simply been overlooked. Over time, eBird will provide the answer.

Plumbeous Vireo

2012-01-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

Last week, Roselvy and I moved into our new house in Santa Ana, in the department of Francisco Morazan, Honduras, where we will be working with birds for an entire year. We already love it here, with lots of cool birds in the surrounding pine-oak forests.

One notable member of the bird community here is a Central American subspecies of Plumbeous Vireo.

Plumbeous Vireo became its own species in 1997, when the AOU split the Solitary Vireo into three species: Cassin's, Plumbeous and Blue-headed Vireo. All three are field-identifiable, with the most western Cassin's Vireo of California, Oregon, Washington and southern British Columbia more or less intermediate in appearance between the drab gray Plumbeous Vireo of the Intermountain West and the more colorful Blue-headed Vireo of the northeastern and boreal forest.

The Central American subspecies of the Plumbeous Vireo found in El Salvador and Honduras is actually more similar to Cassin's Vireo than it is to northern Plumbeous Vireo populations. Currently, the two subspecies recognized in Central America are notius (Belize) and montanus (El Salvador and Honduras), although these subspecies sometimes have been considered synonymous (Curson & Goguen 1998). Monroe (1968) considered the Honduran subspecies to be notius rather than montanus.

In this subspecies, the sides of the breast and belly are greenish (not gray), the secondaries have greenish edges (not gray), and there is a subtle contrast between the blueish gray head and the greenish gray back, unlike the all-gray head and back of the northern Plumbeous Vireo.

The vocalizations are different too. Here's some footage of a bird calling in response to my Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl imitation.

I also recorded some song. The same individual first sang a more or less continuous song, followed by a different song consisting of shorter, more hesitant phrases.

Cited literature
Curson, David R. and Christopher B. Goguen. 1998. Plumbeous Vireo (Vireo plumbeus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/366
Monroe, Jr., B. L. 1968. A distributional survey of the birds of Honduras. Ornithol. Monogr. 7.

White-breasted Hawk

2011-12-31T13:29:00.001-08:00

adult male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011

White-breasted Hawk is a little known raptor from the Central American pine-oak forest. Officially (AOU) still a subspecies of the Sharp-shinned Hawk, most authors agree that this form should really be its own species. Currently, ten subspecies of Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus) are recognized, which can be subdivided in three main groups: the striatus (Sharp-shinned) group which contains four subspecies on the North American mainland and three island ssp; the Central American chionogaster (White-breasted) group with just one subspecies; and the erythronemius (Rufous-thighed) group with two South American subspecies (Bildstein & Meyer 2000). Future DNA work is likely to result in a split into at least three species: Sharp-shinned Hawk; White-breasted Hawk; and Rufous-thighed Hawk.

tail of adult male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011

We caught this adult male while banding in Monte Uyuca (Honduras) last week. We have been banding there every month for two years now, and regularly see White-breasted Hawks around the net lanes. This was the first time we caught it here. Note (browner) retained outer rectrices from a previous molt generation.

Upperside wing ad male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011

Upperside wing shot. Note the difference in (browner) retained primary coverts compared to (slaty) fresher secondary coverts.

adult male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011

After we released the bird, it perched in a nearby tree. It may be worth noting that the tibial feathers appear white, like the rest of the underparts. Bildstein & Meyer (2000) describe light ochraceous-buff tibial feathering for the adult White-breasted Hawk...

juvenile male Sharp-shinned Hawk, Honduras, December 2011

Another first for the site was this juvenile male Sharp-shinned Hawk. We caught it two days later during the same pulse.

juvenile male Sharp-shinned Hawk, Honduras, December 2011

White-breasted Hawk is a resident species here in Honduras; Sharp-shinned Hawk is a winter visitor to the region.

References
Bildstein, Keith L. and Ken Meyer. 2000. Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/482

A Prairie Merlin in Honduras

2011-12-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

Adult male Prairie Merlin, Campus Zamorano University, Honduras, 18 December 2011

Yesterday, while birding the Zamorano University campus in central Honduras with Paul Stufkens, my friend Oliver and I found an adult male Merlin of the Richardson's or prairie subspecies. The Global Raptor Information Network (GRIN) calls the Merlin an "uncommon migrant and rare winter visitor (columbarius) in the lowlands of both coasts and in the Caribbean islands off Honduras", citing Monroe's 1968 Distributional Survey of the Birds of Honduras. eBird has few records for this species in Honduras, although I suspect that Merlins are probably regular along both coasts in migration and perhaps uncommon, but not rare, in winter.

But a Prairie Merlin this far south is spectacular!

Merlin, a species found in North America, Europe and Asia, has three distinct populations in North America: the highly migratory Taiga Merlin (columbarius) of the northern forests, the sedentary Black Merlin (suckleyi) from the Pacific Northwest, and the partially migratory Prairie Merlin (richardsonii) of northern prairies and aspen parkland. The latter form winters from extreme southern Alberta and Saskatchewan southward to the area bounded by eastern California, northwestern Mexico and central Texas (James et al. 1987). Thus, it is resident in parts of its breeding range, with the majority undertaking a relatively short migration into the southern Great Plains (Temple 1972).

It is much paler overall than the taiga Merlin, and has the light bands on the tail much wider than in that subspecies.

I realized this was a noteworthy sighting, and I expected our Central American record of this subspecies to be perhaps unprecedented, but it turns out that eBird has a record for northern Belize - from just 5 days prior! On 13 December 2011, Lee Jones and Roni Martínez reported a female or juvenile of the prairie subspecies in northern Belize, noting it was significantly paler than the taiga Merlins these observers normally see in Belize.

records of Prairie Merlin in eBird (recent records in red) - data courtesy of eBird

So... these two recent records beg the question: Is there currently a small-scale influx of Prairie Merlins going on into Mexico and Central America? It will be interesting to see if more individuals of this subspecies get reported in the coming weeks from the region.

Cited literature:
James, Paul C., Alan R. Smith, Lynn W. Oliphant, Ian G. Warkentin (1987) "Northward expansion of the wintering range of Richardson's Merlin" Journal of Field Ornithology 58 (2): 112—117.
Temple, Stanley A. (1972) "Systematics and evolution of the North American Merlins" The Auk 89: 325—338.

Photo contest

2011-11-29T14:04:00.001-08:00

Laughing Falcon - photo Perla Damara

Some weeks ago, I decided to organize a photo contest, with my camera as the prize! Several crew members of the Veracruz River of Raptors project had expressed an interest in buying my camera, and I felt that selling it to one of them would leave others disappointed. Personally, I had been toying for a while with the idea of birding without a camera altogether. I felt that wanting to photograph a bird often got in the way of observing it, and more than one encounter with an interesting bird resulted in a couple of poor quality shots, when I could have had great views.

Thus, the idea for the contest was born. I'll be birding without a camera for a while, and will likely be blogging less also.

All VRR count crew members and the educational interns were eligible for participation, and many liked the idea well enough to take a day to go out in the field and document good birds. Anything could be photographed, but it was understood that a great photo of a very common, easily photographed bird was not going to win against an equally great photo of a rarer or more secretive bird. The idea was that all participants and myself would vote, and that you could not vote for your own photo.

Well, the voting part got curtailed by my sickness (food poisoning) the last few days, but the winner was obvious to everyone. So, I proudly present on this blog some of the entries in this competition.

Incidentally, the camera in question is a Canon PowerShot FZ-20.

The winning photo at the top of a Laughing Falcon was made by Perla, who worked on environmental education this season (and did a great job). Laughing Falcon is not a particularly rare species in central Veracruz, but like most raptors it is not so easily photographed when perched. She had many photos of this individual, from many different angles; it was clear that she had spent time thinking how to best capture the bird. Perla surprised us with great photos of other species also. She came into the project knowing little about birding, but quickly learned a great deal. I hope that she will continue to go out in the field and document her sightings, and maybe get hooked on birding. Mexico is a great place to live as a birder.

The other photos are in no particular order.

Vermilion Flycatcher - photo by Roberto Rodriguez

This photo of a Vermilion Flycatcher is also a treat. Roberto must have been very close to the bird when he took it. Again, there were many shots of this individual, some even showing behaviors like preening. My impression is that this species is an uncommon breeder in the area, but becomes much more common from early November on, when the local population is augmented by winter visitors from the north. Even on a dull day, the vermilion of the male is dashing, attractive.

Sharp-shinned Hawk and Ferruginous Pygmy Owl - photo by Rigoberto Mendoza

This is a completely different type of photography. Here, the photographer had to act very fast while the story developed. What happened was this: we were sitting on the lower level deck of the Chichicaxtle observation tower when an adult female Sharp-shinned Hawk suddenly came wheezing out of the sky with landing gear out, to try and grab a Ferruginous Pygmy Owl perched in a tree in front of us. A brief pursuit ended on the ground with the owl screaming, wings held open, and the sharpie trying to approach it, also with wings open. The cries of the owl attracted a Merlin, who came in to inspect what was going on. The owl took advantage of this brief distraction and escaped; in the end, the attack was unsuccessful. It may be worth mentioning that the BNA account for Sharp-shinned Hawk lists as known avian prey items members from the orders of Passeriformes (the majority), Falconiformes, Galliformes, Charadriiformes, Columbiformes, Apodiformes, and Piciformes - but not from Strigiformes (owls)! A unique opportunity where the photographer did not have any time to worry about proper camera settings, composition etc, and just had to document the action in front of him. Well done, I think.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - photo by Jeniffer Abrego

Jeni captured a very common winter visitor to the area, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. This bird seems to be intently studying the substrate for possible prey items, seemingly oblivious to the photographer nearby. Maybe not a difficult species to photograph, I still like this photo for the way it captures a bird actively foraging.

Black Vulture with Turkey Vultures - photo by Lynn Schofield

Lynn said she wanted to photograph vultures. Her objective was to document a behavior rather than a rare bird. So here the Turkey Vultures timidly walking away while the Black Vulture unashamedly continues to gorge on the rotting fish creates the dramatic tension she was looking for.

Willet - photo by Alfredo Beltran

Alfredo was unlucky with the weather. He was one of the first and most enthusiastic contestants, but had the camera on a day when taking anything worthwhile was going to be difficult. Secretly I kinda wanted him to win the contest. Alfredo is a very funny, likeable kid. He's got a hat that reads "My Life is a Gamble" and sometimes it seemed that way, with him drawing the shorter of the two straws.

Ruddy Ducks - photo by Irving Chavez and Pilar González

Irving and Pilar chose to capture moving subjects, always more difficult than a stationary bird. Practically everything is in focus, up to the splashes of water flying around. In the same lagoon, they found a mega rarity - Common Loon - which they dutifully photo-documented and reported to eBird, but the shot of the ruddies taking off was the better photo.

Double-striped Thick-knee - photo by John van Dort

This is one of the last shots I took with that camera. We found these birds to be abundant in a stretch of dunes close to Playa Juan Angel. Had I known about this, I would have told our Dutch visitors, for this was one of their target birds, and I don't think they found any.

I'm not planning to give up birding altogether, but I'll be birding without a camera for a while. I may end up blogging less, or perhaps I'll just work on improving the static pages of this blog. I'm going to play it by ear a little bit.

Veracruz season wrap-up

2011-11-28T10:20:00.001-08:00

Broad-winged Hawks, Turkey Vultures and Swainson's Hawks disappearing into a cloud

The Veracruz River of Raptors 2011 season ended 20 November. The total number of raptors counted - nearly 4.5 million - was about average, but that figure hides several surprises this season. Mississippi Kite (324,488), Northern Harrier (872), Peregrine Falcon (1,011) and American Kestrel (5,326) all had their best season ever, as did the two accipiters, Sharp-shinned (3,958) and Cooper's Hawk (2,693). The Red-shouldered Hawk with a season's total of 15 tied with 2009's total for best ever. The Hook-billed Kite count on the other hand ended up as the lowest of the last nine years.

Eagles were again seen this season, and surprisingly early: a Bald Eagle on the first of September, and a Golden Eagle on the 13th of September, followed by another Golden 6 days later. Not surprisingly, I did not see any of these eagles. This was my third year in this project and I am one of the very few if not only counters who has never seen an eagle in Veracruz. I did pick up a Ferruginous Hawk, though.

Of the four bulk species that together make up 99.9% of the flight, i.e. Mississippi Kite, Broad-winged Hawk, Swainson's Hawk and Turkey Vulture, only the first did well. The other three had average years - the Swainson's Hawk actually a little below average.

The Zone-tailed Hawk flight was early this year, and was well under way by September, with good flights on September 7 (20), Sep 18 (22) and Sep 23 (12). October, however, was disappointing, with only 44 zonetails counted.

Count-wise, a couple of things were different this year. In Cardel, we counted from the roof of Hotel Estación - not from the famous Bienvenido, which had construction going on this fall. Another difference with previous years perhaps was the lack of tour groups visiting the count. Recent media reports of drug violence in the state of Veracruz kept away virtually all visitors from the US. Instead, we had international visitors from Holland, some of whom (Leo, Dick) diligently scoped through the lines and helped us find birds for nearly a month. They were great company, and everyone in the group enjoyed their company. Was their presence beneficial to the count? Quite possibly.

Still, the high counts to me seem real, not a product of increased observer effort. The Mississippi Kite flight for example was more or less counted by the time Leo and Dick showed up. The exceptional Northern Harrier count also was real, as evidenced by extraordinary numbers caught by the Pronatura VRR banding operation, not far from the count site. They caught nearly forty harriers, when only one or two is normal for a season's worth of banding. The nearest hawk count site, the Corpus Christi count site in southern Texas, had their second best harrier season ever. They also had their best and second-best seasons for Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks respectively. Like us, they counted more American Kestrels this year than any other year. Their Peregrine Falcon numbers, however, were not any higher than usual.

Non raptorial highlights this year included a Sandhill Crane on October 4 in Chichicaxtle, a Chihuahuan Raven on October 27 in Cardel, and a couple of Yellow-headed Blackbirds on November 4 in Chichicaxtle. A group of birders from the project led by Irving Chavez Dominguez found a Common Loon on nearby lagoon La Mancha on November 13, a bird that was still present at least 5 days later.

Sprague's Pipit

2011-11-16T11:43:00.001-08:00

Sprague's Pipit - photo by Lynn Schofield

"One of the least-known birds in North America," according to Cornell's Birds of North America, is Sprague's Pipit. "Most information on this species comes from more general studies of northern prairie avian communities. Until very recently, even the persistent flight displays of territorial males had never been described in detail. These displays often last for over thirty minutes, with an occasional male displaying for up to three hours before returning to the ground. No other avian species is known to make such prolonged flight displays." (Robbins & Dale 1999).

Lynn and I found one yesterday in the dunes near Playa Juan Angel, in central Veracruz, more or less at the southern edge of its winter range.

"This pipit often goes undetected during migration through the Great Plains, and almost nothing is known about its behavior on the wintering grounds in the southwestern and south-central United States and northern Mexico." (Robbins & Dale 1999).

map courtesy of eBird

eBird has very few records south of the US border, where fewer birders are active. Central Veracruz has relatively good birder coverage during the month of October, when many birders from outside the region visit to enjoy the spectacle of migration. Sprague's Pipit, however, arrives after most tourists have left, and therefore perhaps has been reported very infrequently. It may well be a regular winter visitor to open arid areas such as the extensive dune system near Playa Juan Angel, where the more common American Pipit is also found.

Cited literature:
Robbins, Mark B. and Brenda C. Dale. 1999. Sprague's Pipit (Anthus spragueii), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/439

Chihuahuan Raven

2011-10-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

Chihuahuan Raven

Two days ago, while counting a line of Turkey Vultures migrating over Cardel, Veracruz (Mexico), my co-counter Irving excitedly called out a "cuervo!" or raven, something we don't see every day here. The line was more or less overhead and not terribly high, so it was easy to pick out the bird's different shape and snap a few pictures of it.

Chihuahuan Raven migrating with Turkey Vultures

It clearly looked like a raven, but appeared a little smaller and subtly differently proportioned than the familiar Common Raven. The tail was rounder, not as wedge-shaped as in Common Raven, and the head projection was smaller.

Thus we determined it to be a Chihuahuan Raven, a lifer for me, and evidently a short-distance migrant that more commonly winters north of here.

Chihuahuan Raven range map courtesy of ebird.org

In fact, once our sighting has been processed by eBird, it will likely be the southernmost record in their dataset.

same range map, zoomed in, courtesy of ebird.org

The current southernmost records in their dataset are from western Mexico. On the east coast, eBird has not had any records further south than Poza Rica, Veracruz - about 150 km north of here. So really not that far north, then.

Prairie Falcon

2011-10-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

adult Prairie Falcon (photo by Lynn Schofield)

Last Friday, I went with Lynn and two visiting Dutch birders, Leo and Dick, to the highlands around Perote, Veracruz, where we observed this Prairie Falcon.

We were driving along a power line, scanning the surrounding fields, when the car was stopped and I was informed by Lynn that there was my lifer raptor. Peering out the window on her side, I spotted a distant bird that superficially looked like a Turkey Vulture. I studied it intently for a few seconds, lowered my bins and said, somewhat disappointed, "I think it's a Turkey Vulture." At this point my attention was drawn to a bird much closer, and quite happily I confirmed the initial assessment that here, indeed, was the last North American diurnal raptor I still needed for my 'life list'. What a great bird!

Robert Straub in his Site Guide to the birds of Veracruz mentions this species as a possibility for the site, and there is a 1999 record in eBird for the Perote Valley. Whether this bird winters here incidentally or more regularly is hard to say; observer coverage is thinner here than in the US. The Global Raptor Information Network calls it a "fairly common to common transient and winter visitor from October to March, ranging as high as 2,500 m, in Baja California and in Sonora and Tamaulipas and in the interior south over the plateau to eastern Jalisco and northern Hidalgo."

Sandhill Crane in Chichicaxtle!

2011-10-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

Sandhill Crane with Wood Storks, 4 October 2011, Chichicaxtle

Yesterday we counted more than 400,000 raptors on migration here in central Veracruz, Mexico. Incredible as that may sound, this is not unusual for this location - in fact, this is an expected number for this count this time of year.

What is unexpected, however, is a Sandhill Crane this far south. I photographed this individual in a flock of Wood Storks yesterday afternoon in Chichicaxtle.

map courtesy of ebird.org, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

As far as I can tell - and I'm looking at this map from eBird - this will be the southernmost record in their dataset after I submit it and after their editor accepts it. I don't know if any other records have been reported this far south, for example in North American Birds.

Predicting big flights

2011-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Broad-winged Hawks soaring over Chichicaxtle (including one dark morph)

The raptor migration season here in Veracruz is now in its middle, high-volume part, with flights typically of 30,000 raptors or more each day (see hawkcount.org). The average day count over the last week was just over 76,000. The majority of the flight in this part of the season is of course broadwings.

the direct line measures 966 km, but that is not how the broadwing flies (image courtesy Google Earth)

I mentioned the Corpus Christi hawk watch in my previous entry, and we often look at their numbers to get a sense of what's on our doorstep. That site is located in Hazel Bazemore Park, just outside Corpus Christi, TX, about 1,000 km north of us - as the broadwing flies (their numbers are also posted to hawkcount.org).

Yesterday, the counters in Texas had a phenomenal day with more than 100,000 broadwings counted as migrants. Broad-winged Hawks migrate "up to 400 km / day in Central America" (Smith 1985, cited in Goodrich et al. 1996), or "500 km in 6 hours of ridge flight with favorable winds" (Kerlinger 1989, cited in Goodrich et al. 1996). A thousand kilometers then would probably take them 3 days or so.

September 2011 day totals for Broad-winged Hawk from Corpus Christi and Veracruz (source: hawkcount.org)

Wondering if such a traveling speed could be detected in a direct comparison between the daily counts of both sites, I decided to graph that out. I took daily totals of broadwings for both sites for September 2011. Note that the VRR (Veracruz River of Raptors) totals are really from two count sites combined: Cardel and nearby Chichicaxtle.

Obviously, weather events between southern Texas and central Veracruz will influence the broadwing flight between the two locations.

The Corpus Christi count reported their first larger broadwing flight on the 19th of September. Three days later, we had our first wave. From 21 through 24 September, CC had good sustained flights of broadwings. We (VRR) had two good days (23 & 24 September) and after that flights around the 40,000 mark.

The day after tomorrow, will we register the peak flight of broadwings that they had yesterday?

Cited literature:
Goodrich, L. J., S. C. Crocoll and S. E. Senner. 1996. Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/218

First big flights of the season

2011-09-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

Broad-winged Hawks

We have now had the first of those 'big days' that the Veracruz River of Raptors is named for: literally a stream of many tens of thousands of hawks migrating overhead. Having counted in this project for a few years now I am not new to it, but it never ceases to impress me.

The last couple of days we've had big flights of Broad-winged Hawk, one of the four raptor species that together make up 99.9% of our count here in Veracruz. (The other three are Mississippi Kite, Swainson's Hawk and Turkey Vulture.) We knew these birds were on our doorstep when we saw the counts in Corpus Christi (Texas) soar last week. We often get what they get - in tenfold. The only exception to that rule appears to be Prairie Falcon, a bird they get annually in low numbers, but we don't get at all.

Broad-winged Hawks

Flocks of more than 20,000 broadwings are not exceptional here in central Veracruz. The flight is often very concentrated, with tens of thousands of birds moving through in only a few hours. Typically, the flight starts in Cardel, then moves further inland to Chichicaxtle, which gets the afternoon flight of soaring raptors. Afternoons in Cardel are usually more laid-back, with falcons, Ospreys and accipiters dripping through.

Kites still pushing through

2011-09-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Swallow-tailed Kite

As noted before, the Veracruz River of Raptors has already logged more Mississippi Kites this season than in any other year. Even Swallow-tailed Kites are still in the mix, although those must be the ultimate ones. Their migration is the earliest of all, and was already well underway when this count started in August.

a healthy-looking immature Mississippi Kite

Yesterday, we saw a bird that at first had us scratching our heads, wondering even which bird family it belonged to. Eventually it was termed the "zombie kite". The bird was all-dark, blackish, about the size of a Mississippi Kite, with long, thin wings tapering to a point, and a dark tail also tapering to a point, more or less like a booby tail. From a distance, the head seemed very small.

As it got a little closer (but still too far for identifiable photos), we noted heavily abraded flight feathers and a mostly bald head. We figured it was a Mississippi Kite that apparently had been in a fire, and was blackened and burned, but somehow still alive. Many of these late straggling kites that we get these days look scruffy, but this bird was obviously at a whole different level. It held its wings down as it soared on lift it was getting from rising warm air, and never once flapped for all the time we saw it. It seemed disoriented too, for first it flew west toward the mountains, to return a little later eastward to the coast. All other migrants here fly southeast.

We've been getting decent Osprey flights recently, and the Peregrine Falcon flight has picked up, but we still haven't had any big days. This is odd, given the date. I suspect that very soon we will be getting large Broad-winged Hawk flights, but apparently we still have a few kites we need to get out of the way first.

The woodpeckers of Chichicaxtle

2011-09-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

male Ladder-backed Woodpecker

In the southwestern United States, Ladder-backed Woodpecker is a desert species, associated with cactus. Here in Veracruz, it is fairly common in open, disturbed lowland habitat, such as the hedge rows surrounding the cane fields of Chichicaxtle (where cactus is also commonly found). This and two other resident woodpecker species are found around the observation tower in Chichi, the other two being Golden-fronted and Lineated Woodpeckers.

Golden-fronted Woodpecker

Golden-fronted is by far the most common of the three. A typical Melanerpes woodpecker (like the Red-bellied Woodpecker familiar to birders in the eastern US), it is a vocal and conspicuous species. Here in central Veracruz (and in much of Central America) one cannot go very far in disturbed habitats without encountering a few individuals.

male Lineated Woodpecker

Less vocal outside the breeding season but still regularly heard and seen is Lineated Woodpecker, a large and colorful species with a wide range in the Neotropics. We sometimes see and more often hear this species from the observation tower in Chichi. A few years ago, we had it nesting in our yard in Chichi. We have also had it at the new, possibly temporary count site in Cardel, atop the Hotel Estación, which is situated slightly more peripheral than the legendary Hotel Bienvenido.

male Ladder-backed Woodpecker

Of the three, I think Ladder-backed Woodpecker is the one that's most easily overlooked. It does not vocalize very frequently nor fly around much. I don't think it is rare in the area but its retiring habits make it the one least frequently encountered.

Temporada loca

2011-09-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

immature Mississippi Kite

As I wrote a couple of blog posts ago, we're seeing higher numbers than usual of Mississippi Kites here in Pronatura's Veracruz River of Raptors migration watch this year. In fact, last week we broke the previous season record of Mississippi Kite, dating from 2002 when 306,274 individuals were counted. We're now at 316,470 - and counting! They're still coming through in good numbers, although Tropical Storm Nate has interrupted the flow momentarily. Birds are likely bottling up north of us, and we may have a big flight on our hands when skies clear on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Mississippi Kite about to catch that dragonfly

The first cold front of the season last week brought migrants that are generally expected a bit later in the season, like Swainson's Hawk, Turkey Vulture, Northern Harrier, and American Kestrel. The broadwing flight also got underway, with almost a thousand individuals moving through these past days. And the first Hook-billed Kites of the season have been recorded - those birds at least perfectly on schedule.

A strong Mississippi Kite flight on the 7th of September produced a wonderful lift-off the next day, when for about an hour and a half we had a constant stream of low-flying kites in Chichicaxtle at the start of the count. Several thousand birds had spent the night in the surrounding areas and were trying to gain lift from the first developing thermals that day. Some of them hunted the also abundant migrant dragonflies.

our resident Zone-tail with an Inca Dove it just caught

An adult rufous morph Swainson's Hawk on the 3rd of September was the earliest ever recorded by the project. (A couple of days later, the Pronatura hawk banders caught a Swainson's Hawk in nearby Cansaburro, their earliest ever capture of this species.) Another unusual phenomenon thus far has been the high number of Zone-tailed Hawks this season. We're already at 77 migrants for the season, when until this time last year only 7 had been recorded.

Clearly, 2011 is exceptional, and the counters here speak of a "temporada loca" (crazy season).

Late nesting of Buff-bellied Hummingbird

2011-09-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

While birding the area near the Pronatura River of Raptors observation tower in Chichicaxtle this morning, Pablo Camacho and I found a female Buff-bellied Hummingbird - incubating! According to Howell & Webb (1995), the nesting period for the eastern Mexico population is April to July, while the Yucatan population breeds February to April.

Buff-bellied Hummingbird occurs in coastal Texas, where it appears to be expanding its range (Lockwood & Freeman 2004). According to the BNA account, breeding takes place in south Texas between mid-March (first eggs) to early October (last fledglings), with the majority of fledglings around between late May and late August (Chavez-Ramirez & Moreno-Valdez 1999). These authors mention two nestlings observed in October in south Texas, suggesting that eggs were laid in September. Our bird is nesting late, but not unheard-of late.

It's nesting in someone's yard, at the edge of the baseball field that we look on to from the hawk observation tower. I'll be sure to check in from time to time, to get a sense of when the eggs will hatch, and when the young will fledge. Let's hope the nest survives tropical storm Nate, scheduled to make landfall here in Veracruz tonight.

Cited literature:
Chavez-Ramirez, Felipe and Arnulfo Moreno-Valdez. 1999. Buff-bellied Hummingbird (Amazilia yucatanensis), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/388
Howell, S. N. G. and S. Webb. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK.
Lockwood, Mark. & Brush Freeman. 2004. The TOS handbook of Texas birds. Texas A&M University press.

A good kite year

2011-09-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

This is obviously a good kite year here in Veracruz, Mexico. At September 5, the 2011 Veracruz River of Raptors count had already logged 266,166 Mississippi Kites and 213 Swallow-tailed Kites, with both species still coming through in some numbers. Especially Mississippi Kites are expected to continue for some time in the order of thousands a day, usually trailing off to hundreds a day by late September. They still pass through in October, but in very small numbers.

Looking at counts from 2002-2011 (www.hawkcount.org), we see that this year we've already surpassed the seasonal totals for Mississippi Kite of 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009. We will likely exceed last year's count (274,621), and have a real chance at breaking the exceptional 2002 record of 306,274 Mississippi Kites. The mean number of Mississippi Kites recorded at the two Veracruz count sites combined for the period 1995-2004 was 157,199 (Ruelas Inzunza 2007). The species' recent expansion of its breeding area has been well-documented by excited northeastern birders, and that expansion is reflected in the higher recent counts in central Veracruz, where virtually the entire world population is believed to pass through a relatively small area each fall.

We're also seeing more Swallow-tailed Kites this year than were recorded on average for the period 1995-2004, but we are still far away from the exceptional 2007 seasonal total, when a new record was set with 563 Swallow-tailed Kites. The average number of STKI for the period 2002-2010 is 275, a number we seem to be on track for this year.

For other raptors it is of course still way too early to say anything about trends. We have had an unusual number of Zone-tailed Hawks already, but this and many other species normally peak late September / early October, when we will have a much better idea about how this year's numbers fit into the larger trend line.

Cited literature:
Ruelas Inzunza, E. (2007) Raptor and wading bird migration in Veracruz, Mexico: spatial and temporal dynamics, flight performance, and monitoring applications - Dissertation University of Missouri - Columbia.

Anhingas

2011-09-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the river of raptors here in Veracruz was momentarily dwarfed by the river of Anhingas. In Cardel, Citlali, Lynn and I counted 'only' 3,001 Mississippi Kites, a number that would be astounding at any other North American hawk watch, but early September in Veracruz is easily dismissed as 'nothing much'. And indeed we saw more Anhingas than Mississippi Kites, which does not happen very often.

In Cardel, we ended up with a count of 3,622 migrating Anhingas yesterday. Like raptors, they are diurnal migrants depending on thermals for lift, and are often found kettling up and then streaming out in search of the next thermal. Unlike raptors, they tend to all move synchronized when riding a thermal, a character that serves as an identification clue at great distances.

The species is resident in the area, but resident populations are augmented with northern migrants during the winter. eBird's Anhinga filter insists that any count over a few hundred individuals is a "great number" that it wants me to confirm, but counters and visitors to the project know that it is by no means unusual to see more than a thousand Anhingas in just one day here.

Seasonal counts at the site during the period 1995-2004 yielded a seasonal average of 31,000 individuals (Ruelas Inzunza 2007), with the 2002 count being exceptional with 40,000 Anhingas counted, i.e. 20% more than the estimated entire North American population! Clearly, those estimates need to be updated. This count in Veracruz provides valuable data not only for population estimates but also for population trends.

Cited literature:
Ruelas Inzunza, E. (2007) Raptor and wading bird migration in Veracruz, Mexico: spatial and temporal dynamics, flight performance, and monitoring applications - Dissertation University of Missouri - Columbia.

Aplomado Falcon

2011-09-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Today some photos of a juvenile Aplomado Falcon, which I took in the dunes near Playa Juan Angel in central Veracruz. This charismatic species, once rare and endangered, is making a healthy comeback, and can now be found throughout the coastal plain of Veracruz. We sometimes see this species from either of the two Pronatura count sites, and it is virtually a guaranteed sighting when birding anywhere in the coastal dunes.

They're about the size of a Peregrine, but are easily told from that species, even at some distance, by their much longer tail. Closer views reveal pronounced plumage differences such as a whitish eyebrow, a black hour-glass shaped belly patch, orange leg feathering, dark underwing, pale trailing edge of wings etc.

Juveniles, like this individual, show a heavily streaked breast. The breast is unstreaked in adult males, and with only a hint of streaking in adult females.

The leg feathering is pale orange on juveniles, darker orange on adults. There's also a difference in the color of the eye ring and cere: blue on juveniles, yellow on adults (like in Prairie Falcon).

A social raptor, they are often found in loose family groups.

Strickland's Woodpecker

2011-08-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

This handsome woodpecker is a male Strickland's Woodpecker, a shy and little studied Mexican endemic found only in a small part of the central volcanic belt of Mexico, where it occurs in open pine woodland above 2500 masl (Howell & Webb 1995).

Between 1983 and 2000, the AOU considered this and Arizona Woodpecker to be one species, the Strickland's Woodpecker. Arizona Woodpecker reaches down south through Mexico's central volcanic belt, and is replaced by Strickland's Woodpecker in central Mexico, where it has a very small, east-west range.

I found this bird yesterday on the slopes of the Cofre de Perote, a 4250 m peak near the border with Puebla. The high elevation makes for a completely different habitat and bird community, with many species common here that are not found in the coastal plain. Some familiar 'temperate zone' species become mountain dwellers here in Mexico, like for example Golden-crowned Kinglet, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Loggerhead Shrike and American Robin. Here they are found with regional highland endemics such as Red Warbler, Collared Towhee, Yellow-eyed Junco, Mexican Chickadee, Striped Sparrow, and Gray Silky-flycatcher. Early yesterday morning I took the first bus to Perote, and from there a taxi up to a small community called El Conejo ("The Rabbit"), where the forest is mostly spruce and fir going up, and pines mixed with broadleaf going down. Located at about 3000 masl, it's quite a climb and I suffered a bit of altitude sickness when I got there, a dizzy spell that lasted about 30 minutes or so. It was worth it.

Cited literature:
Howell, S.N.G. & S. Webb. 1995. A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Olive-throated Parakeet

2011-08-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

Besides Eurasian Collared-Dove, another species now seemingly much more common here in the coastal plain of central Veracruz than in previous years, is Olive-throated (Aztec) Parakeet. Noisy flocks of up to 20 individuals can be seen throughout the area. I'm pretty sure I saw them here in 2008 and 2009 also, but not regularly.

These past few days I saw them in La Mancha, in the fields around Chichicaxtle, and even in the town of Cardel.

This Olive-sided Flycatcher, normally associated with middle and higher elevation pine-oak and evergreen forests, was a noteworthy find in the coastal dunes of La Mancha Saturday.

From rarity to dirt-common

2011-08-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

This bird - a Eurasian Collared-Dove, of course - has steadily conquered North America ever since its first release in the mid-1970s in the Bahamas. It is still spreading rapidly, including into areas that already have a rich columbiform avifauna, like Mexico.

In central Veracruz, where I arrived yesterday for another fall season of hawk watching, this bird was still rare as recent as 2008. That fall was my first season here, and around the village of Chichicaxtle, where the Pronatura counters are housed and one of the two count sites is located, I saw it a few times in 2008. Then, in 2009, I found it to be regular in a few isolated spots.

Now, in 2011, this has become the most common dove in the area! Its three-syllable coo and its mewing display flight call is heard constantly throughout the community. That's no small feat in an area where pigeons and doves are both diverse and common.

In 1995, when Howell & Webb's Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America came out, this bird was still unknown from the region.

eBird of course documents the spread of this species wonderfully. Watch an animated distribution map that starts with the period 1900-2000, followed by 1900-2002, 1900-2004, 1900-2006, 1900-2008, and finally 1900-2011.

Image provided by eBird (www.ebird.org) and created 17 August 2011.

Evidently, there were records from Central Veracruz as early as 2002, but the species didn't 'catch on' in the area until the late 2000's. eBird's filter still thought that the 12 Eurasian Collared-Doves I reported today was an "excellent count". I expect the regional editor will soon grow used to (perhaps tired of) approving high counts of this species in central Veracruz, and will adapt the filter.

I'm here for three months and expect to be entering quite a number of Eurasian Collared-Doves this season.

A mini-pelagic

2011-08-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

Brown Noddy

Yesterday, Roselvy and I went on a mini-pelagic of sorts, when we boarded a small, open fishing boat and ventured about 5 nautical miles out from Los Cóbanos, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador. Time and money prevented us from going much further, so we didn't see many truly pelagic birds. That said, we did pretty well on this short trip with close looks at a Brown Noddy, prolonged close looks at two immature Brown Boobies, and distant views of two other booby species. The bad news is that one of those distant boobies was too far to pin down to species, and must remain a 'large, black-and-white booby', i.e. either Masked or Nazca Booby. We sighted the bird at some distance, and pursued it, without ever getting much nearer. Our pursuit was curtailed by an approaching booby that turned out to be an adult Brown Booby.

Brown Noddy

The third booby species, close enough for identification but too far for a photo, was Blue-footed Booby.

Brown Booby

The two Brown Boobies, one first-year-old and one older immature, hung around a buoy, where they allowed reasonable close approach.

Brown Booby

Black Tern was the most numerous avian species we encountered in these inshore waters. We encountered small groups of up to 20 individuals throughout the area.

Black Tern

We also saw about 25 dolphins and 5 marine turtles out there. Once back on land, while walking back to the bus, we found a pair of Yellow-winged Caciques in a tree that also had a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl calling. This cacique reaches the southeastern edge of its range in El Salvador, and in that country is only known from this locality.

Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

2011-08-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

Gray-crowned Yellowthroat is a common species in agricultural areas throughout Mexico and Central America. It used to occur in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (Texas) but disappeared for unknown reasons around the end of the 19th century. Since the late 20th century, the bird has been recorded again irregularly in the Brownsville area. Population trends in Mexico and Central America are unclear, but the species may well be increasing, as it profits from land clearings for agriculture. It is often found in early successional grassy habitat and edge habitat, for example around sugar cane fields and in cow pastures.

In a group of very similar species - the yellowthroats of Central America - this bird stands out with its heavy, decurved, bi-colored bill, long tail and different behavior. Not a skulker at all, it likes to perch in the top of shrubs or trees, singing its charming, Blue Grosbeak-like song or giving its distinctive three-note call.

I recorded that call in the same field where I took this photo, through from a different individual. This was on the campus of Zamorano University, in central Honduras, east of Tegucigalpa.

The individual in the photos here, it will be noted, does not actually have a gray crown. It's probably a young male, based on the black, not slaty-gray lores that a female would have. Spring adult males (in alternate plumage) have mostly gray crowns, but in basic plumage the gray is much reduced to only the sides and forehead. On this particular bird, it appears to be completely absent.

Mexican birds have conspicuous eye arcs, much reduced or absent in Central American birds.

A Crested Caracara roost

2011-08-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

This evening, while walking Oliver's dog Old Jack on the Zamorano University campus, Roselvy and I saw little groups of mostly two to four Crested Caracaras fly to what evidently is a roost here in the Yeguare Valley, in central Honduras. We ended up with a count of 21 caracaras, but we were not close to the roost site itself, and thus our count is likely not complete. We noted in which direction the birds were flying, and tried to follow them in binoculars for as far as we could, but distance and darkness made it impossible to see where exactly the birds landed. (These photos were taken here on campus yesterday.)

Although we tend to think of raptors as 'loners', communal roosting is known from various species, including Crested Caracara. A 1996 article in the Journal of Field Ornithology, for example, describes a roost in southern Guatemala where a maximum of 178 Crested Caracaras were observed roosting in a single large ceiba tree (Johnson & Gilardi 1996).

I don't know if the Yeguare Valley holds quite that many caracaras, but it would be worthwhile to try and locate this roost for a more complete count.

Cited literature:
Johnson, Matthew D. & James D. Gilardi. 1996. Communal roosting of the Crested Caracara in southern Guatemala. Journal of Field Ornithology 67(1): 44-47.

Zone-tailed Hawk: rare or not?

2011-08-01T21:51:00.000-07:00

Today's post looks forward a little to what I'll be doing the next three months: participating in the world's biggest hawk migration census, in Veracruz, Mexico. It will be my third season there. One of the raptors that migrates through Veracruz is Zone-tailed Hawk. The first ones usually show up there late August. It then becomes an almost daily species in September. In Veracruz, the peak of their migration is during the last week of September and the first week of October, when double-digit days are regular.

Looking at the Veracruz River of Raptors dataset from the last 9 years, an increase from season totals of around 150 in the period 2002-2004 to totals around 250-300 for the period 2005-2010 is evident (source: www.hawkcount.org). Earlier, during the period 1995-2004, the season average for Zone-tailed Hawk at the site was 117.4 (Ruelas Inzunza, 2007). At least as a migrant in Veracruz, this bird clearly appears to be increasing.

Yearly totals Zone-tailed Hawk at fall migration counts in Veracruz, Mexico (2002-2010) [source: www.hawkcount.org]

Only northern populations undertake a southbound migration, and this increase at a major raptor migration census station likely reflects an increase of this northerly, migratory population.

These photos of an immature zone-tail were taken last month in El Salvador, where Zone-tailed Hawk is a fairly common permanent resident species. Like White-tailed Hawk, this is a widespread yet little studied species: the BNA account (Johnson et al. 2000) calls the status and distribution south of the U.S. "problematic", meaning little is known of those Central and South American populations. Indeed, their map seems incorrect: it shows southern Mexico and all of Central America as "winter only", with only a couple of small, isolated breeding locations in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Big question marks on the map highlight this 'problematic' aspect of our knowledge of this species' distribution. Howell & Webb (1995) show a similar map, including the question marks, with the range for most of Central America as "winter only".

The most detailed and up-to-date, but still incomplete, information on the status of this species in Central America can be found in the species account of The Peregrine Fund's Global Raptor Information Network (or GRIN). This is what they have for Honduras:

Honduras: Probably a rare resident in the interior highlands. Breeding is as yet unconfirmed, and all records are from the winter months (Monroe 1968), except for one seen in April along the road from Tegucigalpa to Bonanza (Jones 2004). Jones (2005) noted that this species was being reported on average only once every two years on the Caribbean slope of Honduras, but by 2006, it was being reported more frequently (one to three times per year) (Jones and Komar 2006). Most likely, this reflects better coverage, rather than an actual increase in the number of zone-tails in the region.

My own impression is that this bird is an uncommon to locally fairly common resident throughout Honduras, including the lowlands. I have seen and photographed a pair with nesting material in the southeastern province of Choluteca in January 2010. On the campus of Zamorano University near Tegucigalpa, where I have been these past couple of weeks, I see adults and immatures almost every day. I have also seen this species elsewhere in Honduras, and am surprised to find how little has been published on the distribution of this species in Central America, and how rare it is reported to be.

Is this species really rare in Central America, or has it been under-reported? And if it's not that rare, is that a recent trend?

Cited literature:
Global Raptor Information Network: http://www.globalraptors.org/grin/indexAlt.asp
HMANA count data: http://www.hawkcount.org
Howell, S. N. G. and S. Webb. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford Univ. Press, New York.
Johnson, R. Roy, Richard L. Glinski and Sumner W. Matteson. 2000. Zone-tailed Hawk (Buteo albonotatus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/529
Ruelas Inzunza, E. (2007) Raptor and wading bird migration in Veracruz, Mexico: spatial and temporal dynamics, flight performance, and monitoring applications - Dissertation University of Missouri - Columbia.

White-tailed Hawk

2011-07-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

The White-tailed Hawk, a neotropical buteo of dry, open areas, is one of the most widespread yet least studied raptors of the Americas. It occurs from south Texas down to Argentina. I saw a couple of adults this morning on the campus of Zamorano University in Honduras, while walking Old Jack, the dog that's currently in my care. The hawks were low in a kettle of vultures that also had an immature Zone-tailed Hawk.

While entering today's observations into eBird, I was curious to see how many White-tailed Hawk records eBird has for the region. Well, surprisingly few! For Honduras, only 5 sightings, spanning the period May 29 - July 28, 2011 - all from Zamorano University campus! (Confession: I have seen this bird elsewhere in Honduras, for example just north of San Marcos de Colón, in the department of Choluteca, but this was before I started using eBird.) For El Salvador: nada! Nicaragua? Nada! Belize - which gets more tourist birders - has records scattered throughout the year, but most in the period Feb-Apr. Guatemala? Nada!

In Central America, only the birding eco-tourism countries - Belize, Costa Rica, Panama - have records in eBird for this species. Of course it occurs in the other countries, but with far fewer observers entering data, those countries remain at present 'white areas' on the eBird map for this (and many other) species.

For the time being, the eBird map for White-tailed Hawk does a better job mapping birding tourism than it does the distribution of this species. Hopefully this will change over time.

Pinnated Bittern

2011-07-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I 'bagged' what I can't really call a nemesis bird, for I don't often have the opportunity to bird in its natural habitat. But it certainly was the one I was hoping for, as Milagro, Roselvy and I set out on a wobbly wooden boat on Laguna El Jocotal in El Salvador, to take part in an International Waterbird Count. We were accompanied by two park rangers, who impressed me with their knowledge of local birds.

Pinnated Bittern ranges widely from Mexico to South America and is probably not rare, but rarely observed, as it is a mostly nocturnal species occurring in habitat that's difficult to access without a boat.

We also got a fleeting glimpse of a Least Bittern we flushed from the same reed bed, as well as better looks at Snail Kite, Limpkin, White-tailed Kite, Black-bellied Whistling-duck, Ruddy-breasted Seedeater, Ringed Kingfisher, Red-winged Blackbird and other common species found in this type of habitat.

Here a shot of a Limpkin.

Collared Trogon

2011-07-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today a photo and video of a Collared Trogon from Montecristo National Park, El Salvador. I just returned from bird monitoring (banding) there, and will be out in the field and away from internet for another week, starting tomorrow morning. This post will be brief.

Collared Trogon is one of the four red-bellied trogons in the region. The male, shown here, is distinguished from males of the other species by its finely barred undertail, and by voice. (From Mountain Trogon also by its leading white edges on the primaries.)

Even the best field guides contain small mistakes or omissions. Take for example Howell & Webb's excellent Guide to Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. In the Collared Trogon species account, it describes the orbital ring of the male as "orange-red", and notes that the female "lacks bright orbital ring". Many trogon species do have bright orbital rings, and their color is often one of the field marks. In the Collared Trogon, however, there is considerable variation in this feature, and the individual shown above - with a dark orbital ring - is by no means unusual.

Literature cited:
Howell, S. N. G. and S. Webb. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK.

A hummingbird surprise in La Laguna

2011-07-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

Cinnamon Hummingbird, 3 July 2011, Jardin Botánico La Laguna

Today, Roselvy and I went to the botanical garden La Laguna in Antiguo Cuscatlán, a suburb of San Salvador. The birding there is rarely spectacular, but it's a neat little spot that's easy to get to. I've written about previous visits here and here and also here.

Plain-capped Starthroat, 3 July 2011, Jardin Botánico La Laguna

At least two hummingbird species are resident in the garden, and are always observed when we go there: Cinnamon Hummingbird and Plain-capped Starthroat. The former is really the default hummingbird anywhere in the city; no matter how small a garden, if it has flowers, chances are those flowers are visited by this species. The latter is more localized in the area, but often one of the first birds heard when entering the botanical garden.

In September and October, a third species - Green-breasted Mango - can be very common in the botanical garden, with sometimes up to 10 individuals present. Today, we were rather surprised to find an immature male of this species!

immature male Green-breasted Mango, 3 July 2011, Jardin Botánico La Laguna

Immatures look similar to females, with white median underparts and a dark central stripe, but are distinguished from adult females by the presence of cinnamon borders surrounding the white on the underparts. This particular individual shows dark green feathers coming in on the belly and breast, and thus is molting from immature to adult male plumage. The outer tail feathers look rather abraded, and haven't been molted yet. (The cinnamon color in the proximal part of the rectrices in the photo is odd: possibly an artifact of backlighting.)

Green-breasted Mangos are found from Mexico to Costa Rica, with additional disjunct populations in northern South America. The species is migratory in the northern part of its range (northeastern Mexico). Last year, when I noted an influx of individuals into the botanical garden in September, I assumed these were Mexican migrants. According to Howell & Webb (1995), Green-breasted Mango breeds in eastern El Salvador and is a winter visitor in central and western El Salvador (and thus in the greater San Salvador area).

Curious then to find this individual here in early July!

Reference:
Howell, S. N. G. and S. Webb. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK.

A new hybrid hummingbird from Honduras

2011-06-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Our monthly bird monitoring pulse in Monte Uyuca, Honduras, yielded a surprise this week in the form of this hummingbird, an apparent hybrid of Azure-crowned Hummingbird x Berylline Hummingbird. Although hybridization is relatively common in hummingbirds, we believe this to be the first report of this particular combination. We're preparing a short paper documenting this remarkable find.

Roselvy, Lya and I had just started our bird banding Thursday morning and this was the very first bird I pulled out of the nets. Not recognizing the species, I was excited that we captured yet another new hummingbird for the station, after three new hummingbird species last month! A review of the Howell & Webb guide, however, quickly made us realize that none of the species found in the region fit this bird, and that we were holding in our hands either a vagrant or a hybrid.

The second possibility seemed the more obvious, and once we figured that out, it didn't take us long to arrive at the most likely parental candidates.

In this partial side view, the bird looks much like a regular Azure-crowned Hummingbird, a locally abundant species.

Turning the bird a little, however, reveals a heavily spotted throat and breast, where Azure-crowned has more white. The crown is not blue ("azure"), but green. (Go back a few blog posts for shots of a regular Azure-crowned Hummingbird.) Berylline Hummingbird has a green throat and crown.

The tail of this individual is not at all like an Azure-crowned tail, but a lot like a fresh Berylline tail. The purple gloss in the tail of Berylline hummingbird tends to fade to rufous on more worn individuals, usually notable on the outer rectrices especially.

Beautiful tail!

Here's a view of the underside of the bird, showing a mix of characters of Azure-crowned and Berylline Hummingbirds.

Berylline Hummingbird has a large rufous flash in the wings, absent in Azure-crowned. This individual has a weak rufous flash.

This weak rufous flash is also visible on the upperside of the wing.

What a lovely bird!

There's an extensive body of literature on hybridization of hummingbirds, handily summarized here. Intra- and intergeneric hybrids have been described for various Amazilia species, including Berylline, but apparently not Azure-crowned. The latter is common at the study site, Reserva Biológica Monte Uyuca near Tegucigalpa, Honduras, while the former has never been recorded there - at least not by us, during monthly banding pulses that started in January of 2010. Berylline does occur in Honduras, reaching the eastern edge of its range in the area of the study site.

We took photographs and measurements, before we released it back into the wild.

Postscript 2 July 2011:
It seems this hybrid has been reported once before, by a French ornithologist who sorted through the specimen collection of the British Museum, encountered what he thought was this combination, and published his notes. See Jacques Berlioz, 1932, Notes critiques sur quelques Trochilidés du British Museum, Oiseau 2: 530-534. Berlioz describes his find as the probable result of a cross between Azure-crowned and Berylline Hummingbirds, showing a perfect mix between the two parent species. He notes that this individual was collected near Jalapa, the capital of the Mexican state of Veracruz, where both species occur.

Spotted Rail

2011-06-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

Spotted Rail is a large rail from Central America, the Caribbean and parts of South America. Like most rails a highly secretive bird, this species is poorly known and patchily distributed throughout its wide range. Neither NatureServe nor the IUCN mention it for Honduras. Mark Bonta & David Anderson's Birding Honduras: A Checklist and Guide (2002), however, do list it for Honduras as a "possible breeder", citing a 1993 thesis by a UNAH student who encountered the species when she made an inventory of the birds of Lago Yojoa.

Today, Oliver and I were surprised to see this individual in the Tegucigalpa zoo. Apparently, someone had brought it in about a year ago. From what we understood, a woman from Tegucigalpa brought it in, although it was not clear where she had found the bird. At the time, the bird was injured, and the zoo's vet operated on one of the rail's legs. Now, a year later, the bird seemed to be in fine condition, perhaps ready for release back into the wild.

References
Bonta, M. & D. Anderson. 2002. Birding Honduras: A Checklist and Guide. EcoArte, Honduras.
IUCN Red List, downloaded 9 June 2011.
NatureServe: http://www.natureserve.org/infonatura

Cinquera's butterflies

2011-06-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today a couple of butterfly shots from Cinquera, El Salvador, where Roselvy and I went to take a little break from the accident and its tedious aftermath. I did manage to catch the flu the night before we left, so here we are, taking it a little easier still. It's very hot here and the flu has knocked the energy out of me. We've been on a couple of walks in the nearby forest but have not birded or butterflied it quite as thoroughly as we would have liked. We lucked into great and prolonged looks at a Thicket Tinamou walking on the forest floor. This is not a rare bird, but far more often heard than seen.

The butterflies at the top are Guatemalan Kite-swallowtails, common during the rainy season in edge habitat of Central American dry deciduous forests.

Another attractive lep we found yesterday is this Shining-blue Lasaia. Find these and other butterfly photos taken in El Salvador on the Mariposas de El Salvador Facebook page.

Survived accident

2011-05-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

photo taken 30 minutes after the accident

Last Friday, a little after 6 AM, I was driving a pickup truck in Montecristo national park, situated in the mountains of northern El Salvador, at about 2000 m altitude, when I felt the ground under the front right wheel of the car giving way, causing the car to tilt over into a tumble downslope. In the car at that moment were my girlfriend Roselvy, and Luis, a biologist from the ministry of Environmental Affairs. Riding in the back of the pickup were two local boys helping us with bird banding in the cloud forest of Montecristo. We had started banding the day before, and were on our way to open the mist nets for a second day of bird monitoring.

As the car went into a sideways tumble and I lost control of the wheel, I thought "this is it, we are crashing, we're going to die". I don't remember much more, because I lost consciousness. When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying curled up in a ball on the door of the driver's side. Luis had already climbed out of the vehicle, and Roselvy was climbing out. I asked if everyone was OK, switched off the still running engine, grabbed a few belongings, and also climbed out of the vehicle.

luckily, the car did not tumble very far

Once outside, I saw that one of the boys, Mauricio, was stuck under the rear end of the car, and that the other boy was busy removing rocks to create an exit. Roselvy had left in search of help. Luis, still recovering from another accident he was in about a year ago, could not do much, but when the kid digging out his friend asked me to help lift the car, I did so. I felt some pain in my right eye, and wondered if perhaps some broken glass had entered it. Standing between the car above me and a 30 m slope beneath me, on what later turned out to be a little stone wall that broke the car's fall, I was very afraid and very conscious of the fact that the car, once lifted, could very well continue its fall. This did not happen, however, and Mauricio was able to crawl out. There was no blood, and when we pinched his legs, he was able to feel it.

Roselvy went with him and his family to the hospital, while Luis and I waited at the boy's house. It was difficult for me to wait and do nothing, so when I was asked to go to the scene of the accident and wait there for the insurance people to show up, I set off on foot. I then ran into some park rangers who said it would still take at least three hours for the insurance people to get there. (In the end, they never came.) I decided to walk up to the bird monitoring station and take down the nets - about an hour's walk.

Taking down 16 nets took me another hour. As I walked down the mountain carrying the mist nets, at this time in the pouring rain, it was a little after noon when I got back to the scene of the accident. There I found the police, who approached me, saying "we understand you speak Spanish?" "Yes," I said. "And you were the driver?" "Yes." "Well, I want you to know that nobody is pressing any charges against you, and that none of the persons immediately involved in the accident believe it was your fault."

Until that moment, it had not occurred to me that it could have been my fault. Later, I learned that the knee-jerk reaction of the police had been "where is the driver, we need to arrest him". Which is understandable. I guess when they learned more about the particulars of the accident, they abandoned the idea of arresting me. Jaime, the main officer, was friendly, courteous and efficient.

It turned out that none of us - not even Mauricio, who was hurt most - sustained any serious injuries. As I write this, Mauricio is already with his family, after having spent one night in the hospital for observation. This I think is a miracle.

A towing car showed up late afternoon, only to find that the road was too narrow and the wooden bridge too weak to support it. Another solution for towing the car had to be found. Although Roselvy and I were obviously worn out from a very taxing day, SalvaNATURA understandably wanted us to remain on the scene to document the salvage of the vehicle. Around nightfall, the towing company started their operation with tackles attached to trees, and several hours later, the car was retrieved. I noticed only the police had flashlights, while the guys from the towing company were practically working in the dark. I offered them my head lamp, which unfortunately later, when they were done, disappeared. Even the police did not help me get back my head lamp, the only light Roselvy and I had with us.

With the car back on the road, the next obstacle was a lack of oil: all motor oil had leaked out of the engine, leaving the engine inoperable. The towing company offered to go down the mountain and get oil, for $40. Besides a few singles I had only a $50 bill on me, which I reluctantly handed over, thinking I would probably not see it again, nor receive any change, or a receipt. (Which indeed I didn't.)

When they came back with the motor oil, it was well past midnight. Roselvy and I had tried to sleep a little in the salvaged vehicle, but with one smashed window open, a constant cloud of mosquitoes made that impossible. Inside there was still broken glass everywhere, and we no longer had any light.

The motor oil was put in. We now found the car wouldn't start because the battery was practically empty. I should have taken the car keys out when I switched the engine off, directly after the accident, but somehow I failed to do that. With the keys in the ignition, the automatic door lock had sapped nearly all the battery's juice.

Now, in such cases I would use a jumper cable and start the car off the battery of another car. Frankly, I was a bit surprised that they did not do that, but instead went down again to get another battery. I assume it was because they didn't have a jumper cable, odd as that may sound for a towing company.

All this added a couple more hours to what was now a very long day indeed for Roselvy and myself - nearly 22 hours awake. Eventually, the car started, and we were finally free to leave the site, at 3 AM. We then had to walk 20 minutes to our cabin - no-one was willing or able to take us there.

Yesterday, Roselvy and I went to Santa Ana, where the car was held in storage. An insurance worker took us over to the site, and had us fill out paper work, while he took pictures of the vehicle.

Oscar the insurance guy taking pictures of the vehicle

Tomorrow, we're going back there to retrieve the vehicle. Although more or less operational, it will be transported back to San Salvador. We don't know exactly the full extent of the damage yet, and driving a damaged car can be dangerous.

In the days since the accident, there has been some discussion about safety of the road up to the cloud forest. This road is closed to the general public, and basically open only to biologists from SalvaNATURA, i.e. us, and a family that lives further up the mountain. Tourists are allowed to walk, but not drive that road.

accident scene; note stone wall on left that broke our fall

I think some of the pictures speak for themselves, as far as safety of that road is concerned. The police told us Friday night they almost slipped off the road themselves there. An inspection of the wooden bridge right next to where the accident occurred, revealed serious deferred maintenance issues. This bridge is supported by rocks, but the water has dragged rocks away in places, leaving support unstable.

It seems likely that the days of SalvaNATURA's bird monitoring program up in the cloud forest at Montecristo are over, at least for the time being. Next month we will probably only do bird monitoring in the pine-oak forest section of the park, where the other bird banding station is located and the roads are safe. Still, we think that maintenance of the cloud forest road is necessary, because it is the only access road to the higher parts. What if something happens to a local or a tourist and they need help or rapid transportation to parts below?

Hummingbirds in Monte Uyuca

2011-05-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

Azure-crowned Hummingbird

After two months of hawk counting on Sandy Hook, NJ, I'm back in Central America, really now my home away from home. I was very happy, obviously, to be reunited with my girlfriend Roselvy, and also to see my good friend Oliver again. They picked me up from the airport in Tegucigalpa Wednesday around noon, and a couple of hours later Roselvy and I were already putting up mist nets in Reserva Biológica Monte Uyuca, not far from Tegucigalpa. This is a biological reserve where we have banded together many times before since Roselvy set up the banding station here in January 2010. Since then, we've carried out monthly banding pulses consisting of 400 net hours each month, most of which I have worked on as a volunteer bird bander.

The station is located in pine-oak forest with a well-developed shrub layer, and is home to many hummingbirds. Five species are found here more or less year-round, although their numbers fluctuate seasonally, in some cases dramatically so.

In May of 2010, we caught more birds (the majority hummingbirds) than in any other month of that year, and we were of curious to see if this surge would repeat itself in 2011. The previous record number of captures during one banding pulse there stood at 202 birds, caught in May 2010.

This May, we caught 217 birds - no fewer than 156 of them hummingbirds!

Besides the expected species, we caught three new hummingbird species for the station!

Many Central American hummingbirds are considered non-migratory, resident species. However, a lot of these resident species opportunistically undertake small-scale movements in search of flowers, which may be locally available at different altitudes during the year. Local altitudinal migration may account for the seasonal patterns we've found for various hummingbirds at Uyuca (Juárez & Komar, 2011).

Azure-crowned Hummingbird

In Uyuca, no species exhibits this seasonal variation more than Azure-crowned Hummingbird. We typically catch a handful of this species throughout the year, but their numbers increase in April and then explode in May. This week, we had 93 captures of this species, with only a few recaptures. We suspect that during the rest of the year, these birds are found a few hundred meters downslope, when the shrubs there are in flower. An afternoon walk in that area, just outside the reserve, seemed to support our conjecture, for we found few hummingbirds and few flowers where both can be very common at other times of the year.

hummingbird's eye view of Palicourea padifolia

Right now, a shrub with yellow flowers (Palicourea padifolia) is blooming abundantly in the area where the net lanes are situated. This plant depends on hummingbirds for its pollination, and provides food for many hummingbirds. It is found in middle-elevation cloud forests from southern Mexico to Panama (Taylor 1989).

Azure-crowned Hummingbird probably breeds in modest numbers right where the banding station is located, but moves into that area - possibly from downslope - in larger numbers a few months after the breeding season. Many adults we caught were either molting or had just finished their prebasic molt. This molt usually takes place after breeding.

White-eared Hummingbird

Another species that shows the same pattern, albeit less pronounced, is White-eared Hummingbird, also a pine-oak specialist. This pulse we caught 37, against only a few during each month the rest of the year.

immature female Green-breasted Mountain-gem

The Green-breasted Mountain-gem shows a different pattern. This species is a common breeder at the bird monitoring station, and we typically catch most of them right after the breeding season, in January and February, when their numbers are augmented with recently fledged individuals. They are present in good numbers most of the year, with a dip in July and August (Juárez & Komar 2011). Possibly this species does something similar to what the Azure-crowned and White-eared Hummingbirds do: it may visit their principal breeding area further downslope in the middle of the rainy season, when flowers in that drier part of the mountain are abundant. Obviously, this is all still speculation at this point, and could be an excellent topic for further study.

The other two species that we catch most banding pulses but do not seem to show any distinct seasonal variation are Magnificent Hummingbird and Green Violetear. While we did catch a violetear, we didn't have the mag this time.

That said, no fewer than three new hummingbird species for the station were found this banding pulse! After more than 6,000 net hours since January 2010, I'd say that is quite remarkable.

adult male Slender Sheartail

One of them was this stunning Slender Sheartail, a species found in southeastern Mexico (Chiapas), Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. In Uyuca, we are at the southeastern edge of its range.

adult male Slender Sheartail

Holding this bird in the hand was a first for me.

adult male Blue-tailed Hummingbird

Another was this equally gorgeous Blue-tailed Hummingbird, found in southern Chiapas and in the three countries around the Gulf of Fonseca: eastern El Salvador, southern Honduras and western Nicaragua. This species is usually found at lower elevations, and was certainly a surprise at Monte Uyuca, located between 1600 and 1700 masl.

adult male Blue-tailed Hummingbird

This bird also was in fresh plumage.

Cinnamon Hummingbird

Also more a lowland species - very common even in disturbed habitats like major cities - is Cinnamon Hummingbird. We had never caught this species before in Uyuca, but this pulse caught no fewer than three individuals. The above individual is molting its primaries.

Thanks to José Linares for help with the identification of Palicourea padifolia.

Cited literature:
Juárez, R. & Komar, O. 2011. Monitoreo Permanente de Aves en Reserva Biológica Monte Uyuca, Honduras, durante 2010, primer informe anual. SalvaNATURA, Zamorano, ICF.
Taylor CM. 1989. Revision of Palicourea (Rubiaceae) in Mexico and Central America. Systematic Botanical Monographs 26: 1–102.

More gullage

2011-05-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

Almost two months ago, when I had just started the migration watch on Sandy Hook, NJ, I wrote a little bit about the gull flock on the False Hook ("Gullage"), which at that point had grown to 1000+ individuals. Now, having just finished the count on Sandy Hook, I can look back on a pretty good gull flight this spring, which at the end gets the more interesting species. I missed out on Black-headed Gull this year, but where I'm from that is by far the most common gull, so no great loss for me. Did get Little Gull, lots of Bonaparte's Gulls, and throughout the count several individuals of both 'white-winged' species, Iceland and Glaucous. And of course there was that hybrid gull, Herring x Glaucous.

I want to share some images of an Iceland Gull I photographed last week, some Little Gull shots also, and some images of what I think is probably an aberrant American Herring Gull, but may be something more exciting?

Here's that first-cycle Iceland, in with Herrings and Great Black-backeds. Incidentally, what is the bird on the right? Is that just a bleached first cycle Herring Gull? Or something else? Shame I didn't get the entire bill on that bird, but I was going for the Iceland.

An open-wing shot reveals a tail band stronger than on most immature Kumlien's Icelands, but still within the wide range of variation.

Little Gull is rare but regular in northeastern New Jersey, and the bird found by Tom Boyle last week - I stood next to him when he called it out - stuck around for at least a few days. Saturday, it was joined by a second, more heavily marked individual.

The Little Gull below is less heavily marked, but still separable from the slightly larger Bonaparte's Gull next to it by its shorter legs, more pronounced carpal bar, dark tertials, and zig-zag pattern on the folded primaries.

Also on the False Hook Saturday was this oddball. What is this? At first, you might think Glaucous Gull: a fairly large white-headed gull with white wingtips. But the outer primaries have too much white in them.

The bill has unusual patterning, with a dark line along the edge of the maxilla and mandible.

Take a look at a few open-wing shots. This was the best I could do under poor lighting conditions, in the company of birders that I didn't want to deprive of great birding to be had on the False Hook right then (drake King Eider sitting on the beach, two Little Gulls around, immature Lesser Black-backed Gull, etc). Had I walked up to the bird, I probably would have scattered it and everything else that was there.

I think these open-wing shots show most clearly that this is not one of the more regular 'white-winged' gulls (Glaucous or Iceland).

Note the dark tail band, expected on a third cycle Herring Gull, not on a third cycle Glaucous.

Finally a shot of the bird next to a normal third cycle American Herring Gull. In this shot, there's a subtle yet appreciable difference in mantle color between the 'white-winged' and the normal Herring Gull. The mantle color may be good for Glaucous, but there's other disqualifying marks. So… what is this bird? I don't have access to the Howell & Dunn gull book, so I can't delve any deeper than my admittedly limited knowledge of large white-headed gulls permits. If anyone wants to shine their light on this one, comments always welcome!

On a different note, I want to thank all you Jersey / NYC metro area birders who came to the platform this spring and made my time there more enjoyable. I had a great time, and you made it worth it.

Piping Plover predation attempt?

2011-05-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Piping Plovers eyeballing Red-winged Blackbirds sitting on their predator exclosure

Today I witnessed what seemed like an (unsuccessful) predation attempt on a Piping Plover nest by three Red-winged Blackbirds at Sandy Hook's North Beach. As it was happening in front of my eyes, I tried to grab some video of it.

Just prior to this, I had been observing shorebirds feeding on the sand spit at the 'False Hook'. Nearby, I noticed three adult male Red-winged Blackbirds scavenging the flood line for sand flies, but didn't pay them any further attention.

That is, until I saw them land on one of the Piping Plover predator exclosures and even go inside! The nest owners started calling and tried to scare off the blackbirds with threatening postures and wing spreading. Some of this can be seen in the video (although, regrettably, very little of it remains visible after down-sizing it for online posting). The plovers did not feign injury, as they will do when faced with bigger predators, but simply stood their ground and defended their nest. The blackbirds quickly gave up and left. One of the plovers resumed incubation while the other stood nearby.

Piping Plover incubating inside predator exclosure

The Piping Plover is a federally endangered beach-nesting shorebird, increasingly dependent on management. Conservation efforts toward Piping Plover populations include predator exclosures, sometimes electrified as the ones used on Sandy Hook. A recent paper in Avian Conservation and Ecology reports that predator exclosures enhance reproductive success but increase adult mortality of Piping Plovers (Barber et al. 2010). The exclosure is meant to keep out foxes, gulls and other predators.

The Red-winged Blackbird, one of North America's best studied birds, is primarily granivorous, although animal matter (insects) take up a major percentage of its food intake during the breeding season. It is not known to predate on eggs of other birds, and perhaps what I witnessed was nothing more than three blackbirds being curious about a Piping Plover predator exclosure. I was astounded, however, to see one of them go inside, as I'm sure the plovers were too!

Cited literature:
Barber, C., A. Nowak, K. Tulk, and L. Thomas (2010) Predator exclosures enhance reproductive success but increase adult mortality of Piping Plovers (Charadrius melodus). Avian Conservation and Ecology 5 (2): 6.

Spring season nearing its end

2011-05-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

juvenile Bald Eagle

The Sandy Hook Migration Watch began its last week of the spring 2011 season today, with a sum total of zero raptors. Clear skies and calm weather this late in the season usually translate into minimal raptor migration; only a weather event (i.e. a front passage) may trigger some concentrated movement at this point in time.

Looking at the weather forecast for the rest of the week, a major hawk flight seems rather unlikely, and a surprise appearance in the form of a kite is really the best that can be hoped for.

It's not too premature then to look at the Sandy Hook spring 2011 season and see how it measures up against previous years.

Some species did exceptionally well, like Bald Eagle and American Kestrel. Other species, like Northern Harrier, Red-tailed Hawk and (especially) Cooper's Hawk had lower than average numbers this year.

Bald Eagle numbers are increasing everywhere, so no surprises there. But high numbers for a regionally decreasing species (American Kestrel) and low numbers for an increasing species (Cooper's Hawk) highlight the fact that isolated count results from just one year and just one site are of limited value. Weather is always a key factor that determines how many migrants are seen at a monitoring site, and some years the migration of certain species happens to be more coastal, while in other years inland routes are chosen. Or, on light winds or tail winds, the flight can be extremely high and over a broad front, beyond the vision of the observer on the ground. All these things are into play, and produce annual fluctuations.

With longer data sets, however, population trends become measurable. See HMANA's* Raptor Population Index program for an analysis of such trends.

* HMANA = Hawk Migration Association of North America

How I got into birding

2011-05-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

This beautiful, almost full breeding plumage drake King Eider was found on the beach at the 'false hook' on Sandy Hook today. When word reached me about this bird on the hawk platform, I didn't have to think long about packing up my stuff and going out there. As I reached the end of Fisherman's Trail, the sight of a group of birders with their scopes all pointed in the same direction was a hopeful sign and sure enough, there it was. This is likely the same bird that was found more than a week ago in Horseshoe Cove, elsewhere on the Hook.

King Eider is probably a little less rare here than it is in western Europe, but when I started birding, King Eider was the first true rarity that I saw. I must have been 14 or 15 years old. For a long time, it remained for me the emblematic rare bird, an arctic visitor so beautiful it looked out of place in the industrialized Dutch seaport's harbor of IJmuiden. Since that memorable first bird - also a drake in near-breeding plumage - I have seen a few others, in duller plumages.

Eventually, a juvenile Bald Eagle spooked it; the King Eider flew off toward the ocean, and for all we know may now finally be on its way to the high arctic.

An unusual Blackpoll Warbler

2011-04-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I photographed this unusual adult male Blackpoll Warbler in the beach plum behind the north observation deck on Sandy Hook.

It was unusually early, for Blackpolls are normally among the last of the warblers to come through, although not unheard of early.

Assuming this is an adult male (based on its overall color, the strong malar stripe and the unstreaked black cap), it is unusual to show a white eye arc and a white supraloral. None of the guides I consulted mention the possibility of males showing these characters, and I had certainly never seen it before. These are characters more often associated with females of the species.

The throat and malar area look normal for the species. Male Blackpolls often have a few black feathers on the chin, as does this bird.

Here is the bird from another angle. I don't see anything unusual here either.

The bird was by itself and did not vocalize. It foraged quietly for insects in the beach plum.

Does this bird show a mix of mostly male and some female characters? Or is it a hybrid with another species? Or do male Blackpolls sometimes show eye arcs and a white supraloral?

Postscript:
Having thought about this a little more, it seems likely that this bird was not quite finished with its prealternate molt. In basic plumage it has that eye arc and the supraloral. Most wood-warblers have a prealternate molt early spring, as I'm sure does the Blackpoll.

Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow

2011-04-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow

Yesterday evening, while birding the Boy Scouts Area on Sandy Hook, I found this 'Gambel's' White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii. This subspecies breeds on the northern tier from Alaska to Hudson Bay, and winters south through central Mexico, generally rarer eastward (Chilton et al. 1995).

It differs from the here on the Atlantic coast more expected nominate subspecies in having white/gray lores (black in leucophrys), an orange bill (pink in leucophrys), and a dull brown and olive back (ruddy brown and gray in leucophrys).

Here's a (crappy) photo of the nominate subspecies, in which some of these differences can be appreciated. I took this photo in dense fog on the 13th of April, 2011, here on Sandy Hook.

nominate 'leucophrys' White-crowned Sparrow

Compare this to the gambelii subspecies I photographed on Sandy Hook yesterday:

Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow

Since the gambelii subspecies does winter in very small numbers on the East Coast, it's impossible to infer where this bird spent the winter. It could be a western stray, but it could just as well have wintered among nominate conspecifics here in the East.

A detailed study of White-crowned Sparrow subspecies identification, highlighting the complexity of the issue, can be found on David Sibley's blog.

Cited literature:
Chilton, G., M. C. Baker, C. D. Barrentine and M. A. Cunningham. 1995. White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/183
Sibley, D. (2010) White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys. Blog entry on separation of White-crowned Sparrow subspecies, Sibleyguides.com.

Impressive morning songbird flight

2011-04-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Hot on the heels of a strong falcon flight last Wednesday, today's push of warm Easter weather brought another slew of migrants to Sandy Hook. I had a feeling it could be good, so I went to the observation deck at 7 AM - well before the normal start of the count.

I was glad I did, for those first few hours I saw many, many hundreds of birds fly past the platform. Three species made up the majority of the flight: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, White-throated Sparrow, and Yellow-rumped Warbler. Gnatcatchers were particularly numerous - far too many to count: I estimated between 500 and 1,000 flew past the platform those first few hours. Many landed in the tree directly behind the platform, some even on the observation deck itself. They were a constant stream, all heading NNW.

White-throated Sparrow

Hundreds of Yellow-rumped Warblers flew by, as did hundreds of White-throated Sparrow. (After the count, during a little 'fun birding' I found several large groups of them scratching through the leaves, with a few White-crowned Sparrows mixed in.)

adult male White-breasted Nuthatch

Nuthatch migration was again evident, with 28 White-breasted and 3 Red-breasted Nuthatches flying past the count site.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Birders that came up to the platform later all had happy smiles on their faces, as they listed all the first arrivals they had found that morning. Besides Yellow-rumped and Palm, I had Ovenbird, Blue-winged Warbler and Black-and-white Warbler, all near the observation deck. Others had found Nashville, Black-throated Green, and Prairie Warblers, as well as Summer Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak and many other migrants.

Will all those birds be here again tomorrow? A locally well-known birder often says that "the first thing birds want to do when they get on the Hook, is leave". And, with the exception perhaps of some hawks, this has also been my impression. Often they're here today, gone tomorrow.

It looks like the next big wave of migrants can already be expected Tuesday.

Epic falcon flight

2011-04-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

adult male Merlin

This afternoon I witnessed a falcon flight of truly epic proportions, one that has not been seen on Sandy Hook within the last eight years, and perhaps never before. The spring hawk watch at Sandy Hook has been going for decades, but hawkcount.org only has data starting 2004 for the Hook, so that's the dataset I'm looking at. There was an exceptional kestrel flight on April 12, 2009, when a staggering 226 American Kestrels were logged as migrants.

Today's count, however, blew that number out of the water: 282 American Kestrels passed Sandy Hook in a matter of hours! At just slightly past the midway point of the season, this is already by far the best season on (recent) record for American Kestrel, with 664 logged so far... and counting!

As expected, Merlin did great too, with 78 individuals counted as migrants. The bird in the photo above landed in the Locust Grove just east of the hawk platform for a photo during the last hour of the count.

Also expected - at least by me - was a Swallow-tailed Kite that made a brief appearance around 4:30 EDT. When yesterday I saw how the weather forecast was shaping up for today, I knew I would have more than a passing shot at getting it. I started the count late, for the Hook was fogged in all morning, but as soon as the fog broke, there were raptors flying. When the flight reached a certain level of intensity, I figured there had to be a Swallow-tailed Kite in there... I spotted the bird lazily circling between the Lighthouse and the Officer's Building, seemingly not in a hurry to go anywhere. However, shortly after it turned around and went back south.

Spring migration of White-breasted Nuthatch

2011-04-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

adult female White-breasted Nuthatch

The familiar White-breasted Nuthatch is generally a resident species, with only some northern and western populations undertaking some migratory movements in some years (Grubb & Pravosudov 2008). On Sandy Hook, I've been told by many local birders many times over, the Red-breasted Nuthatch is usually easier to find, and some consider White-breasted Nuthatch "actually a reasonably good bird to get on the Hook". But where I do most of my Sandy Hook birding, i.e. on the northern tip, I always see more White-breasted than Red-breasted Nuthatches. Usually not more than one or two, though, and certainly not every day.

Today, however, migrant "WB Nuts" were everywhere, and I tallied a total of 30 individuals flying past the platform, all headed to the very northwestern tip of the Hook. Several landed in the tree behind the observation deck, and one even landed briefly on the deck's information panel. The majority were tree-hopping. Others were higher, a few even at a considerable height. What would they do once they hit the northwestern tip and see all that water, I wondered? Would they turn around, like raptors often do? Or would they gain more altitude and just go for it? I never saw them come back, so I assumed most of them were actually making the crossing.

For such a familiar species, surprisingly little still is known about the White-breasted Nuthatch, particularly regarding seasonal distribution patterns. Irruptive fall movements have been noted; for example, nearly 300 individuals were tallied during the fall of 1968 at the Bake Oven Knob hawk watch in Pennsylvania - against only 53 in all previous fall seasons of 1961-1967 combined (Heintzelman and MacClay 1971, cited in Grubb & Pravosudov 2008).

Summarizing this and other largely anecdotal accounts - all from fall seasons - Grubb & Pravodusov (2008) theorize that these movements possibly consist of juveniles, which they feel would explain why there is "little evidence of a return spring migration in this species".

Ron Pittaway's Winter Finch Forecast 2010-2011 mentions the Red-breasted Nuthatch's latest irruption, which was well underway by late summer 2010, but doesn't talk about the WB Nut.

eBird's monthly maps do not reveal a spring migratory pattern either.

Several birders who came up the platform today mentioned they had found multiple WB Nuts while birding the Hook for morning songbirds. So it wasn't like the same three birds were flying circles around the hawk platform, there was actual movement, noted by multiple observers. Detected movement was strongest during the first two hours of the count (between 8 and 10 EDT) but went on until late morning, early afternoon.

So where did today's birds come from? And where are they going?

Cited literature:
Grubb, Jr., T. C. and V. V. Pravosudov. 2008. White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/054
Pittaway, R. (2010) "Ron Pittaway's Winter Finch Forecast 2010-2011", published on eBird's web site

White-winged Gulls

2011-04-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

Glaucous Gull

Following up on the previous post, that same gull flock from which I pulled a putative "Nelson's Gull" last Wednesday today had both white-winged species, Glaucous and Iceland Gull. The two Glaucous and one Iceland I saw all seemed 'pure' individuals; the hybrid "Nelson's Gull" was not relocated.

Glaucous Gull with Herring Gulls

For that matter, neither were the two Lesser Black-backed Gulls I found in that same flock on Wednesday. I suspect this flock has a huge turnover, and virtually anything could show up here. It comprises mostly Herring Gulls (70%, I estimated), with Great Black-backed and Ring-billed Gulls present in smaller numbers. I tried counting the flock on the east side of the False Hook, and came up with 1,400. Several hundreds more were situated on the western side of the False Hook, but by the time I got there, substantial reshuffling had taken place and an additional count seemed futile.

Glaucous Gull, with Manhattan and Coney Island in the background

All too often, I hear birders dismiss the gulls as "too difficult". There is of course a bewildering variation among immature Herring Gulls, which some find intimidating and others a huge turn-on. But the two 'white-winged' species, Glaucous and Iceland, stand out and are easily found in a gull flock.

Iceland Gull, not exactly hard to spot in this flock

This flock may well have other species less easy to pick out. The weather forecast for tomorrow is strong on-shore winds, so the best birding on Sandy Hook tomorrow will likely not be provided by the raptors, but by the gulls.

Nelson's Gull

2011-04-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today, Sandy Hook was shrouded in dense fog, which gave me a day off from hawk counting and provided me with an opportunity to scour the Hook in the mist for birds. The northern tip of the Hook is never so wildly beautiful and mysterious (and devoid of people) as in dense fog.

At the very tip (the "False Hook") I found this unusual-looking gull. At first I thought it was a Glaucous Gull, but I quickly realized the wingtips were too dark for that species. Somehow the bird seemed too light to be a Herring Gull. Not knowing what I was looking at, I decided to try for some photos.

I now believe it to be a first cycle 'Nelson's Gull', i.e. a hybrid between Glaucous Gull and American Herring Gull. It shows a mix of characters from both species, and Howell & Dunn's authoritative Gulls of the Americas (2007) lists that combination under the header "widespread hybrids". Confirmed interbreeding occurs in the Mackenzie Delta, Northern Territories, Canada (Howell & Dunn 2007), a potential source for this individual.

I also considered first cycle Slaty-backed Gull and first cycle Thayer's Gull, but Glaucous Gull x American Herring Gull seems a better fit. Especially the crisply bicolored 'Glaucous type' bill does not fit first cycle birds of either species, but is good for 'Nelson's Gull'. There's other disqualifying field marks. I do confess I am not a larophile, so I welcome discussion of the finer ID points from the initiated.

Cited literature:
Howell, Steve N.G. & Dunn, Jon (2007) Gulls of the Americas. Peterson Reference Series, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York.

First wave of warblers

2011-04-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

Palm Warbler

The first wave of warbler migration has reached Sandy Hook: yesterday there were tens if not hundreds of Palm Warblers throughout the Hook, with some Pine Warblers here and there. Another warbler - Common Yellowthroat - was heard singing from across North Pond both Sunday and Monday mornings, but on Tuesday appeared to have moved on. I found two American Bitterns in its place. Myrtle (Yellow-rumped) Warblers have been around a bit longer, in fluctuating numbers. We haven't really had a big wave of them yet.

adult female Pine Warbler

Orange-crowned Warbler and Black-and-white Warbler have also been reported, and very soon warbler variety will pick up even more, as the other species cannot be far behind now. Possibly the next warm front will bring them to Sandy Hook.

Right now, the Hook is dripping with Slate-colored Juncos, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Palm Warblers, Hermit Thrushes, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Savannah Sparrows, Chipping Sparrows, and Song Sparrows. All these birds are here in good numbers at the moment, and are easily seen.

Great kestrel flight

2011-04-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

The second warm front in a fairly short time brought a second wave of American Kestrels passing Sandy Hook yesterday. On the 6th I had 67 kestrels; yesterday I got to 155. This is a respectable number, but by no means a record, for 2009 had 226 and 2008 had 179 for single day counts at Sandy Hook. Most recent years, however, the peak flight of the American Kestrel here has been double, not triple digits. This species is in decline throughout the Northeast, even though largely sedentary urban populations seem to be doing fine.

Like other falcons, American Kestrels are often midday or afternoon flyers, and indeed the majority of these birds passed in the afternoon.

Good early April hawk flight

2011-04-06T17:50:00.000-07:00

A pretty good early April hawk flight was seen at Sandy Hook today, with good overall variety and a particular strong showing of American Kestrel. Several Red-shouldered Hawks, including at least two adults (one of which is pictured above), were noted, although none were seen leaving the Hook. That's good news for those of my readers who want to see Red-shouldered Hawks but weren't able to make it to Sandy Hook today.

The falcons of course did not linger. Most of the falcon flight was made up of American Kestrels, but there were a few Merlins also and even a Peregrine Falcon.

Last year, the peak flight of American Kestrel occurred on April 6, back then with 85. Today, exactly a year later, I got to 67 kestrels. Last year, I had a small wave of first migrant Merlins also around this time, with 13 on the 6th, 8 on the 7th and 21 on the 8th. That was 42 Merlins in three days - a wave that, curiously, no other hawk watch recorded. This year, I had 13 Merlins on the 4th, none during the 2 hours of counting on the 5th, and then today just 3. It will be interesting to see if this wave of kestrels is followed by a smaller wave of Merlins in the days ahead…

Browse last year's Merlin posts here.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

2011-04-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

I got up a little earlier than usual this morning, to help bird bander Tom Brown with some Northern Saw-whet Owl banding here on Sandy Hook. Tom has been banding songbirds on the Hook and elsewhere in the metropolitan area for years, and last fall started banding at night here on Sandy Hook with an audio lure for saw-whets. He caught more than he expected back then, and this spring is trying again for saw-whets. The individual shown above was his third this spring. We aged it as a second year bird, so born last year.

We wondered if severe winter weather was responsible for the contrast between the fall and spring numbers of saw-whets.

Sandy Hook March: the count so far

2011-03-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

Non-birders visiting a hawk watch usually ask the hawk counter "how do you know you're not counting the same birds?" It's a great and absolutely valid question, nowhere more so than at a peninsular site like Sandy Hook. Yesterday, on light, variable winds, many raptors got up very high in thermals and left the Hook in northerly direction, headed either north for Brooklyn's Coney Island (10 km) or northwest for Staten Island (12 km). Sometimes - but not yesterday - birds will cross northeast toward Breezy Point in Brooklyn (9 km).

But I've only seen them leave the Hook that way a couple of days this season. A much more common scenario is for birds to fly up to the northern tip of the Hook, see water, and turn around. They really need thermals and light tail winds or light head winds to make the jump over New York Bay.

I do count these birds that fly up and turn around, because they are migrants after all, even though I know that many of them will try multiple times. Some individuals can be recognized by a missing flight feather or a specific plumage, while others may be counted double that way.

Birders visiting the hawk watch usually ask me "how is the season so far?"

With the last day of March a rainy day here (no count), let's take a look at the numbers so far. Bear in mind this possibility of double counts, but consider this a constant effect from year to year.

This March I counted 379 raptors, representing 13 species. Best bird no doubt was an adult Northern Goshawk on the 18th of March, the second day of the count. The season so far has been reasonably good for Osprey (23), Bald Eagle (4), Sharp-shinned Hawk (65), American Kestrel (22), and Merlin (4). Buteos did not do so well in March.

I graphed out the seasonal March totals for Sandy Hook:

Parts of March were rainy, and 5 days of the count were missed so far due to rain. Looking at number of raptors per hour, March 2011 wasn't so bad - third best of the last eight:

Source: www.hawkcount.org

Bald Eagles

2011-03-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

This morning, a subadult (4 year old) Bald Eagle was sitting in the tallest tree on Sandy Hook, somewhere between Officer's Row and the Coast Guard Station. While it was feeding on a fish it had caught, it was mobbed by Fish Crows, Herring Gulls and an Osprey.

The eagle was clearly too close to the Osprey's nest on a nearby chimney.

The Osprey persuaded the eagle to leave the area. It flew south, and I decided not to add it to the count. It was probably a 'local' eagle from one of the nearby rivers. Eagle movements over the Hook tend to be irregular and nondirectional: some will be migrants, some will be local birds wandering.

This juvenile Bald Eagle was probably a migrant, although it didn't exactly fly over in a straight line either. In fact, it harassed that same Osprey, which was flying toward its nest with a fish. The Osprey dropped the fish and went after the eagle. The eagle flew up to the tip of the Hook, turned around, and later tried a second time. Sometimes, young Bald Eagles show some fear of water.

This Osprey will likely have more raptors flying over its nest this spring.

Gullage

2011-03-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Nasty weather apparently brought large numbers of gulls to Sandy Hook, for today there were an estimated 1,200 gulls on the North Beach where until recently only two to three hundred could be found.

As their numbers increase, so does one's chance of finding gulls that aren't Herring, Great Black-backed or Ring-billed. Tuesday I found an adult (Kumlien's) Iceland Gull in the flock. Today I found both white-winged species and a Lesser Black-backed Gull.

One of today's photos has two of those additional species in it; the other photo has the other species. I'll leave it up to you to sort through the gullage and find them.

Piping Plover courtship display

2011-03-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

Snow, sleet and rain kept me indoors most of the day, although I did venture out on the beach at Sandy Hook this morning for a quick look to see what's doing.

At the end of Fisherman's Trail on North Beach, three Piping Plovers were engaged in courtship display. I saw a male doing an aerial display, which involves a circular flight with sometimes slow, exaggerated wing beats and much calling.

That male landed not 10 meters in front of me, where a female was standing. The other male, which had also been calling and flying around, left. The remaining male continued his courtship display.

The next step, after aerial display, is the so-called nest-scraping display, in which the male leans forward, pushes his breast into the sand and shakes around a bit, thus creating a small depression in the sand. Listen for his calls as he does this, the calls are part of the display. First we see him remove small pebbles and shell fragments from that area. He'll create several nesting depressions in his territory, one of which may be chosen by the female as the eventual nest site.

Next, he will do a tilt display: he'll bend over, opens his wings a little and spreads his tail; the female crouches under his spread tail. I saw this behavior a couple of times.

The next step in the display is a hilarious, pre-copulatory goose-step that the male performs. He'll walk up on crouched legs toward the female, then completely changes his posture to standing very erect, showing off his breast band. In this position, he'll start tapping his legs.

Apparently, this can go on for several minutes and is usually followed by copulation (Elliott-Smith & Haig, 2004), although I did not see any copulation this morning. In this fragment, she just walks off, and he goes back to removing bits of shell and pebble.

I was delighted to observe this elaborate courtship behavior today, and felt lucky to capture some of it on video. The clips shown here are small fragments of longer, much higher-quality footage and were drastically down-sized for web viewing.

Still better of course is to go out and see this for yourself. Now is really the time to come to the Hook and look for them. These shenanigans will likely be going on for the next couple of weeks or so. Once they have eggs, they will be less conspicuous. Just remember to be mindful of the birds, don't disturb them, and respect the boundaries of the marked-off areas on the beach. The Piping Plover's IUCN status is Near Threatened, with an estimated global population of about 6,000 individuals.

Cited literature:
Elliott-Smith, Elise and Susan M. Haig. 2004. Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/002

Piping Plover

2011-03-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sandy Hook's flagship bird: the Piping Plover!

Numbers on the Hook are building and soon the first nests of the season will be found. Now is really the time to go look for them, when the males whistle their melodious calls and charge with puffed up feathers at competitors.

Light migration

2011-03-20T15:37:00.000-07:00

Today I saw something you don't see very often on Sandy Hook: raptors getting up in thermals and crossing New York Bay toward Coney Island in Brooklyn. Many times, hawks and vultures will come up to the tip of the Hook, see water and turn around. Local conventional wisdom holds that northeast winds are worst for hawk migration over the Hook, but given sunshine and the resulting thermals, light NE winds apparently enable raptors to get a bit of lift from light head winds, just enough to make the crossing.

The Osprey pictured above did that, as did several Turkey Vultures and a couple of immature Red-shouldered Hawks. These birds got high enough and did not come back.

The weather forecast for the rest of the week looks bleak: rain and snow, and unfavorable winds. The next warm front seems to be more than a week away; when it gets here, it should bring a batch of new arrivals in.

Back on the Hook

2011-03-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

Today I started the migration watch on Sandy Hook (New Jersey), which runs between mid-March and mid-May. Sunny skies and light westerly winds made for pleasant hawk watching, even though the numbers at point in the season remain modest. Turkey Vulture was the most numerous migrant (26), followed by Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks (5 of each), Northern Harrier (4), Red-shouldered Hawk (3) and Red-tailed Hawk (1).

This immature Red-shouldered Hawk came in low for a few shots.

An early migrant this species, most of the adults will likely have passed already.

Wintering warblers

2011-03-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

first winter female Magnolia Warbler

Yesterday morning, Oliver, Roselvy and I went out again to bird Zamorano University campus, like we did the week before. This time we explored a couple of new spots and 'ticked off' now expected species at routine spots. Thus, we got to 101 species by 10:30 AM already. A number of birds were new, obviously, and there were also a few obvious misses (like Common Tody-Flycatcher, for example).

We did especially well on warblers. Some are common winter visitors here, like Magnolia Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Waterthrush and American Redstart. Others appear to be scarcer in the Yegüare Valley, where Zamorano is located, like MacGillivray's Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat, Ovenbird, Lousiana Waterthrush, Black-and-white Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, and Tennessee Warbler (these last three more common in the surrounding pine-oak forests). Gray-crowned Yellowthroat is resident here.

New birds on our campus list included Bare-throated Tiger-heron; Green Heron; Blue-winged Teal; Crested Bobwhite; Belted, Amazon and Green Kingfishers; Tropical Pewee; Blue-headed Vireo; Masked Tityra; Grasshopper Sparrow; and a few of the warblers mentioned above.

Birding Zamorano campus

2011-02-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

male Barred Antshrike

It all started rather innocently, with just a walk around campus for a little birding. We did not bring any water, because we didn't think we would go very far. Five hours later, we were up to almost a hundred species, and were so fired up, that we went out a second time around dusk in search of a few more to get to 100, just for kicks.

Oliver, Roselvy and I went birding today on Zamorano University's campus in central Honduras, where Oliver recently started as a professor.

Zamorano is an agricultural school, not really a birding place per se. Nevertheless, it's got a lot of open space, some orchards and some ponds here and there. A decent number of birds can be found, including residents like Ruddy Crake, Crested Caracara, Nutting's Flycatcher, Yellow-billed Cacique, Grey-crowned Yellowthroat, Blue-tailed Hummingbird, Striped Cuckoo, Anhinga, Least Grebe, Common Tody-Flycatcher, Rufous-browed Peppershrike, Spot-breasted and Streak-backed Orioles, and Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. Also here are winter visitors like Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Solitary Sandpiper, Baltimore and Orchard Orioles, Magnolia and Yellow Warblers, Common Yellowthroat, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Least Flycatcher, Painted Bunting, Indigo Bunting, Dickcissel and Merlin.

We got a pair of Barred Antshrikes coming in on a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl imitation. Going out around dusk we added Tropical Mockingbird and Common Pauraque, but left us still two species shy of that magic number, one hundred.

Black-throated Blue Warbler on the wintering grounds

2011-02-22T07:55:00.000-08:00

Last week I assisted Roselvy and Lya with bird banding in Montecristo national park, in El Salvador, where we caught this female Black-throated Blue Warbler, a bird that normally winters in the Greater Antilles - Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica primarily. Black-throated Blue Warblers don't leave the wintering grounds until late March to April (Holmes et al. 2005), so this bird likely spent the winter in Montecristo. This is one of the few warbler species that appears to be increasing, as fields and pastures in the heart of its breeding range (northeastern US) have been returned to forest (Holmes et al. 2005). In striking contrast, this species is likely encountering severe habitat degradation on its wintering grounds.

Regular readers may remember that I encountered this species also in Chiapas, Mexico: I saw two individuals in December 2008. And last week's capture was not the first time for this species to be recorded in Montecristo either, for there are single records from 2004 and 2006. It has also been caught twice in the last seven years at another SalvaNATURA banding station in El Salvador, at Los Andes (in Los Volcanes national park). Holmes et al. do not mention records from Pacific Slope Central America, they only mention that the bird is "occasional along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan, Belize, Honduras (...) and a rare or casual winter visitor along the Caribbean coasts of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela" (Holmes et al. 2005).

I realize at this point it is pure speculation on the basis of a few incidental sightings, yet I can't help but wonder if healthy breeding populations of Black-throated Blue Warbler faced with habitat destruction on the wintering grounds are looking outside their 'normal' winter range for alternatives?

Cited literature
Holmes, Richard T., N. L. Rodenhouse and T. S. Sillett. 2005. Black-throated Blue Warbler (Dendroica caerulescens ), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/087

Coincidence or mimicry?

2011-02-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

male Green-breasted Mountain-gem, Honduras, February 2011

The Green-breasted Mountain-gem, a hummingbird from central Honduras and western Nicaragua, sings a soft song that usually starts with a scratchy warble, or sometimes with variations of its buzzy call, and occasionally is embellished with a fast, lower trill at the end. Its sister species, the Green-throated Mountain-gem, sings a similar song.

That last part, the trill, is not always sung. I've recorded individuals that sang a few introductory phrases, and then broke off. Male mountain-gems usually sing this song from a perch, although I have heard (and recorded) the whole song, including the trill, being sung in flight, while the singer was pursuing another individual (male or female, who knows).

Ericsson 1950s bakelite telephone*

To my ears, the trill sounds a little bit like an old telephone: not the sound the telephone makes with an incoming call ("old telephone ring tone"), but rather the sound you'd hear from the receiver telling you the phone is ringing at the other end.

Last week, I was very surprised to hear a Slate-colored Solitaire finish its beautiful song with a similar phrase! This was in Monte Uyuca, Honduras, where Roselvy and I carried out SalvaNATURA's monthly bird monitoring pulse.

Slate-colored Solitaire, Honduras, January 2011

I researched this a little, and found that none of the eight Slate-colored Solitaires available through xeno-canto sing this phrase. Cornell's Macaulay Library has many more Slate-colored Solitaire songs, including extensive recordings from El Salvador made by Walter Thurber in the 1970's, but I didn't hear it there either. I did hear a wonderful variety in phrasing of this haunting, ethereal song, so characteristic of Central American cloud forests.

First listen to two Slate-colored Solitaire songs, both from the same individual:

Now listen to a recording of two songs of a Green-breasted Mountain-gem, made within 15 minutes and 20 meters of where that solitaire was singing:

To my ears, the last phrase in the Slate-colored Solitaire's song from Uyuca sounds a lot like the last phrase in each of the two songs of the Green-breasted Mountain-gem. Is this mere coincidence, or is the solitaire, a wonderfully accomplished singer, actually paying tribute in song to the more modest vocal skills of its neighbor, the mountain-gem?

*image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported

Fledgling White-eared Hummingbird

2011-02-13T09:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I photographed this fledgling White-eared Hummingbird in Reserva Biológica Monte Uyuca, Honduras. For many hummingbird species in northern Central America, the breeding season is nearly over. Note the extensive rufous edging on the head and back, indicating a young bird.

About Aratinga taxonomy

2011-02-01T06:54:00.000-08:00

Two Red-throated Parakeets - Aratinga holochlora rubritorquis (left) and one Pacific Parakeet - Aratinga strenua

In the previous post, I mentioned some taxonomic confusion regarding the Aratinga parakeets in Central America. Having researched this a little further, I've found that there are two schools of thought regarding Aratinga taxonomy.

In the end, however, the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) taxonomy is authoritative, and will be explained here. To avoid confusion, I'll leave the alternative taxonomy, used by BirdLife International for example, undescribed.

According to the AOU, the 'green' parakeet found on the Pacific Slope of Central America from southeastern Oaxaca and Chiapas south to southwestern Nicaragua is Aratinga strenua, the Pacific Parakeet. Last Saturday, we counted a large roost of this species in San Salvador.

The 'red-throated' parakeet we counted in much lower numbers Saturday is Aratinga holochlora rubritorquis, or 'Red-throated' Green Parakeet. Note that according to the AOU, red-throated birds are a form or subspecies - rubritorquis - of the Green Parakeet, Aratinga holochlora. This subspecies is found in central and eastern Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and northern Nicaragua.

The field of taxonomy is in a state of flux, and at any given time will reflect then current insights into relationships between populations. The current AOU check-list can be found here.

Parakeet roost count

2011-01-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

Pacific Parakeets

Last Saturday, I and other members of the Salvadoran branch of Partners in Flight, a local association of bird observers and bird conservationists, counted the parakeets roosting on the grounds of the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeon Cañas ("UCA") in Antiguo Cuscatlán, a neighborhood in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

This roost is visited primarily by two Aratinga species - Pacific Parakeet and Red-throated Parakeet. The former roosts there in the hundreds and hundreds, while the latter is usually encountered as scattered individuals here and there for a total of 10-20 birds. Because the two species are very similar and difficult to distinguish in flight, it is likely that the actual number of Red-throated Parakeets roosting there is a little higher, several tens perhaps.

Red-throated Parakeets

Our count Saturday reached 1,150 Green Parakeets, among which we were able to find at least 12 Red-throated Parakeets. Simultaneously, other observers covered areas nearby, where in the past these parakeets have also roosted. However, it turned out that those roosts were not currently used and that all birds congregated in the main roost in the UCA.

A guard at the UCA told us that he has seen larger species - parrots - among the parakeets. We did not detect any Amazona parrots using the roost, although we did see two pairs of Amazona sp. fly high over the roost a little after 6 PM, when most parakeets had already arrived at our roost. When we arrived at the roost site, we saw a pair of Orange-chinned Parakeets, a much smaller species that does not roost in large groups, but is commonly found throughout the city.

Red-throated Parakeets grooming each other

Within the cacophony of the roost at large, most parakeets are paired off and can be seen perched in duos grooming each other, a very romantic sight.

As I said in the previous post, count results will be shared with parrot researchers at the universities of Leiden and Heidelberg.

Note that taxonomy of the Aratinga genus is still somewhat unclear - at least to me. Some sources consider strenua to be a subspecies of Aratinga holochlora (Green Parakeet), others claim it's a species in its own right (Pacific Parakeet). Some consider Aratinga rubritorquis (Red-throated Parakeet) to be its own species, others claim it is a subspecies of Aratinga holochlora.

Pacific Parakeets

2011-01-29T10:35:00.000-08:00

Pacific Parakeets roosting in San Salvador

I've written before about the Pacific Parakeet roost in Antiguo Cuscatlán, a neighborhood of San Salvador. Later today, Saturday 29 January, me and other birders in El Salvador are going to count the parakeets that use this roost as part of a World Parrot Count, organized by two parrot researchers from the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) and Heidelberg (Germany).

When I stumbled upon their web site, I immediately thought about the Antiguo Cuscatlán roost and how I and others could participate in this initiative. I suggested this to the local club of bird observers in El Salvador, and many people responded with enthusiasm. The ministry of environmental affairs even put out a press release, resulting in some press coverage (and more press coverage here and here)!

Several hundreds of parakeets roost here, the vast majority Pacific Parakeets, often with some Red-throated Parakeets mixed in. Roselvy and I were there a few weeks ago and saw at least 12 Red-throated Parakeets, thinking there were probably more. I hope to be able to share the results of our count here in this blog tomorrow.

Immature hummingbirds

2011-01-23T17:34:00.000-08:00

Green Violetear

In Reserva Biológica Monte Uyuca (Honduras), where Roselvy, Vicky and I banded last week, five species of hummingbirds are common: Green-breasted Mountain-gem, Green Violetear, White-eared Hummingbird, Magnificent Hummingbird, and Azure-crowned Hummingbird. They've all recently bred or are still breeding, for we caught immatures of each species, as well as an adult female Green-breasted Mountain-gem with an egg in her oviduct.

Let's take a look at these immature plumages. Few field guides illustrate them, although the Howell & Webb guide to the region does routinely describe them, if not in very much detail. Generally, younger birds are characterized by buffy feather tips on the upper and sometimes under parts. In the hand, presence of bill striations (fine corrugations along the side of the maxilla) indicates a younger individual. (Double clicking on these photos will reveal them in some cases.)

The top bird is a young Green Violetear. It will lose those buffy tips on the head and back through a first prebasic molt during its first life year. Those dusky underparts will become metallic green.

Azure-crowned Hummingbird

Here's a young Azure-crowned Hummingbird. This bird too has extensive buffy fringes on the head and upper parts. In this species, the buffy tips of younger birds even extend to the tertials.

Magnificent Hummingbird

Immature Magnificent Hummingbird, with buffy (upper side) or whitish (under side) feather tips all over, again including the tertials.

White-eared Hummingbird

A tiny White-eared Hummingbird, weighed only 3 grams (the adults are tiny also, of course). Here we see buffy tips to the head and lower back feathers.

White-eared Hummingbird

Here's another look at the same bird, showing those buffy tips to the lower back feathers. Adults have all-green backs.

Both sexes of Green-breasted Mountain-gem show dusky greenish throat feathers, which they quickly replace with (usually buff-tinged) whitish feathers in the case of the female, or bright green feathers with white borders in the case of the male.

Green-breasted Mountain-gem

Here's a female. Note the buffy tips on the head and back, and the dark throat feathers, both characters associated with immatures in this species.

Green-breasted Mountain-gem

And here's a male. This individual shows a distinct rufous spot over the eye, found in many but not all young individuals of both sexes in this species. A few basic (post-juvenal) throat feathers have already grown in.

Green-breasted Mountain-gem

Young Green-breasted Mountain-gems too show rufous tips to the feathers of the lower back. In this species, males of all ages show dark upper tail coverts, a character lacking in females.

The undescribed song of the Green-breasted Mountain-gem

2011-01-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

Immature male Green-breasted Mountain-gem, 18 January 2011, Honduras

The Green-breasted Mountain-gem, a little known hummingbird from central Honduras and northwestern Nicaragua, sings a soft, scratchy rapid warble from inside dense vegetation. The song is audible only at close range (<7 m) and so far has not been formally described to science. Last month I recorded some songs of this type in Reserva Biológica Monte Uyuca, Honduras, and wrote about that in this blog. Back then, I also recorded another song that I erroneously thought was this species but turned out to be Green Violetear.

Last week, Roselvy, Vicky and I went back there for the January bird banding pulse. Hummingbirds are so abundant in Uyuca that in the breeding season - which for them is now - they can be heard more or less constantly, often more than one species at a time. In the majority of the recordings I made this week, I have Green Violetear, a tireless singer, in the background. But let's start with a recording that has only the Green-breasted Mountain-gem:

This individual is singing a couple of shorter songs.

At times, the song is augmented with a trill at the end that sounds a bit like an old telephone ringing long distance (but higher). Listen for example to this individual, who first sings a few shorter songs, and finally a longer song with that trill (and ignore the staccato chip song in the background - that's the Green Violetear):

Here's another example. First a short song, then a longer song with that trill:

I recorded these songs during net runs, and didn't have opportunity for more extensive observations. Many Green-breasted Mountain-gems have already bred, evidenced by the proportion of immatures we caught. It seemed to me there was more singing going on now than a month ago; perhaps these are males teaching their sons how to sing. (I recorded a very odd, unstable Green Violetear song that I assume was a young bird practicing.)

Here's a recording of a young male calling. The bird was perched and looked around nervously while calling; once it spread its tail. These calls are unlike the contact and feeding calls uttered by the adults:

Here's a call uttered by an adult male while perched in a small tree at a height of 2 m. These are typical calls of this species, also heard when feeding:

Compare the song of the Green-breasted Mountain-gem with that of its sister species, the Green-throated Mountain-gem. First a Green-breasted:

And now a Green-throated, recorded by Nathan Pieplow in Chiapas, Mexico:

Note how similar those songs are!

Notable sightings in San Salvador

2011-01-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

Fan-tailed Warbler, January 15, 2011, San Salvador

Roselvy and I went birding this afternoon in the botanical garden La Laguna, in the San Salvador neighborhood of Antiguo Cuscatlán. Easily accessible by bus, we sometimes go there to still get a little birding in when we don't really have time for trips further afield.

We did great! We found a couple of birds normally encountered in more extensive woodland, one bird that winters on the Atlantic Slope and is rare anywhere in El Salvador, and one bird that is normally found at higher elevations.

Fan-tailed Warbler belongs to the first category. A habitat specialist normally found near ravines, where it hops around on the ground looking for ants, its principal food source.

Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush January 15, 2011, San Salvador

Orange-billed Nightingale-thrush also falls into that first category. We had no idea this bird can be seen in the city of San Salvador.

Hooded Warbler, January 15, 2011, San Salvador

Hooded Warbler is an Atlantic Slope winter visitor to the region that is rare in El Salvador, situated on the Pacific Slope.

Another surprise was Black-throated Green Warbler, a common winter visitor here at higher elevations in pine-oak, but probably irregular in the city.

The variable song of the White-eared Hummingbird

2011-01-13T15:09:00.000-08:00

female White-eared Hummingbird, January 2011, Montecristo, El Salvador

White-eared Hummingbird is one of the most common hummingbirds of Mexican and northern Central American pine-oak forests, a bird highly characteristic of its habitat. Having spent considerable time in that habitat, I thought I knew it quite well.

But it turns out I hardly know it at all.

For example, I thought I knew its vocalizations, both song and call. I've spent the last four winters in Central American pine-oak forests looking for wintering Golden-cheeked Warblers, and saw and heard this hummingbird all the time.

But a couple of days ago, while banding birds at the pine-oak banding station in Montecristo national park, El Salvador, I recorded a hummingbird song that I was not familiar with. I knew the hard, metallic chip that males produce constantly this time of year. But the insect-like chirp that I recorded on Tuesday is very different. Here it is:

Here's another, shorter fragment of the same bird, singing the same song.

And here's a short fragment (of presumably the same bird) with rather typical feeding calls. These I was already familiar with.

Alexander Skutch, in his fascinating book on birds of the region called Trogons, Laughing Falcons, and Other Neotropical Birds, writes about White-eared Hummingbird singing leks he studied in Guatemala. He notes something that was new to me, but immediately 'clicked' when I read it. I'll quote at length:

Perhaps the most typical note of the male White-eared Hummingbird is a low, clear tink tink tink, sounding like the chiming of a small silver bell. This was the note that I first heard and prefer to remember. Some individuals toll their tiny bells very rapidly, others more slowly and deliberately. But as I became familiar with more and more White-ears, scattered over miles of mountainside, I was surprised by the variance of their voices. Many individuals consistently uttered notes so different from the usual clear tinkle that I did not recognize them as belonging to White-ears until I laboriously stalked the birds and watched them calling. These notes were dull and flat, devoid of the clear timbre characteristic of the species, or high and squeaky, or low and melancholy. One White-ear that I often visited repeated rapidly a harsh, metallic click, a buzz almost painful to hear.

Equally unexpected was my discovery that all members of an assembly sang in much the same way but differently from those in other assemblies. If one bird of a group repeated a silvery tinkle, his neighbors would be found to do the same; if I was attracted to an assembly by chirping notes, this was the prevailing tune.

from Alexander F. Skutch, Trogons, Laughing Falcons, and Other Neotropical Birds, 1999, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas, USA.

The insect-like song that I recorded is not described in Howell's guide to the region, nor in Sibley's or Kaufman's guides to North American birds. In fact, apart from Skutch's perceptive observations quoted above, most bird guides tend to give succinct, seemingly complete descriptions of its vocalizations. To my ears, none of the other White-eared Hummingbird vocalizations represented in xeno-canto at the time of writing sound like my bird. And although only a single bird can be heard in my recordings, I sometimes heard another one there, duetting with a similar song.

Los Cóbanos revisited

2010-12-26T21:02:00.000-08:00

Wandering Tattler

Roselvy and I went birding today in Los Cóbanos, a coastal spot in southwestern El Salvador. By bus it's quite a trek from San Salvador, and we didn't get there until lunch time. Sundays this place is packed with daytrippers enjoying fried fish, cold beer and loud music. Not caring too much for the loud music, we walked a couple of hundred meters to another, quieter beach, where we sat down at a more modestly priced eatery.

Scanning the ocean while munching on some fried fish, I found a bird that I don't think I have ever seen in El Salvador before: Least Tern. It was maybe 250 m away, i.e. not close, but definitely within the realm of confident identification for me. Too far for a photo, though.

This could be a noteworthy sighting. Howell (1995) shows the bird wintering in southern (Pacific) Mexico, but places question marks on the Guatemalan coast and in the Salvadoran-Honduran-Nicaraguan Gulf of Fonseca. The BNA account (Thompson et al. 1997) merely copies these question marks. It also states that the species was "not found during focused search of Pacific coast of Costa Rica during Jan" (Thompson et al. 1997) - but eBird has a few January records for Pacific Costa Rica, and a few more for December. Yay for eBird!

But of course it has no December or January records yet for El Salvador, because who after all birds El Salvador…? (And yes, I did enter today's sightings into eBird. Soon there will be a green dot in El Salvador for this species…)

Semipalmated Plover and Least Sandpiper

Other birds we saw were more expected, and included Wandering Tattler, Least Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover, Spotted Sandpiper, Tricolored Heron, Snowy Egret, Green Heron, Brown Pelican, White-collared Swift, Cave Swallow, and Barn Swallow.

Tricolored Heron

References:
Howell, S. N. G. and S. Webb. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK.
Thompson, Bruce C., Jerome A. Jackson, Joannna Burger, Laura A. Hill, Eileen M. Kirsch and Jonathan L. Atwood. 1997. Least Tern (Sterna antillarum), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/290

An influx of Chuck-will's-widows?

2010-12-24T12:46:00.000-08:00

Chuck-will's-widow, female in pine-oak, Montecristo, El Salvador

Several recent posts have been about unusually late migration of various bird species. For example, I had a late Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher in November in Tortuguero, Costa Rica. I wrote about an early December wave of Scarlet Tanagers also in Costa Rica, and the previous post was about a late push of juvenile Broad-winged Hawks into El Salvador last weekend.

My friend Oliver Komar pointed out in a comment on that last post another exceptional sighting last weekend, i.e. that of a Chuck-will's-widow, a bird noted in small numbers in fall migration in El Salvador, but rarely encountered there after the second half of November. He speculated that the juvenile broadwings we saw migrating had been knocked down by a couple of severe cold fronts that passed through the southeastern US recently, bringing frosts to areas all along the northern Gulf Coast, and that perhaps the same thing was going on with Chuck-will's-widow.

Chuck-will's-widow, male in tropical dry forest, Deininger, El Salvador

Monday December 13, Roselvy, Carlos and I saw a Chuck-will's-widow on the road to the cloud forest in national park Montecristo, El Salvador. On Saturday December 18, the Partners in Flight - El Salvador field excursion participants found one roosting in national park Walter Deininger, El Salvador. And then yesterday, we stumbled upon another one, again in Montecristo, but at a lower elevation, in the pine-oak forest. According to Oliver Komar, Chuck-will's-widow is rarely recorded in El Salvador in December, and three sightings within a couple of weeks could be indicative of an influx of this species into the area.

Caprimulgids are usually more readily identified by call, and visual identification of the members of this family is not easy. It may be worth briefly considering the field identification of our birds.

The first clue should be its apparent size: Chuck-will's-widow is larger than any other nightjar, resident or winter visitor, in the region. The BNA account states rather confidently that "size, tail pattern, lack of white (or buff) in wings, and overall rich brown coloration serve to eliminate nearly all other Caprimulgidae" (Straight & Cooper, 2000), with the exception of Rufous Nightjar, a species found in Costa Rica and further south.

Given its highly cryptic plumage, its retiring daytime habits, and its similarity to other nightjars, this species can easily go undetected when present. In fact, the extent of its winter range is still rather poorly understood, and largely based on specimens in collections rather than reports of birds in the wild, of what is after all not a rare species. eBird, for example, still has precious few wintering grounds records. According to BNA, chucks winter from east-central Mexico south throughout Central America and into northern South America. It is also found as a winter visitor in the West Indies (Straight & Cooper, 2000).

So... did we accidentally stumble upon three individuals of a species that regularly winters in El Salvador but often goes undetected? Or is this a normally rare winter bird in El Salvador that somehow this early winter is much more common here than usual?

References:
eBird. 2010. eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance [web application]. Version 2. eBird, Ithaca, New York. Available: http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed: December 24, 2010).
Straight, Carrie A. and Robert J. Cooper. 2000. Chuck-will's-widow (Caprimulgus carolinensis), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/499

Exceptionally late Broad-winged Hawk migration

2010-12-19T06:03:00.000-08:00

juvenile Broad-winged Hawk

I'm back in El Salvador. Yesterday, I went on a field excursion organized by the Salvadoran branch of Partners in Flight (PIF), the principal club of bird observers in El Salvador. We went to Walter Thilo Deininger National Park near the coastal town of La Libertad, where we saw a fair number of interesting birds - really more than any of us had expected.

By far the most noteworthy sighting, however, was of a group of 17 Broad-winged Hawks - later followed by smaller groups for a total of at least 40 individuals - apparently migrating over the site!

All birds were juveniles.

juvenile Broad-winged Hawks kettling over the park

As far as I'm aware, this late migration of juvenile Broad-winged Hawks has not been previously described - for Central America, or indeed any other site. The species winters in northern South America and throughout Central America; a small number winters in southern Florida and the lower Mississippi Delta and coastal Texas. The majority of birds that winter in the US are juveniles (Goodrich et al. 1996).

juvenile Broad-winged Hawks in a glide over the park

Highly gregarious in migration, the species can be seen in large congregations in the northeastern US during the second half of September, Texas late September, Mexico early October. Fall migrants are noted in Costa Rica and Panama from late September to mid-November, but most pass through in October (Goodrich et al. 1996).

juvenile Broad-winged Hawk

Separate migration of age classes is well-known during spring migration, when the majority of adult Broad-winged Hawks precede the majority of juveniles by about two to three weeks. In fall, all ages usually migrate together (pers obs).

Flying with the broadwings were single individuals or small groups of two or three Turkey Vultures. This surprised me less, as a small percentage of Turkey Vultures is known to linger and migrate opportunistically. Mexican hawk counters in Veracruz told me it is often possible to see Turkey Vulture movement well into December.

References:
Goodrich, L. J., S. C. Crocoll and S. E. Senner. 1996. Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/218

Last day in Tortuguero

2010-12-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

Well, the monkeys were right and I was wrong, of course.

Mantled Howler Monkeys are excellent short-term weather forecasters, no doubt because their place high up in the canopy provides them with fabulous views of the sky. So when I opened the nets today around noon, when the rain seemed to let up a little bit, it was accompanied by hoots of derision from across the river.

Indeed an hour or so later it was raining again, and it never stopped. Bird banding can take place in light rain, so I ran the nets for two hours, in hopes of a surprise maybe on my last day of banding in Tortuguero, Costa Rica. But all I caught was a Gray Catbird, a female White-collared Manakin (recapture), and one of the pair of Northern Barred Woodcreepers that have a territory around the net lanes. The poor woodcreeper I released without processing this time, for it has already participated generously in this study.

The above photo is from a few days ago, and shows a wing of a first-year female Scarlet Tanager. I'm afraid this is the kind of bird photo only hardcore banding nerds will appreciate, for it shows a molt limit in the greater coverts, by which we can age this bird as a HY (hatch year) individual. Yeah, I know...

Late Scarlet Tanager migration?

2010-12-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

Scarlet Tanager

It's December, and as expected, bird migration is pretty much over. This is my last week of bird banding in Tortuguero, and I'm catching mostly residents now, plus the occasional winter visitor.

And... one other species that's neither a year-round resident nor a winter visitor here: Scarlet Tanager.

Apparently, this species is still migrating!

In fact, four out of five of my Scarlet Tanager captures here - and I've been banding from October 21 until today - have been in December. All five individuals were hatch year birds. There was a bird (male or female) on 12 November, followed by a male on December 3, then a female on December 6, and both a male and a female on December 7.

The BNA account for this species says that "most birds do not depart breeding grounds until mid- to late Sep; at Cape May, NJ, peak fall migration 10-20 Sep; Georgia late Sep - early Oct. Departure from Gulf coastal states by mid-Oct. Arrival dates at wintering grounds poorly documented, but the few available records suggest birds reach Colombia by mid-Oct, Ecuador by 1 Nov, and Bolivia by mid-Oct to mid-Nov" (Mowbray 1999).

Scarlet Tanager is a trans-Gulf migrant, and part of the route in fall is through Central America (including Costa Rica). See Fig 1 below.

Figure 1: Scarlet Tanager breeding range, migration routes and winter range.
By Lincoln, Frederick C., Steven R. Peterson, and John L. Zimmerman. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Wondering if this little early December wave, apparently consisting entirely of first-year individuals, is something unusual or in fact annual, I consulted eBird. Here's an animated gif of all Scarlet Tanager 'fall' records in their database, ordered by month, starting with July, and running until December. See Fig 2 below:

Figure 2: Scarlet Tanager records in eBird by month, from July until December.
Image provided by eBird (www.ebird.org) and created 8 December 2010.

Observer effort of course varies widely along the Scarlet Tanager's range, which explains why the wintering grounds don't all light up green as the breeding grounds are vacated. Still, we can see Costa Rican records light up in October and November, and then none for December!

How curious then that I caught zero Scarlet Tanagers during the second half of October, only one in November, and then four in the first week of December!

References:
eBird. 2010. eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance [web application]. Version 2. eBird, Ithaca, New York. Available: http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed: December 8, 2010).
Mowbray, Thomas B. 1999. Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/479

A family affair?

2010-12-06T06:32:00.000-08:00

Sandwich Tern with Royal Terns

Here in Tortuguero, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, Laughing Gulls have only been around in numbers since a week or two, but Royal Terns have been common at least since I got here, mid-October.

Yesterday afternoon, I walked out to the mouth of the Tortuguero River, where a number of them can usually be found.

About a third of the individuals in this group were banded. A little bit of online research showed me there's a considerable banding effort on the United States Eastern Seaboard each year, involving thousands of Royal Terns being banded in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Go here for an account of a Honduran intern's experience banding Royal Terns with the Maryland Coastal Bays Program.

Four of the five banded individuals I saw can be seen in this photo. Even within the group, they seemed to associate more closely with each other, something I'd noticed with banded individuals in New Jersey and El Salvador also. According to the BNA account, Royal Terns are "highly social and gregarious throughout the year, assembling into compact flocks up to several thousand, often in family groups, but occasionally solitary outside the breeding season (Buckley & Buckley 2002, emphasis added).

References:
Buckley, P. A. and Francine G. Buckley. 2002. Royal Tern (Sterna maxima), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/700

Mangrove Cuckoo

2010-12-04T13:06:00.000-08:00

Mangrove Cuckoo

According to one Costa Rican field guide, Mangrove Cuckoo is an "uncommon to locally fairly common nonbreeding visitor (December—June) in lowlands and foothills of northern Pacific slope, becoming rare south along coast and in Golfo Dulce district; locally to 3600 ft (1100 m) as in western Valle Central; on Caribbean slope regular only in extreme northwest, rarely east to Río Frío region; may breed in very small numbers in lowland Guanacaste" (Stiles & Skutch 1989).

The more recent Garrigues & Dean (2007) summarizes this information, noting the bird is a "fairly uncommon Central American migrant from December to June in northwestern Pacific lowlands; uncommon to rare in southern Pacific lowlands and in western Central Valley."

Not a bird then one would expect on the Caribbean coast.

However, the checklist for Tortuguero, found in Ralph et al. (2008), does list Mangrove Cuckoo as a rare resident.

Mangrove Cuckoo

Here it is, poking its head out of the vegetation. I found this bird on an afternoon walk today near the Mawamba Lodge, a couple of hundred meters from where I'm staying here in Tortuguero (CCC).

Note the all dark upper mandible, the absence of rufous in the wing, the more pronounced dark mask, and the buffy wash on the underparts - all features that distinguish this species from Yellow-billed Cuckoo. There's a difference in the tail pattern also, but these photos don't capture that aspect very well.

Cited literature:
Garrigues, R. and R. Dean. 2007. The Birds of Costa Rica: a Field Guide. Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, NY.
Ralph, C.J., M. Widdowson, B. Widdowson, B. O'Donnell & R.I. Frey. 2008. Tortuguero Bird Monitoring Station Protocol, unpublished draft version January 2008.
Stiles, F. G. and A. F. Skutch. 1989. A guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, NY.

Stormy weather

2010-12-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, it started raining here in Tortuguero, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, and it hasn't stopped since. The rain has been heavy at times, which even caused a power outage for most of the morning today.

As the rain was letting up a bit towards midday, I thought I'd venture out on the beach to see what's doing.

Immediately I realized that the birding there was as fabulous as it was difficult. Strong winds, darkness from heavy overcast skies combined with the rain made for very poor visibility. But there was a good number of birds out there, especially Laughing Gull was abundant. There was a constant stream of laughers heading southeast parallel to the beach, and I think I saw nearly a thousand individuals in about an hour's time.

Black Noddy

Other birds seen were two jaeger spp., a Common Tern, a couple of sulids, and this bird, a Black Noddy. Unlike the others, this is a true pelagic and not normally seen from the beach here.

The sulids were likely Brown Boobies, a species that I see regularly off the beach here, even in calm weather. Although I wouldn't rule out Red-footed Booby. Last Sunday, someone brought in a sickly booby, which died later that day. Despite its yellow legs and feet, certain measurements (specifically tarsus and tail) and plumage characters (uniform dark plumage, light tip to dark tail) pointed in the direction of the locally much rarer, because much more pelagic, Red-footed Booby.

Brown Booby

This bird, however, I believe is a juvenile Brown Booby.

Laughing Falcon

2010-11-28T18:09:00.000-08:00

Laughing Falcon

The Laughing Falcon is a fairly common raptor of lowlands and foothills found in Mexico, Central America, and most of South America. As the name suggests, it is a highly vocal species, and I hear its song, a characteristic sound of the Neotropics, almost every morning here in Tortuguero, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

Here it is, looking down for its favorite food, snakes.

The buffy tips of the back feathers indicate that this is an immature bird.

I think I also see a molt limit in the greater coverts, with two lighter and longer inner feathers contrasting with fresher outer greater coverts.

Sooty Tern

2010-11-27T15:34:00.000-08:00

Today, one the gardeners here at the Tortuguero Sea Turtle Conservancy handed me this bird, an adult Sooty Tern. He had found it in the water, unable to fly and just barely able to float, in the Tortuguero River near the river mouth.

I took the bird under my care and first made sure to dry it, as it was completely soaked. I checked for injuries but couldn't find any. The bird just seemed really exhausted, so I put it on a long-sleeve shirt in a carton box, and let it rest for a while. Three hours later, however, it was dead.

As I weighed it, and found that it only weighed 127 g, nearly half the weight of a healthy adult, I realized that it probably never had much of chance to begin with, poor thing.

Although globally one of the most abundant seabirds, in Costa Rica Sooty Tern is "a very rare visitor to Pacific coastal waters; no record yet for Caribbean coast" (Stiles & Skutch 1989). This is now outdated information (for example, there was a Tortuguero record last year, Pablo Elizondo pers. comm.) but the species certainly remains rare on the Caribbean coast. Heavy rains started last night and lasted until mid-morning; possibly this individual got disoriented in a nasty weather system.

Cited literature:
Stiles, F. G. and A. F. Skutch. 1989. A guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, NY.

Northern Barred Woodcreeper

2010-11-24T08:46:00.000-08:00

Northern Barred Woodcreeper

With migration practically over, even down here in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, I want to take a look at another resident species, the Northern Barred Woodcreeper. Woodcreepers are a neotropical subfamily (Dendrocolaptinae) within the family of the ovenbirds (Furnariidae).

Their distinctively shaped tails provide strong support as they forage for small invertebrate prey on tree trunks. Note the width of the feather shafts on that tail!

Northern Barred Woodcreeper

This particular individual undoubtedly has a territory right where the 'CCC station' net lanes are, for I've caught it (#1245) and its mate (#1250) several times now. They have a distinctive, somewhat squeaky upslurred call that I hear frequently.

Northern Barred Woodcreeper

Most woodcreepers have brownish plumage, often with streaks. Within its range, on the Atlantic slope from southern Mexico through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, it is the only completely barred woodcreeper, and thus readily identified.