A mini-pelagic

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. 

In Granada

Wakako and I spent a few days in Granada, trying to get away from the daily grind (ahem) of field work at Laguna de Apoyo.

We visited a 'butterfly reserve', went in a so-called 'eco-tour' of a 'private natural reserve', drank juice from a freshly harvested coconut, enjoyed creature comforts such as fast wireless, excellent pizza, and great coffee, and witnessed the arrest of a boy held at gunpoint. I place the first items in quotation marks, because this is Nicaragua, sometimes called "the poor man's Costa Rica", where they try to imitate Costa Rican tourism success stories, but often end up producing a simulacrum of that experience. I don't mean to bitch about this, but the butterfly reserve was little more than a small net-covered garden where a fraction more butterflies were flying around compared to outside the garden, and the 5 dollar admission seemed pricey. (The 7 dollar admission to the one I visited in San Jose, Costa Rica a few weeks ago on the other hand was worth it.)

The guided eco-tour was recommended to us by the tour company as great for birding, and in fairness, the birding there was pretty good. But we were birding in habitat quite similar to that of Laguna de Apoyo, and were seeing familiar birds everywhere. I felt a bit sorry for our guide David, who worked hard to identify birds he spotted or heard, and then enthusiastically would bring a bird to our attention, only to hear us say "yes, those are cool birds, and it's amazing how common they are here." No matter what bird he came up with, we jaded birders had already seen or heard the species many times before. At one point, he became quite excited because he thought he had spotted "the national bird of Costa Rica". Someone had once told me which bird this is, but I had forgotten. He had forgotten the English and scientific names of this bird, so for a while there was confusion about this "national bird of Costa Rica". Eventually, we worked it out, and the answer came as a bit of an anti-climax: Clay-colored Thrush (or Robin). Think about it: a country with a ton of endemics, with many colorful, exotic birds, chooses one of the drabbest, dullest birds around that is common from south Texas all the way down to northern Colombia. Its songs are pretty, but even vocally, it isn't exactly unsurpassed. It just doesn't make sense.

We did get great looks at a pair of White-necked Puffbirds, saw another Osprey, found a Royal Tern, saw some Northern Jacanas and Purple Gallinules, and many Black-headed Trogons. Also several Bare-throated Tiger-Herons (one pictured at top of post), and lots of Howler Monkeys. We enjoyed this trip, but I didn't see any new birds, and I was clearly a lot more knowledgeable about birds and butterflies than our guide. That's OK. This wasn't one of those specialist tours where the objective is to tick off as many species as possible. I've never been on one of those and I don't see myself doing that anytime soon.

From the ferry port in Granada we observed four Black Terns, although we didn't see any on our 20-minute boat trip to the 'private nature reserve'. I've entered my Black Tern sightings into eBird, where they now show up as the southernmost records for this species in June.

Common Morphos were the most common butterfly in the butterfly garden outside of Granada.

In an orchard around the butterfly garden was this Ferrugineous Pygmy-Owl.

We never did figure out what the kid who was arrested at gunpoint on the beach near the ferry port was arrested for. Less than a minute before his arrest, he was swimming in the water along the pier - where the city sewage runs into the lake - and asked us for some money. He did not strike me as a hardened criminal who could only be captured at gunpoint, or who needed to be hit with a police club while lying on the ground, but obviously the Nicaraguan police has a much better handle on these things than I do.

Black Terns

North American Black Terns winter along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Central and northern South America. In spring, they are a common migrant along both coastlines in Central America, and are also seen in smaller numbers at inland sites. Some non-breeders, presumably first cycle birds, will summer in Central and northern South America, primarily along the Pacific coast, and possibly also along the Atlantic coast. During this time, the species is rare inland (Heath, Dunn & Agro 2009).

And indeed, at the biological station in Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua, folks were quite surprised when I said that almost every other day, I’d see Black Terns fishing on the Laguna. Usually I’d see just one or two individuals, and then one day there were 7.

The next day I had a bird point count scheduled for a waterside location, and hoped to get them on the point count. I did: I got no less than 17 Black Terns! Jeffrey McCrary, the resident biologist at Laguna de Apoyo, has never seen the species at the Laguna in June.

Then today, after Wakako and I arrived in nearby Granada on Lake Nicaragua, we observed three individuals hanging around the ferry port for Ometepe, on the outskirts of town.

All birds I’ve seen here so far had whitish body feathers, indicating first cycle birds.

With birds showing up in multiple locations, I have to wonder: are these birds really so rare here in summer, or is it just that nobody has ever reported them before?

Wednesday, we have a birding trip scheduled to the northwestern side of a nearby volcano, which will include a boat trip on Lake Nicaragua. We will definitely be on the lookout for Black Terns...

Postscript: oddest thing - I report my sightings of three Black Terns today in Granada in eBird, thinking eBird will probably want to double-check that sighting, but no. But the Osprey that we also saw, that eBird finds remarkable! I don't think summering Ospreys are that unusual around here.

Literature cited:
Heath, Shane R., Erica H. Dunn and David J. Agro. 2009. Black Tern (Chlidonias niger), 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/147