Notable sightings in San Salvador

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.

Cinquera

Cinquera is a small village near the Cerrón Grande in central El Salvador, not too far from Suchitoto. I was there for a few days to participate in field work documenting biodiversity in a protected area, on the same project I have been writing about in the last few blog entries. After this trip, two more trips remain in this project.

This area is rich in butterflies, especially now in the rainy season. The butterfly above is a male Sinuous Mottlemark.

Here's a Red-spotted Scrub-Hairstreak.

Probably the most exciting find in the avian department was this Ochre-bellied Flycatcher, a species not previously registered in the area.

Fan-tailed Warbler was another cool bird to document in this area. Other notable observations included Nutting's Flycatcher, Bright-rumped Attila, Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, Pacific Screech-Owl, and - numerous - Long-tailed Manakin.

Arrived in Veracruz

The bird pictured above is a Fan-tailed Warbler, one of several we banded last week in one of El Salvador's national parks El Imposible. After a short banding trip, I stayed around for a few days to attend Roselvy's thesis defense at the University of El Salvador on molt strategies in Long-tailed Manakins. She talked about this for about an hour and I was pleased to note I was able to follow 90% of it. Afterwards I briefly talked with a Salvadoran biologist about butterflies - yay for my still pretty basic yet much improved Spanish skills!

Since then, I traveled from San Salvador to Guatemala City on Saturday, from there on to Tapachula in the Mexican state of Chiapas on Sunday, and late Sunday afternoon I went straight through to the city of Veracruz, where I arrived Monday morning. From there it was only a 45 minute bus ride to familiar Cardel, where I spent three months counting hawks last year. Back then I liked it so much I decided to do that one more time. Many of last year's field crew are here again this year, so lots of familiar faces for me. Again, nice to be able to actually talk with everyone in Spanish, instead of smiling sheepishly at their Spanish like I did much of the time last year!

I now have a few days to kill before I commit once again to 10-hour sessions of staring at the undersides of clouds. Wanted to do some birding this morning in the fields behind the Chichicaxtle hawkwatch, but it started raining last night and it hasn't stopped raining since. Only had some yard birds, like Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Boat-billed Flycatcher, Tropical Kingbird, Melodious Blackbird, Bat Falcon, Band-backed Wren, Groove-billed Ani, Inca Dove... all those birds are very easily seen around here. I also have reports to write, a publication to submit and another article to write, so the rain doesn't bother me too much. As far as I'm concerned, let it rain until Thursday and we may get a nice push of kites on the first day...

Sunday, while riding the bus from Guatemala City to the Mexican border, marveling at the spectacular landscape on that particular part of the itinerary, I listened to a lot of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on the iPod. They appeared at this year's Newport Folk Festival only a couple of weeks ago, and that fantastic show was recorded for NPR - the show can be downloaded for free here. Check it out...