Blackburnians

Blackburnian Warbler, a neotropical migrant wintering in southern Central America and northern South America, is now moving though in droves here in Honduras. Practically anywhere I go these days, I run into flocks of them. The only migrant warbler still outnumbering the Blackburnian around here is Black-throated Green. The latter is present for a good part of the year, but right now is particularly numerous, as migrants pass through the area.

Yesterday we found a flock that contained no fewer than 7 Blackburnians, and today I saw 3 together in a mixed warbler flock, in the company of 12 Black-throated Green Warblers.

The first Blackburnian we saw on 8 April. They seem to be peaking here this week. In a couple of weeks, they will all have passed through.

The handsome Blackburnian Warbler was named in honor of Anna Blackburne (1726 - 1793), an amateur botanist from Orford Hall in Lancashire, England. A beetle and a plant were also named after her.

Another new butterfly for Honduras

Hot on the heels of last week's first country record for Honduras of Megisto rubricata (Red Satyr) comes another first for Honduras: Autochton cincta, or Chisos Banded-Skipper. I photographed this individual today on Montaña de Isopo, at an elevation of 1630 m in oak forest with scattered open areas, about 15 km south of Tegucigalpa. The Annotated list of the Lepidoptera of Honduras (Miller et al. 2012) lists five Autochton skippers, but not this one (1). An email to its first author resulted in her confirmation of the identification.

This expands the known range for this species from West Texas (USA) south through Mexico and Guatemala to Honduras (previously thought to occur south to Guatemala and El Salvador only) (2).

Naturally, I submitted my photo to the Butterflies and Moths of North America site, for which I am now the reviewer for Honduras and El Salvador. It appears that the lepidopteran fauna of these countries is still not fully known, and that with a bit of luck, new country records can be found.

As the rainy season progresses here in Honduras, more and more species will be flying. I'll regularly report back on noteworthy butterflies here on the blog. There are of course older butterfly entries on this blog (to find them, simply click on the label "Butterflies" in the list of labels on the right), and I maintain a Butterflies of Central America Facebook page, which you can find - and hopefully like - if you type "Mariposas de Centroamérica" in the Facebook search bar.

References

1. http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/insectamundi/0205Milleretal.pdf

2. http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Autochton-cincta

New butterfly species for Honduras

Last Wednesday I photographed what appears to be a first country record for Honduras of Megisto rubricata, or Red Satyr. This species is known from southwestern USA (central Arizona, central New Mexico, east Texas, and south-central Kansas), Mexico and Guatemala (1). It does not appear on the recently published Annotated List of the Lepidoptera of Honduras (2). Thus my photos indicate an extension of the known range for Red Satyr.

I found this individual on Cerro de Hula, a mountain about 12 km south of the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. The elevation there is 1630 masl, and I found it on a grassy slope, in farmland with scattered oaks and harvested corn fields.

Its NatureServe Global Status is Secure - Common: widespread and abundant (1). Here in Honduras, at the edge of its range, it is likely uncommon.

In the field, I did not realize the rarity of this observation, and thus did not collect the specimen. The photos, however, appear to be sufficient for identification to species level. 

Photo documentation, while long accepted for verifying rare bird sightings, is just starting to gain acceptance in the entomology community. An ambitious 'new' project, of which I am proud to be a contributor, is Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA). It is somewhat similar to eBird, in that it collects distributional records submitted by professionals and amateurs alike, though a major difference is that each record requires photo documentation, which is then reviewed by a regional expert. 

I know many birders also enjoy butterflying, and I would encourage anyone with an interest in butterfly conservation to photograph the butterfies and moths they see in the field, and to submit their documentation to BAMONA. Your sightings will help expand knowledge of Lepidoptera, and may serve to document range extensions, as in this particular case for Red Satyr.

References

1. http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Megisto-rubricata

2. http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/insectamundi/0205Milleretal.pdf

Early Philadelphia Vireo spring migration?

Last week, Roselvy and I saw a Philadelphia Vireo in a mixed flock of insectivores working the slope of an oak forest on Montaña de Isopo, about 20 km south of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Philadelphia Vireo winters in southern Central America, and this past winter we saw this species occasionally in our area here in Honduras. I took the photo above on January 8, 2012 in a forest near Santa Ana where we live.  

Today, however, I heard a Philadelphia Vireo singing from the neighbors' yard across the road from our house. That bird I assume is a migrant, because I never heard or seen one there before, and also because it was singing. According to the BNA account, Philadelphia Vireos do not sing in fall or winter, but they sing during spring migration (Moskoff & Robinson 2011), a trait they share with the Red-eyed Vireo (Skutch 1960). Many warblers also sing during spring migration, though usually closer to the breeding grounds (Dunn & Garrett 1997). 

Three days ago, two Philadelphia Vireos were also seen on the campus of the UNAH (Universidad Nacional Autónoma Honduras) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras (ebird.org), where they presumably did not winter. 

Normally, Philadelphia Vireo departs from the wintering grounds mid- to late April, and the extreme dates for Veracruz, Mexico - where it is a transient - are 16 Apr－24 May (Winkler et al. 1992, cited in Moskoff & Robinson 2011). Late April to mid-May, the birds pass through the southern US states and late May is when they pass through the northeast.

I wonder if observers in Mexico and the US will note early Philly Vireo migration this spring.

Cited literature

Dunn, Jon and Kimball Garrett. 1997. A Field Guide to Warblers of North America. Peterson Field Guide Series 49. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York.

Moskoff, William and Scott K. Robinson. 2011. Philadelphia Vireo (Vireo philadelphicus), 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/214

Skutch, A.F. 1960. Life Histories of Central American Birds II. Pacific Coast Avifauna 34. Cooper Ornithological Society. Berkeley, California.

Leishmaniasis

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.