From the Field
March 28: Steve Howell on his just-completed Colima and Jalisco tour in western Mexico
Seeing 11 species of vireo (3 endemic to Mexico, including the stunning Slaty Vireo, (below), 11 wrens (4 endemic, including the confiding Spotted Wren, below), and 11 woodpeckers (2 endemic, including Golden-cheeked, below) in only a week epitomizes the diversity and sheer abundance of birds in Colima and adjacent Jalisco, a tiny corner of Mexico. Other highlights of the second half of the tour included great views of "Seductive Megascops" (or Megascopus seductus, the Balsas Screech-Owl) after we marveled at some ridiculously tame Orange-breasted Buntings (below); Long-tailed Wood-Partridges crossing the road (well, they are chickens); flock after flock of warblers (30 species total!); the poorly known Abeille's (Black-backed) Oriole (below); endearing Tufted Flycatchers (below); trees loaded with Yellow-headed Blackbirds (below); friendly locals and great food wherever we went; and the last night falling asleep to the sound of surf lapping on the beach outside our rooms. And now back to the cold and rain of California... I’m already ready for the next Mexico tour!
March 27: Rich Hoyer on his just-completed Costa Rica tour
From our first bird-filled morning at Tapantí National Park to a short detour on our final afternoon towards Poás Volcano for Peg-billed Finches, it was about as enjoyable as any birding tour can be. In the end, we were dizzied by nearly 470 species and countably heard another 20. Crested Owl and Costa Rican Pymgy-Owl, both seen by day, were among the trip favorites, but a lucky sighting of a male Snowcap that magically appeared as we were about to depart the El Tapir flower garden was voted as top bird. Of course, the Resplendent Quetzal pair at a nest and the colorful Orange-collared Manakin and Golden-browed Chlorophonia (the last bird of the tour) got high marks as well. We also saw lots of great mammals (both species of sloths with young were fun to watch), herps (a couple nice snakes were seen), and not a few butterflies (stunning Menelaus Morphos!), and a particularly great group of participants made it a pleasure to lead. Some digiscoped highlights from our memorable stay at Bosque del Rio Tigre are below: The regional endemic Baird's Trogon, an unusually cooperative Striped Woodhaunter, and a rarely seen Uniform Crake.
March 27: Gavin Bieber on his recently concluded tour of the Dominican Republic
We just wrapped up a wonderful week in the varied and bird-rich Dominican Republic, recording 29 of 31 endemics, and a host of regional specialties including Palmchat (the sole member of the family Dulidae), the two available species of tody, Hispaniolan Trogon (below), three species of quail-dove, Ridgway’s Hawk, Ashy-faced Owl, lengthy views of La Selle Thrush and Eastern Chat-Tanager, and the charismatic Hispaniolan Lizard-Cuckoo and Hispaniolan Crossbill. I very much look forward to returning next year, when WINGS will be offering adjoining weeklong trips to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
March 26: David Fisher on his recent month in South America
Initially he joined up with Jon Feenstra to see Peruvian Antpitta together, after Jon's Week in Paradise tour. This has been one of David's most wanted birds - and he obtained this photo (below). Then he moved on to northwest Venezuela to look for endemics that he had not seen before, including Plain-flanked Rail and Great Antpitta. This was followed by leading his Tepuis tour on which the group enjoyed an adult female Harpy Eagle at the nest with a fuffy 6 day old chick, and perched views of a singing Rufous-winged Ground-Cuckoo (watched through David's scope!). Soon, he'll be off on the Western Pacific Odyeesy, where he hopes the make the aquaintance of many Pterodromas that he has not yet had the pleasure of watching.
March 23: James Lidster from his first Morocco in Spring tour
A great start to the first of this year’s two Morocco tours with brilliant views of Maghreb endemics such as Crimson-winged Finch (below), Levillant's Woodpecker, Seebohm's Wheatear, Tristram's Warbler and Long-billed Crested Lark. The weather has been mixed so far and migration seemingly all over the place with 100 European Chaffinches in the High Atlas, where African Chaffinch normally dominates, along with 2 Brambling (exceptionally far south). Best of all today we had an adult male Pallid Harrier 'float' right past us.
Tomorrow we head into the desert to add to our 6 wheatear species already seen and for some special larks, such as Hoopoe and Thick-billed.
March 23: Gavin Bieber from his Panama: Spring at the Canopy Tower tour
A couple of days into our tour with fine results. The first day around Canopy Tower produced an excellent raptor flight of about 10,000 Turkey Vultures and 1,500 Swainson's Hawks as well as countless hundreds of Cliff Swallows (view from tower top below). Add lots of colorful canopy birds Red-legged and Green Honeycreepers (below), and the first of what is now 14 antbirds species including Bare-Crowned, Ocellated (below) and Streak-chested Antpitta (below), plus 23 species of flycatcher. Our evening outing to look for mammals was also fantastic success with a beautiful Rothschild's Porcupine and a very tame Kinkajou!
March 22: Steve Howell from his ongoing Colima tour in western Mexico...
Within the first 15 minutes of birding today we'd enjoyed point-blank views of an Eared Poorwill and then a pair of courting Buff-collared Nightjars! Later we found groups of handsome Banded Quail as well as simply hundreds of "weedeaters" - male Lazuli (in fresh plumage with veiled colors, below), Varied (below), and Indigo buntings, Blue and Black-headed Grosbeaks, and sundry sparrows. Add to this the "usual" prolonged studies of Aztec Thrushes (below) and Russet Nightingale-Thrush (below), stunning Red Warblers and Mountain Trogons, an obliging male Red-breasted Chat and an even more obliging male Rosy Thrush-Tanager (below) and we're having an amazing trip. Not to mention the southernmost record of a presumed Glaucous-winged x Herring Gull (below)!
March 21: Rick Wright from his Nebraska Platte River tour
Cinnamon teal, greater prairie chicken, eared grebe, am white pelican, neotropic cormorant, Harlan's hawk, whooping crane, pectoral sandpiper, Baird's sandpiper, Franklin's gull, pileated woodpecker, eastern phoebe, winter wren, field sparrow, red fox sparrow, Harris's sparrow, swamp sparrow, eastern meadowlark, great-tailed grackle.
Five squirrel species too. A day and a half to go!
March 19: Rich Hoyer's mid-tour update from Costa Rica
310 species. We're at the halfway point of my Costa Rica tour, and things are going great. Some participants have had over 200 lifers out of over 300 species that we've tallied, and except for our first morning at Tapantí National Park we haven't even touched the Caribbean Slope yet.
One participant in my group passed her 1000th lifer today. It came a whirlwind of species mobbing a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, and it was either Scaly-breasted, Cinnamon, or Mangrove Hummingbird (the latter a Costa Rican endemic), or Spot-breasted Oriole, that achieved the honor as her millennial lifer.
A couple photo highlights from the past days, below. A White-crested Coquette at Bosque del Rio Tigre was simply amazing.
And this Orange-collared Manakin at a ridiculously easy to observe lek at Carara National Park yesterday was a joy to watch. You can read more about this tour on Rich's blog, here.
March 7: Steve Howell's final report from his recently completed Lacandon tour in southern Mexico
It was strange to awaken to the calls of crows in California, unlike the roaring howler monkeys for the last week in Mexico. Our last two days of the Lacandon tour featured the marvelous Maya ruins at Palenque (below) where screaming White Hawks soared over the temples against cloudless blue skies (below) and a group of Aplomado Falcons snatched food from a burning field (below). We also visited vast wetlands with dizzying numbers of waterbirds including, for example, "guesstimates" of 1000+ Northern Jacanas and 300+ Limpkins, plus 250 Gull-billed Terns, 10 Pinnated Bitterns (below), and thousands of other wading birds, numerous Snail Kites, and handsome Black-collared Hawks (below). All in all a wonderful trip, and I'll be back in Mexico next week for the Colima tour!
