From the Field
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!
March 5: Steve Howell's third report from his Lacandon tour in southern Mexico
Our day visiting the spectacular May ruins at Yaxchilán (below) began with a Great Curassow feeding in a massive riverside tree while the eerie songs of Great Tinamous floated from the misty rainforest, as we headed down the Usumacinta River, Mexico on the left bank, Guatemala on the right. In the forest at the ruins a confiding Scaly-throated Leaftosser (below) held us spellbound despite the attempts of a "cute" Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher to distract us, and as we headed back reluctantly to the launch (below), an even more confiding White-whiskered Puffbird posed for photos (below). Most spectacular, though, was a close-range perched adult King Vulture (below) on the ride back upriver. "Just another day in Mexico."
March 3: Jon Dunn from his tour of Northern Thailand
We just finished the Spoon-billed Sandpiper extension and happily we had four of these critically endangered waders (below), three of which we watched feeding together at fairly close range for over two hours. Other notable shorebirds including four Nordmann's Greenshanks, numerous Broad-billed Sandpipers, 43 Pied Avocets, and extended close views of an attempted copulation of a pair of Greater Painted-snipe. There was as well great raptor watching at a site to the north at Nong Pla Lai; we recorded four species of eagles: Greater Spotted (eight in all – below – thanks Pinit Saengkaew), Booted, Steppe, and Imperial, along with several dozen Black Kites.
