Xenornis

On our way back from the PAS fieldtip to Santa Fe, we made a short detour to check out Las Macanas Marsh, near Santa María, and had a number of pretty good sightings. Orquídea found a juvenile Great Blue Heron, and Snail Kites were everywhere, as were Glossy Ibis. A Limpkin flushed from the vegetation near the small dock and flew to the other side of the marsh and Delicia had an even briefer look at what had to be a Masked Duck, small, brown and with white wingpatches, which flew up from the vegetation and dove down almost immediately. Among the thousands of Wattled Jacanas which were all over the place was a weird individual with what appeared to be an all-brown back (which stayed in the vegetation, ducking out of sight frequently). The red rictal lappets (the wattles) were visible thrugh the scope, but the top part of its red frontal plate was bluish white, which made this bird look even weirder. But the birds of the day were without a doubt the Fulvous Whistling-Ducks. The first sig...

Emilio González and Geovanny Comparaz had great viewos of a White-tipped Sicklebill perched at close range at El Patriarca trail in Altos de Cerro Azul.

While zipping past Summit Gardens on their way to the PAS Pipeline Road fieldtrip, Rosabel & Karl Kaufmann saw a Capped Heron, on the edge of the small pond just beyond the fence 20 meters before the parking lot.

Just like last year, Delicia & Darién Montañez found an Ochraceous Pewee at the Parque Internacional La Amistad at Las Nubes, Cerro Punta. The bird was calling and flitting around high in a tree above the trail up to the waterfall, but would sometimes come lower allowing for reasonably good looks. A Tufted Flycatcher was seen and heard further up the trail, and in comparison with the pewee was much smaller and lacked the conspicuous buffy wingbars.