Xenornis

On the afternoon of April 8, 2008, Advantage Tours' Euclides Campos and Ariel Tenorio found an Orange-breasted Falcon at Birders' View in Cerro Azul while leading a group of british birders. The bird perched on a dead tree for 8–10 minutes, allowing for these photos (taken with a cellphone.) Orange-breasted Falcon is one of our rarest raptors (someone, quick, alert the Peregrine Fund) but this is not the first record from the area, as there is a 1970 report from near Cerro Jefe.

Bill Adsett sent in a report of a scouting trip to Cerro Santiago he and Dave Klauber did on April 3–4. We saw a number of Glow-throated Hummingbirds. There were several on the Continental Divide in bright sunlight at 1618 m altitude UTM 0414657 - 0939884, 39.4 km from the San Felix turn-off on the Panamericana, about 1.5 km beyond the transmission tower. There were female(s), immature(s) and one very beautiful mature male. Terrible things to photograph though. They were feeding at pink and red flowers on small plants and shrubs in open areas along the road. There was another individual (female or immature) in forest close to Ratón UTM 0412085 - 0942967. I got a tape recording of the Yellow-green Finch call which I shall share in due course. The Bare-shanked Screech-Owl in the photo was near Ratón, while the Veraguan Mango was in San Félix. The road from San Félix (Chiriquí) is in good condition, easily passable in dry and wet conditions, as far as Cerro Flores, just above Hato Cha...

Karl Kaufmann and George Angehr visited Tocumen Marsh this morning for the harvesting of the rail rice patch. Unfortunately, most of the rice was already gone by the time they arrived at the spot and so were the birds. A Yellow-breasted Crake was still around, though. And so it ends. Who knows where they all went. Hopefully we won't have to wait another 24 years for more reports of Spotted Rail or Paint-billed Crake.