Xenornis

The Juan Hombrón Maguari Storks are still around. Even though we who went there early today didn't find them, the next batch of birders did: José Pérez, Jeannette and Rafael Lau, Claudia and Bill Ahrens, Natalia Sarco and third timer Venicio Wilson. The birds are now hanging out with the local Wood Stork crowd (like the Costa Rica bird ended up doing), so they should be easier to find now. Go! Now!

En la tarde del día jueves 22 de mayo, Día Mundial de la Biodiversidad, de regreso de una gira de trabajo en Gamboa, haciendo shortcut por Clayton para llegar más rápido a la oficina, vimos unos grebes en el lago de Clayton (el que está en el área residencial, próximo a la antigua oficina del Fondo Peregrino). Habían más de 5 Least Grebes , ya bastante común observarles en ese lago. Al rato Yenifer Díaz nos aviso a Michele Caballero y a mí que habían un par de garzas al costad derecho del lago. Al observarlas notamos que eran dos Capped Herons , en el borde del lago, comiendo. No recuerdo haberlas visto por esta área, de ahí que considero importante el reporte. Habrá que seguirles la pista no vaya a ser que vayan a utilizar el área para anidar. La foto adjunta no es muy buena, la luz del día no nos ayudó.

Cindy and Leslie Lieurance and I went on May 20 to the Finca Bayano rice farm near Chepo (Eastern Panama). Water levels are still low and water birds were sparsely distributed. Quality made up for quantity. Cindy's sharp eye located a group of 3 Wilson's Phalaropes way off in a shallow wash. There was one smart female coming into breeding plumage, while the other two were still in non-breeding plumage. This bird is rarely seen in Panama during the Fall migration and is exceedingly rare in Spring (only one previous Spring record?).  Nearby was a Pectoral Sandpiper , also rare in Spring, especially in mid-May. Leslie and I were walking a rough track through the undeveloped marsh area when a small heron flushed from a drainage ditch in front of us and landed in a clump of bushes. It turned out to be a most unusually tame Least Bittern that stayed put for several minutes just a few feet away from us. It is clearly a particularly handsome individual of the resident race ( ery...

The Maguari Stork was discovered yesterday at Juan Hombrón by Rosabel Miró, Celeste Paiba y Venicio Wilson. This is the first record for Panama, but not for North America: one was seen in Costa Rica last September . There were two birds, but they never stood close enough to appear in a single shot. Then this morning Venicio Wilson, Osvaldo Quintero and Rafael Lau went looking for them and found them again at around 10 am when they took flight from the same general area where they were yesterday. Photos by Rafael Lau. An afternoon expedition today produced no results, except running into someone who had just been mugged. If you're planning to look for them, don't go by yourself and please be careful.

Rosabel Miró found this Maguari Stork in Juan Hombrón this afternoon. More details to come.

And speaking of spectacular records from the past, Zeke Jakub has uncovered a number of videos he took of Swallow-tailed Gulls some years ago: I am going through my sightings .... and I have [a lot] of Swallot-tailed gull sightings at night in the Bay of Panama while was working on the crucero... we were always crossing the pearls out to past azuero and I have records everytime of Swallow-tails following the ship at night. No photos, impossible at night. But I took some many videos of em flying around the ship and you can hear them clicking... Very cool. Probably 4-6 trips through the bay at night and every time I observed swallow tailed gulls always, of course, at night. We're waiting for the dates and coordinates of the sightings, but in the meantime here's video of three of the sightings.

Osvaldo Quintero also sent in this photo of a swift taken over his house in Panama City last year. I'd call it a Cypseloides, probably Black Swift (which is very rare in the Canal Area), but as always we eagerly await your comments. What do you think?

Osvaldo Quintero found this Roseate Spoonbill at the Panama Viejo visitor center yesterday and again today.

Not content with finding the first nesting records of Black Swift for Panama , Craig Bennett has now added a new species to the Panama list: Spot-fronted Swift . On May 15, while checking on the previously discovered Black (?) Swifts, with Dan Wade and Lloyd Cripe, that I reported earlier, I found another swift nesting behind a waterfall in the same area. This one is clearly a Spot-fronted Swift as no other swift has these bold white spots on the face. As far as I know, this bird has been reported only in Costa Rica, Colombia and Venezuela, but never in Panama. Thanks to Lloyd's talent at digiscoping we have these high quaity photos. The location is the Bajo Mono area above Boquete. Elevation is approximately 5800 feet.  Attached is also a digiscoped photo of my previously reported swift. I've included it because the quality is so much better than the photo I originally provided. Maybe it will provide more support for the tentative Black Swift identification. ...

Thank you all for your research and ideas regarding the Cypseloides Swift photo. It appears that the concensus so far is Black Swift. In the category of more data is better, I attach a new photo I took a couple days ago at a waterfall I hadn't visited before. It appears to be the same species with the pattern of white markings on the face the same as the previous photo. The search continues - I'll keep you posted. This would be the second breeding record in Panama of this rare, but apparently overlooked, species. The first breeding record from Costa Rica is pretty recent , so if I were you I'd be peeking behind every waterfall I run into.

Marianne Akers ran into this tired Nazca Booby , usually a bird of the open ocean, standing at the entrance to the Miraflores Visitor Center on April 9.

On April 30, Eric Horvath sent in the following photos of Cypseloides swifts taken in Caldera: The photo above is a Black Swift, Cypseloides niger , from along the Rio Chiriqui near the Caldera hot springs, 15 April 2014. Also on 15 April at this location was the following swift which appears to be White-chinned Swift, Cypseloides cryptus . Intriguing as these may be, on May 6, Craig Bennett sent in an even better record: The attached photo was taken by me yesterday at a waterfall in the Boquete area. The nest is located behind the veil of the falls under an overhang. After looking at the local field guides and Chantlers book on Swifts, I'm confident that this is a nesting Cypseloides Swift. It's too early in the nesting season for it to be an immature bird, so it must be an adult. And because it's an adult I've ruled out Chestnut-collared and White-collared Swifts for obvious reasons. It would appear it must be either Black Swift or W...

On May 5, Matías Díaz found a weird Variable Seedeater with a lot of chestnut on the collar and underparts while birding in a yard in Portobelo. Although it was assumed to be a weird bird moulting from juvenile plumage, or that had taken a bath in a muddy puddle, further research produced Hosner & Lebbin's 2006 paper Plumaje aberrations in Ecuadorian birds that illustrates a similar Variable Seedeater seen in Ecuador in 2005 and references a similar specimen from Panama: The Sporophila corvina observed at Buenaventura appeared to exhibit erythromelanism, where erythro - melanin was deposited in normally white contour feathers. Olson (1966) collected a Sporophila corvina in Panama (AMNH) that exhibited similar plumage features to the individual observed at Buenaventura, with chestnut replacing the white contour feathers except the midbelly. Like the individual at Buenaventura, in Olson’s specimen the wing speculum and axillaries remained white. Erythro - melani...

Comparto reporte de un Least Bittern observado por Siu Mae y Won Ton en Ammo Dump Ponds, en la carretera principal que va hacia el muelle del Smithsonian el Sabado 26 de abril a las 12:15 pm. Al darse cuenta de nuestra presencia se trató de camuflar como típicamente hace levantando la cabeza simulando la vegetación. Al notar que seguiamos, voló hacia la izquierda. Probablemente siga en el área. Fotos por Won Ton.