Xenornis

El viernes pasado, 20 de febrero, vi dos Masked Boobies que acompañaron el barco en que estoy trabajando entre la costa arriba de Colón y El Porvenir.  Es primera vez que las veo acompañando a los Brown Boobies y me llamó la atención.

A little update on that pair of Bicolored Wrens : On Sunday morning, 22 February 2015, Les and I and our friend Jim Danzenbaker stopped at the Yaviza cemetery on our way out of town. Along with the continuing pair of adult Bicolored Wrens, we saw a dependent chick following them around. It was very cute, with a stubby bill and yellow at the gape. Here's some video of the birds, shot on January 9 . And some bonus Spectacled Parrotlets , shot on January 8.

Darién and Camilo Montañez and César Trejos spent a few days of Carnaval birding the Canopy Camp and environs. Highlights follow. Feb. 15. A Streaked Xenops was seen calling insistently at the Río Mono bridge, perched suspiciously near a cavity in a dry branch that seemed just right for a nest hole. Also seen was Black Antshrike , plenty of White-eared Conebill s, and an eye-level Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher .  Later that day we went to the Yaviza Cemetery to try for Bicolored Wren, to no avail. We're blaming the noise from the Domingo de Carnaval festivities. The forest just before town had Barred Puffbirds and lots of Yellow-breasted Flycatchers . Just before dusk we stood guard by the right verbena bush and, just as promised, got a Ruby-topaz Hummingbird . Unlike the adult male seen more frequently, this was a young male: generally female-plumaged but with a broad dark stripe down the center of the throat that, when seen from the right angle, glittered a greenish gold.

Enero 30, 31 y 1 de febrero Un macho Lesser Scaup y lo que parece ser una hembra Ring-necked Duck fueron observados en un laguito ubicado en el centro de la isla Contadora, archipiélago de Las Perlas. Durante los 3 días que observamos estos patos, siempre estuvieron juntos, como si fueran parejas (¿será una híbrido?). Eran los únicos patos del lago, donde habían no menos de 30 Least Grebes. Observadores: Rosabel Miró y Karl Kaufmann. En otro lago, en un costado de la pista de aterrizaje, cerca del antiguo hotel Contadora, escuchamos tanto el 31 de enero como el 1 de febrero a los White-throated Crakes, en varias partes de ese lago. (Foto de Rosabel) Sábado 7 de febrero Antes del Censo Centroamericano de Aves Acuáticas Una Whistling Heron en la arrocera de Santa María, Herrera, cerca de la entrada del pueblo de El Rincón. Esta garza estaba junto con otras garzas locales. Observadores: Yenifer Díaz, Alberto Bethancourt, Roxana Alveo y Stephany Carty. (No sacamos fotos). Dura

Not to be outdone, Natalia Sarco photographed this Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle  from the tower at Panama Rainforest Discovery Center tower this morning.

Osvaldo Quintero photographed this dark-phase Long-winged Harrier  at the entrance to Mono Titi Road at Parque Metropolitano, this morning at 7:15.

Rafael Lau and Genover Santamaría had a Peg-billed Finch at the seeding bamboo along the first part of El Respingo road on February 5. He also filmed it: On related news, Euclides Campos found Peg-billed Finch and Barred Parakeet on the bamboo at the entrance to Los Quetzales Trail on February 6.

Ismael "Nando" Quiroz photographed this male Ruby Topaz at the Canopy Camp on January 30 at 5:30 pm. Also present was a dull-plumaged bird, perhaps a juvenile? Both birds have been coming to the verbenas around camp for the last few days, always at the same time of day. Also, this female Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker was at the San Francisco Reserve on January 31.

Note to self: remember to check your twitter messages frequently. Check this one out: @xenornis - pomarine skua photo is a long-tailed skua #skuaconfusion #skua #Panama — Bartramia (@Bartramia_uk) November 11, 2014 The tweet refers to the jaeger  photographed on the Pedasí pelagic of October 25 . The Panama Records Committee was immediately alerted, and discussion ensued. Jan Axel Cubilla: I'm attaching the photos that Rafael took of this bird during the pelagic trip... four in total with just fractions of second of difference between them.  Number three is the photo that appears in Xenornis.  These photos were cropped and lightened... no changes were made in hue, saturation, exposure or sharpness. The only thing I remember about this particular individual is that it looked like a shearwater at the distance... in fact, I first shouted "shearwater" to the group when I first saw it... then it flew directly to us (as you can see in photos number 1 and