What is a showy fence bird?

Simple: a male Blue-black Grassquit conspicuously singing its buzzy and slurred TZZZZIIIUUUU on a fence, while jumping up and down over and over again, like the one I found with Gloriela and our nephew yesterday morning in Penonome.

New neighbors in Penonome

I just came back from Penonome (Central Panama) where I spent the weekend with Gloriela and part of her family. We stayed for the first time at our new house in the outskirts of the town, with her sister and nephew: five years-old Kevin. At first just a little project for a near future, now a confortable place to use as base to explore western Panama and to spent the weekends... away of the city. Yesterday was a cleaning day, placing the furniture and fixing some details. During the night we had a good time seeing the NY Yankees defeating the Phillies, taking advantage in the World Series (yeahhh!). Today, I woke up with the calls of a distant Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and of a closer Rufous-browed Peppershrike. A look through the window revealed a foggy Penonome (yes, foggy), so it gave me enough time to wash myself before having adequate light to photograph birds. Kevin was the only one joining me in my pre-coffee walk through the neighborhood at 7:o0 am. We walked along the empty streets up to a fence full of tangles, with a little grassland with bushes at the other side. A fence is interesting only if has birds on it... and this one surely was interesting. A pair of Ruddy Ground-Doves were joined by a Red-crowned Woodpecker and two Tropical Kingbirds, while a Blue-black Grassquit was claiming its part of the fence to a group of Lesser Goldfinches. A White-tipped Dove wandered in the bushes while a Eastern Meadowlark sang on top of one fence post... a very nice way to start your day. Kevin seemed more interested in what I like to think were his first steps in nature photography: shooting plants, rocks and flowers with Gloriela's point-and-shoot. We later went to the Aguadulce salinas, but more on that in another entry.