Inca Tern at the Panama Canal... wait, whaaaat?

Yes... that was my first impression when my friend Venicio "Beny" Wilson reported this rarity in the Social Media yesterday... an adult Inca Tern was seen at the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal right in front of the Visitors Center.  The Inca Tern is a real vagrant to Panama, endemic to the Humboldt Current off western South America, supposedly only appears up here under anomalous conditions, specially during El Niño years.  So I hurried up to the Visitors Center, picking up in the way my friend Osvaldo Quintero and his son Osvaldo Jr.

Miraflores Locks, Panama Canal

We got to the center 20 minutes before closure... and started to look at the far side of the locks where Beny reported the bird earlier.  As you can see in the above photo, we used the lookout in the fourth floor to locate the bird, which was where the red arrow is pointing.  It required the maximum zoom of our lenses... and lot of trimming back in home... this is the result:

Inca Tern at the Panama Canal

Not only very rare... also exaggeratedly beautiful!  This bird was with Sandwich Terns and Laughing Gulls, and seemed to be enjoying its stay... we saw it fishing successfully twice, taking a bath, preening and resting by the walls of the locks.

Inca Tern with little fish

Inca Tern at the Panama Canal

There have been some reports in the past few years in Panamanian coasts, including mine back in 2010 (eBird checklist here), but this is the first report in the vicinity of Panama City in more than 30 years!  Good excuse to visit the Panama Canal these days!

Inca Tern at the Panama Canal

Bird of the month: Inca Tern

The Inca Tern (Larosterna inca) is surely the most beautiful of the terns. An endemic breeder of the Humboldt current of South America, this attractive bird rarely wanders out of its usual distribution. Panama is one of the few countries were this bird show up as a vagrant, usually under abnormal conditions. Back in the summer of 1983 - 1984, an unusual severe El Niño phenomenon (which heat up the usually cold Humboldt current) produced an invasion of this tern at our coasts. Back then, probably thousands of those birds visited the Bay of Panama for several months, but eventually died or dispersed. There is also an unconfirmed record from coastal Herrera province (at El Agallito beach, Azuero Peninsula) during El Niño in 1998 according to Xenornis. Then, an adult Inca Tern was the first bird to accompany us during a pelagic birding trip off Punta Mala, at the tip of the Azuero Peninsula. These birds are readily identified by its all dark plumage, its erratic flight and by the white edge to the wings. The ornaments of its head and the red bill is evident with the bird at close range, otherwise are inconspicuous and even absent in immatures birds. I had the opportunity to see this bird in its natural range at coastal Lima, Peru. There, flocks, often with thousands of birds, feed in nearshore waters, sometimes accompanied by other species, like Kelp and Belcher's Gulls (like in my photo from El Callao, Lima). Because of its rarity (in Panama) and beauty (everywhere) is why we choose the Inca Tern as our bird of the month.

Literature consulted:

1. Ridgely RS, Gwynne JA. A Guide to the Birds of Panama. 1993.

2. Schulenberg TS, Stotz DF, Lane DF, O'Neill JP, Parker III TA. The Birds of Peru. Revised and updated edition. 2010.

3. Xenornis. http://www.xenornis.com/

Pelagic off Punta Mala

I had the opportunity to join a fine group of birdwatchers last saturday, september 11th, in a pelagic birding trip off Punta Mala, at the tip of the Azuero Peninsula in central Panama. Worldbirder Björn Anderson kindly organized the trip and invited me (I'm so grateful by the way) and other four birders: Kenneth Allaire, Gonzalo Horna, Darién Montañéz and Rafael Luck. My journey started friday, when Rafael picked me up after work around 3:00 PM. We were loaded with fish leftovers, tuna cans and popcorn (the ingredients of the chum) and with all the excitement of being part of that trip. We all met at the charming town of Pedasí, where we stayed for the night to meet very early in the morning our captain Jeff and his seaworthy assistant, Armando. We followed them to a private dock at Punta Mala and were ready to go aboard the 30-feet-long fishing boat "Flora Cristina". You can see in the map the route that we did, reaching 10,000-feet depth waters just outside the continental platform. No more than 20 minutes after we left the dock, we began to prepare the chum when I noticed that the first bird of the trip was following us. I limited myself to say "the chum is working already", but then it was evident the dark plumage of the bird with a conspicuous white trailing edge to the wing, a pattern that I had already seen in Perú: an Inca Tern!!! The beautiful bird followed us for a while and then landed on the boat... amazing!!! Of course everyone was delighted with the bird and almost everyone got excellent photos of it. The bird sailed with us for more or less 20 minutes and then, it followed its own path for never be seen again. What a great way to start a trip... with a bird not reported for Panama in the last 27 years! After the tern, much commoner species started to appear... most of them surely coming from the Frailes Islands to the west: Brown Noddies, Bridled and Sooty Terns. We got distant views first, but at the end of the trip (when we got close to the islands) we got better views, allowing photos (I have to say that trying to photograph pelagic birds aboard a constantly-moving boat is really hard task!). The juvenile Sooty Tern that I'm presenting here was the first one I ever saw of that species. The next photo shows some adults Sooty Terns with two Brown Noodies (one is floating, you can enlarge the photo). After a while, we left the terns and began to find shearwaters and petrels! The first shearwater to appear was the expected Galapagos Shearwater, which offered some close views and photographic opportunities.

We saw four Oceanites storm-petrels that we are calling Wilsons' (thank you Björn for noticing it). The commonest storm-petrel was the Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel, with one to four birds after our chum in several sites. But more important, a bigger storm-petrel with pointed wings and a definitive narrower rump band turned out to be a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel, id by the experts, the first register for Panama, and a personal lifer! At 8:30 AM, Björn found the main target of the trip: a Tahiti Petrel (N 07º 20.002' W 079º 36.910). I hurried enough to see the clear dark-and-white pattern of the underparts and to appreciate its agile and swift flight above the sea with its long and narrow wings. It was a first for Panama too, and my second lifer for the trip! After the petrel, the things became calmer, with only common species, including Blue-footed and Brown Boobies, a lonely Neotropic Cormorant out there, more Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels and Galapagos Shearwaters. In one of those calm periods of time, the captain found a little bird in front of the boat that flew away revealing its shorebird shape and lined back: a Red-necked Phalarope (year-bird, like many others).

In our way back, Björn found some Wedge-tailed Shearwaters along with a flock of Brown Boobies. After some maneuvering by the captain, we got close to the shearwaters, allowing great views and photos (compare with that of the Galapagos Shearwater). We were at N 07º 15.883' W 080º 00.146'.

Two years ago, Darien and I reported the first Wedge-taileds' in more than 30 years around the Frailes Islands. Now we have photos!

Well, after all it turned out to be one of those memorable trips that you'll never forget... including new species for Panama (and for me)!The self-denominated T.P. (Tahiti Petrel) Gang; from left to right: GH, BA, KA, JA, DM and RL.

More about this trip here, more photos and a complete bird list at Xenornis.

Not a Belcher's, but a Kelp Gull in Costa del Este

Confirming the early suspicions on the identity of the dark-mantled gull which appeared several times in Costa del Este last weeks, a group of experts (including, among others, Dr. Bob himself) determined it as a sub-adult Kelp Gull. A review of the description plus the photos obtained by Euclides Campos and Ramiro Duque showing the bird with a typical adult Kelp Gull (you can see the photos in Xenornis) helped with the i.d. The diagnostic features that exclude a Belcher's Gull are size (and jizz), pale yellow legs (not bright yellow), dark streaking along sides and flanks, bill shape/pattern, and a mostly dark tail (not a definitive "band"). My error! considering that I have seen both species in central coastal Perú few years ago... my own photos of that trip demonstrate the slimmer shape and its relative small size (specially if you compare it with the nearby Inca Terns in the second photo):

An extensive Google search produced few photos of confirmed sub-adult (third-year) Kelp Gulls, the most useful being those at Martin Reid's website. If you check this group of photos you can see the same bill shape and pattern, the mostly black tail and black primaries with the wings closed, while this other one also shows the mostly black tail. Conclusion: it is a sub-adult Kelp Gull... follow your first impressions.

P.D.: in spite of the several other visits, I failed to re-locate the Kelp Gull(s) at Costa del Este, but I find more Herring Gulls (up to three at the same time) and the Lesser Black-backed Gull that was reported initially by the Ahrens (thanks to Darien and the Kaufmanns). I got only a distant photo.