Shorebirds all around!

When Osvaldo Quintero and I arrived to days ago to the entrance gate of Finca Bayano, to the east of Panama City, the picture was not good... storm clouds were covering the entire place and the overcast day was cold and windy.  It didn't take long before we had to shelter inside the car and wait for the rain to stop.  By that time we only had seen some herons and Wattled Jacanas, but not a single shorebird... and we were after a special one, the Buff-breasted Sandpipers reported twice at the site earlier this season.

Finca Bayano

Eventually, the rain stopped enough to start to watch birds.  The place was flooded and wet... but it was just perfect for shorebirds... they started to appear all over the place: on the road, at the fields, flying overhead... everywhere!  The most common were the peeps, with Least and Western Sandpipers as the most conspicuous, but also with some Semipalmated Sandpipers as well.

Least and Western Sandpipers

While watching them, we started to notice larger shorebirds mixed in.  Most of them were Pectoral Sandpipers but, eventually, we noticed one bird with yellow-buffy tones and yellow legs... it only stayed enough for a couple of shots, but it proved to be the only Buff-breasted Sandpiper of the day!

Pectoral Sandpipers

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

The Buff-breasted Sandpiper is a rare passage migrant in Panama, with only few reports each fall (almost none in spring).  This was just the second time I see this species, and was a life bird for Osvaldo!  However, it was not the main highlight of the day.  Soon we realized that it was about to be a unique trip... other rare passage migrants showed up as well: several Stilt and White-rumped Sandpipers were around allowing photos.

Stilt Sandpipers

White-rumped and Semipalmated Sandpiper

Other not-so-rare-but-pretty-uncommon species showed up well too, including a pair of confident American Golden-Plovers and, as a photographic highlight, I have to mention the Wilson's Snipes.  They are common winter visitors but you not often see them so close!

American Golden-Plover

Wilson's Snipe

Nice collection of birds eh?  Oh yes, and there was also the first-record-for-Panama thing... well, YEAH!  A bird ever recorded in Panama... about the same size of the Pectoral Sandpipers, but with contrasting chestnut crown and white eye-brow... but most important, buffy breast with almost no streaks... here is the photo that I added to my eBird checklist:

SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER... WOW!  An Asian breeder way out of route!  It is still pending review, but if accepted by the local Birds Records Committee, it could be the first documented one for Central America!  Now that is what I call a terrific day!

Visiting Finca Bayano

Since the closure of the former Tocumen marshes to birders some years ago, we have been visiting a rice farm to the east of Panama City known as Finca Bayano, looking for those open habitat species of birds difficult to find around Panama City.  The site is promising since it have a nice mixture of habitats: pastures, gallery forests, scrubs and bushes, cultivated fields and so on...  So we visited it last weekend, reaching the place at sunrise.

Finca Bayano

I joined Rosabel Miro and Bill Adsett for this birding adventure... and to be honest, I was expecting a regular day in the field, however, we soon noticed that everything was set to have a great day!  Literally hundreds of herons, egrets, ibises and storks were feeding on the flooded fields.

Well, but all these species were common ones... then we started to notice some shorebirds in the same fields... first some scattered groups... by the end of the trip we saw no less than 100 Pectoral Sandpipers, both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Spotted, Solitary, Western, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers... but more important, we saw at least two Stilt Sandpipers, pretty uncommon for Panama. I took a short video showing some Pectoral Sandpipers (is the first time I saw so many of them!).

As you can see, my digiscoping abilities are close to zero... but I just wanted to document the numbers.  The waders were not the only highlights.  We saw many species with nesting materials or feeding young.  In fact, we saw several pairs of elegant Pied Water-Tyrants making nests and at least two Pale-breasted Spinetails feeding young birds (they look rather plain).

Pied Water-Tyrant

Also impressive was the number and variety of raptors in those fields: both Caracaras, Bat and Laughing Falcons, Pearl, White-tailed and Hook-billed Kites, Common Black, Roadside, Gray-lined, Savanna and Zone-tailed Hawks were hunting all over the place... in fact, we just saw this Zone-tailed Hawk to grab a whiptail lizard from the ground.

Zone-tailed Hawk with whiptail lizard

However, the most surprising bird (at least for me) was another raptor... but not a diurnal one.  Over a field with dry grass I saw a ghostly figure approaching low to land over a bush facing away.  After a while, the bird turned its head 180º towards me... a Barn Owl was making eye-contact with me under a bright sun!

Barn Owl

Any day with an owl is a good day!

Juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper

Just a brief report: last sunday morning I found only one of the two Pectoral Sandpipers that have been reported from the same marshy area in Costa del Este (Panama City) where I photographed my Solitary Sandpiper. This individual proved to be quite curious... just, watch the photos!

What can I say except that it is seriously a gorgeous bird (and that I submitted this post to Bird Photography Weekly # 111, check it out)!

Short visit to Costa del Este

After reading Rosabel Miro's report in Xenornis, I went with Gloriela this afternoon to Costa del Este (Panama City) in order to see what we can get in the extensive grasslands of the area. As soon as we got there, we started to see some medium-sized birds: a flock of Cattle Egrets, at least two Southern Lapwings and a Whimbrel. Of course all these birds got away when we tried to approach them, with only one of the lapwings staying enough for photos. Eventually, I found some activity at the same muddy pool where I previously saw a Solitary Sandpiper. This time, the Solitary Sandpiper was not so solitary since it was with two Pectoral Sandpipers. Both species were lifers for Gloriela and the Pectorals were new year-birds for me! These birds were quite photogenic... they preferred to freeze (instead of flying away) when we got closer. At close-range we were able to enjoy the attractive pattern of these bright-coloured individuals... WOW, they proved to be very impressive! We clearly saw all the pertinent field marks for its identification: the densely streaked breast sharply delimited, totally white undertail coverts, yellow legs, pale base of the bill, white eyebrow and its relative size (similar to that of the Solitary Sandpiper).

Are not they beautiful? Sure they are! In the way back we failed to locate the Sora reported by Rosabel, but the fields were full of Eastern Meadowlarks. Despite it is a very common bird, it is always nice to have a good opportunity to photograph them. OK, they are very attractive if seen well, with its bright yellow underparts and the black "V" at the chest, but its dense dorsal pattern makes them very difficult to detect in its environment. We almost stepped on one of them... it flew right from our feet! We counted at least eight of them in the little piece of land that we walked, and we heard others.So, ready to get your Pectoral Sandpiper and all those nice birds in Panama City?