A long twitch

Twitching is an exciting part of birding.  Leaving everything behind to go after a rare bird, sometimes hundreds of miles away, is synonymous of adventure to me.  Sometimes you get the bird... or dip miserably... but hey, that's birding!

Katiuska, Elida, Jan Axel, Yasmín, Manlio and Edgar (photo by Edgar's sister)

On October 31st, a vagrant Ruff was video filmed in a rice field outside the town of David, in Chiriqui province (western Panama).  The Ruff (Calidris pugnax) is an Old World shorebird that exceptionally wanders to Central or South America.  With just few old reports for Panama (none documented with photos), the report was worth the drive from Panama City... some 500+ kilometers away.  On November 1st, I arrived with Gloriela around 8:00 am at the site.  The bird was relocated earlier by its discoverer Yasmin Cerrud and a group of local birders that included Katiuska Sicilia, Elida Valdés and Manlio Cuevas, among others, but the bird flew away quite quick, not allowing more photos or videos.  I knew all these birders through social media only... so, meeting them personally was, without doubt, the highlight of my trip!  Later, Edgar Araúz joined us (after driving the previous day from Panama City as well).

Shorebirds and waders

We spent most of the morning at the original site of the sighting, scanning the fields and the wetlands with our scopes.  We had a great time finding bird after bird.  The diversity was great.  The waders, shorebirds and raptors were well represented, including stunning species like Wood Stork, Roseate Spoonbill, Black-necked Stilt, Southern Lapwing, Marbled Godwit, both Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs, Northern Harriers, Savanna Hawk, Peregrine Falcon and an amazing sight of more than 4000 Blue-winged Teals!

Roseate Spoonbills (Platalea ajaja)

Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis)

Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca)

Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)

Blue-winged Teals (Spatula discors)

After a while, only Yasmin, Edgar and I stayed enough to keep searching the Ruff (Gloriela, wisely, stayed at the car).  We walked throughout the rice field, sometimes getting stock in the mud or getting wet in the numerous shallow water holes of the place... but we had fun.

The bird was not re re-located.. so I was not able to include it in my Life list.. but finally meeting my old friends of Chiriqui was priceless!!! 

Jan Axel and Gloriela

Impressive migration over Panama City!

When I went to my workplace this morning, all my unit in the hospital was closed.  The reason?  Our president decreed a day off due to XXIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government... so I went back to my apartment to rest a little.  After a while, I started to noted some movements in the sky... all over, huge kettles of raptors were flying above Panama City, in their annual migration to South America.

The massive amount of birds darkened the sky... not kidding!  Soon, I started to receive text messages and facebook notifications of friends experiencing the same spectacle from different points of the city... this wonder of nature did not go unnoticed, since many of my non-birder friends also texted me!

The above photo only shows a tiny fraction of the Broad-winged Hawks and Turkey Vultures that passed today... there are at least 170 hawks... and this is a cropped picture!  The next picture shows better these two species that, above my apartment, were by far the most abundant.

In other parts (for example, above the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal), the predominant species was the Swainson's Hawk.  I only counted some 200 Swainson's Hawks in 55 minutes... compared to some 5000 Broad-winged Hawks and 10,000 Turkey Vultures!

When I see these huge kettles, I always look for other raptors mixed within these flocks.  That's how I picked up these Mississippi Kites.

Or this Osprey.  The long wings, slightly angled in the wrist, are characteristic.  None of these birds breed in Panama, nonetheless they are pretty common in this season.

I also saw four Peregrine Falcons.  They flew VERY high, so there was no way to see if any carry a transmitter or something (yeap, I'm talking about Island Girl).

Don't stop looking at the sky, since the season is not over yet!

Brushing the mudflats

I visited the coast of Panama City, specifically around Panama Viejo, some days ago following some interesting reports including very rare shorebirds and gulls in the area. Essentially, I birded around the Visitors Center because you get there a piece of every type of habitat present in the place, like both rocky and sandy shores, grassland, mudflats, an estuary and mangroves... all within a short walk and under the security

of the Center facilities. The extensive mudflats were covered in shorebirds, specially Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Willets and tons of Black-bellied Plovers. However, it was a group of waders that caught my attention: no less than ten Wood Storks were standing in the mud, resting and preening. They reminded me my last experience with storks during the Pacific CBC and, considering the fact that these birds are good fliers, one should consider that they could be

the same beach-loving individuals we saw during the count! Closer to the mangroves, six herons species were wading, looking something to eat, except an elegant Cocoi Heron which was simply

preening in the sand, very close to several Great Blue Herons, a very similar species. Walking to the rocky part of the shore, looking for the Wandering Tattler reported elsewhere, I crossed the grassy section next to the parking lot of the Visitors Center, finding a young Green

Iguana having a sun bath. A close relative, a Spiny Iguana (Ctenosauria sp.) was inspecting me from the rocks. At the rocks, the closest bird to a Tattler that I found was a Spotted Sandpiper dressing its winter suit, which is not spotted at all!

By far, it is the most widely distributed sandpiper in Panama, easily identified by its stiff wing beats and the constant movement of its rear part... it should be named Bobbing Sandpiper! Among the hundreds of Laughing Gulls and dozens of Franklin's Gulls, I

found the Lesser Black-backed Gull that have been reported in Xenornis; however, when I was about to photograph it, the all flock left the place desperately. I turned my head and realized that the reason of the mess was a young Peregrine Falcon hunting low and actually grapping a Laughing Gull in front of my eyes! It was a kind of weird because I'm used to see the Peregrine Falcons hunting small peeps instead of gulls of almost its same size!

But it was not over... just seconds after the initial attack, a second Peregrine Falcon (an adult this time) appeared, and started to attack the first individual, which never gave up its prey. The attacks were marked with lot of noise by both birds, and it reminded me an attack that I witnessed almost exactly one year ago!

After a while, the adult Peregrine left the young one with its prey. The young Peregrine began to eat but after a while it left the place too. May be I didn't get my life tattler, but that was a show often seen in the wild, so I'm happy anyway!

A Peregrine bites the dust

While looking for shorebirds and waders in Costa del Este (Panama City) last saturday, Osvaldo Quintero and I witnessed a dramatic episode of the daily fight for survival in the birds' world. A young Peregrine Falcon was mercilessly attacked by a pair of adults, probably defending their winter territory. We were inspecting the recently cut grass of the extensive fields in Costa del Este, spying the birds that were taking advantage of the insects and others critters available. The most numerous were the Cattle Egrets... a complete flock was following the tractor working on the fields, but also many raptors were attending too, including an adult Zone-tailed Hawk flying over some Black Vultures (not to be confused with the Turkey Vultures that were on the fields too). First, I noticed the noise of the three birds maneuvering in the air, both adults chasing the young one.

The fight reached the ground, right where the egrets were, so they flew away without thinking on it twice! Once in the ground, the young Peregrine tried to repel the attacks, showing its claws to the adults during each of their steep attack dives, lying on its back.

Eventually, the tractor came close to the Peregrine, so the adults stopped the attack for a while, allowing me to take some pictures.

However, the young Peregrine flew to a nearby flooded field, where it was struck again, this time by only one member of the pair. The adult Peregrine was too fast for my camera in Aperture mode, so you will see only its blurry silhouette and the young one trying to defend itself. Notice the third witness of the attack, a Crested Caracara in the background of the next photo (only the head is visible).

It was a nasty attack, sometimes with an audible PAFF! during each hit by the adult. After several minutes (and many hits), the adult left the young one inmobile in the ground. A Turkey Vulture approached it, surely with obscure intentions, but for its dissappointment (and our relief), the young Peregrine started to move, quite wet and clumsy.

The Peregrine Falcon flew to a nearby wall, where the Crested Caracara joined him.

It seemed to be well for such a fight and then it flew to never be seen again... I hope it found its own territory and to be strong enough to fight another day.