Whale watching trip to the Pearl Islands

Last weekend, I went with my family on a private tour to the Pearl Islands, the heavenly archipelago within an hour and a half from busy Panama City.  My friend Mario Ocaña organized the trip and was a terrific host, and my whole family is impressed by his professionalism and camaraderie.  Our objective was to watch whales... but it was an open itinerary, and we included some time to enjoy the beaches (as in plural!), to have lunch in Contadora island and to visit some seabirds colonies.

Ready for adventure!

In fact, the first attraction was close to the dock.  Few minutes after leaving the marina, we were admiring hundreds of Blue-footed Boobies and other seabirds resting at the Peñón de San José, a rocky islet to the south of Flamenco Island.  However, the main attraction there were the three Peruvian Boobies resting on the rocks among the Blue-footed Boobies.  They are irregular visitors to Panama (only under abnormal conditions, like El Niño).

Peruvian and Blue-footed Boobies

Blue-footed Boobies

Brown Booby

As you can see, I'm including also a photo of a Brown Booby seen later and another pic of the Blue-footed Booby, both from Pachequilla island, the first of the Pearl Islands that we visited that day.  The sight of several hundreds of seabirds on the rocks made us feel like in a Nat Geo documentary!  A little bit after leaving Pachequilla, we encountered our first pair of whales: mother and calf Humpback Whales!

Mother and calf Humpback Whales

These warm and shallow waters are perfect for the whales to raise their young.  Soon these beasts will engage on an epic transequatorial journey to their feeding grounds around Antarctica.  The second whale appeared shortly after the above pair close to Contadora island... as Mario says, the harder whale to find is the first one!

Humpback Whale (Contadora island in the background)

With the whales in the bag, we decided to enjoy the white-sanded beaches of both Mogo Mogo and Chapera islands... the Survivor: Pearl Islands sets.  We had the whole beaches for us, and the little ones enjoyed it most (specially Gabrielle, after her slight disappointment after realizing that whales were not purple, as her toy whale).

 

In our way to Contadora island, we saw some Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels.  For most of the participants, they were little dark bat-like birds flying swiftly and in zig-zag among the waves... this photo shows that they are delicately patterned in brown and buffy, with contrasting white uppertail coverts.

Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel

And of course we saw more Humpback Whales!  Several more, including pairs of mother and calf, solitary adults and even a distant group of adults flapping their flippers and jumping out the water!  The show was amazing and soon we were joined by several other boats admiring the whales as well.

Noisy blow

The ride back to Panama City was a bumpy one, but we were more than happy after enjoying these nature marvels so close to the big, busy city.  While we were having a sunny day at the islands, a huge storm system was whipping Panama City... but we made it without experiencing any rainstorm at all!  I want to thanks Mario for the excellent trip, and hope to repeat it soon my friend!

Bird of the Month: Peruvian Booby

The Peruvian Booby (Sula variegata) is endemic of the cold current along the west coast of South America, from Ecuador to Chile.  However, under abnormal conditions, they wander north, up to Panama.  In fact, we are experiencing an "invasion" of this species at our country.

Peruvian Boobies in Peñón de San José, august 9th

Everything started last june 22nd, when one individual was found weakened in Panama City's Amador causeway.  This bird was taken to the Summit Gardens where a veterinarian examined it; however, the bird died the next day.  This report passed unnoticed until it was published in this article.  More than one month later, Panama Audubon's Society (PAS) Executive Director, Rosabel Miró, received an intriguing email from a 13 years-old girl with photos attached showing a Peruvian Booby.  The girl took the photos from the balcony of her apartment in an exclusive development in Panama City.  The next day, august 2nd, Rosabel and other PAS members visited the site, finding the Peruvian Booby (photo in this Xenornis report).  Another PAS member, Rafael Lau, managed to visit the actual balcony where the booby was found.  This individual appeared in june 22nd (thus matching the date of the first record) and was sleeping in the site each night since then.  The owner of the balcony refers that she fed the bird the first weeks because it looked "sick", accepting water and bred until it got better (report with photos here).

Peruvian Booby over Peñón de San José, august 9th

Rosabel insistence paid off when, while scoping the rocky islet Peñón de San José, 1600 meters away of Flamenco island (linked to the city by the Amador's causeway) on august 3rd, she spotted a Peruvian Booby among dozens Blue-footed Boobies.  It was late in the afternoon and the next day a group of birders scoped no less than five Peruvian Boobies in the islet.  Since then, many observers have reported the Peruvian Boobies from the islet.  The highest count was made on august 9th, with no less than 38 adults counted from a boat circumnavigating the islet.  The last time I personally check this group of birds was on august 31st, when I spotted 4 of them from the ferry to the Pearl Islands.

Peruvian Booby in Pachequilla Island, august 31st

So far, the Peruvian Boobies were reported only from or near Panama City (Amador's causeway, Punta Pacífica in Panama City, Peñón de San José and unpublished sightings of birds feeding at sea in front of Costa del Este, in Panama City).  However, during my last trip to the Pearl Islands, we found 7 Peruvian Boobies resting in Pachequilla Island close to Contadora Island.  This is an important record since other observers found none in previous visits.  Also, we should remember that, during "El Niño" of 1983-84, the Peruvian Boobies were reported from the Pearl Islands as well in impressive numbers (3490 birds were counted in Pacheca Island on june 17th, 1983).

Peruvian Booby over Pachequilla Island, august 31st

There is only one report of a Peruvian Booby in Panamanian waters apart from these invasions, an individual resting at sea in front of Juan Hombrón beach, Coclé province by Carlos Bethancourth (report in Xenornis).  These invasions are quite rare, and we must make every effort to document them in detail.  There are few published papers about the 1983-84 invasion, and only one report in eBird of a Peruvian Booby in Bona Island (Upper Bay of Panama) by Chuck Aid on april 3rd, 1983.  For these, and many other reasons is why we chose the Peruvian Booby as our Bird of the Month!

Blue-footed and Peruvian Boobies in Peñón de San José, august 9th.  Can you tell them apart?

Literature consulted:
1.  Ridgely R, Gwynne J. A Guide to the Birds of Panama. Princeton University Press 1989.
2.  XENORNIS. At http://www.xenornis.com/

The Pearl Islands experience! Part II

The second day of our trip to the Pearl Islands (Gulf of Panama), Joris, Francis and your blogger host hired a boat to visit some nearby islands to Contadora; however, Joris and I decided to watch birds in the island interior during the first hours of light.  It was too early for most of the migrants... instead, we found many resident birds around the pond.  This Panama Flycatcher was particularly cooperative:

Panama Flycatcher

At the pond, several pairs of Least Grebes were quite active making display calls and exhibitions and building floating nests.  We managed some close views and photos of these birds.

Least Grebe

It was time to aboard our boat, the captain was waiting for us at Galeon beach and soon we were heading to Pacheca Island, just to the north of Contadora.  This private owned island holds one of the most important breeding colony of Magnificent Frigatebirds in the Panamanian Pacific... a fact that quickly became obvious... hundreds of frigatebirds flying and resting at the trees of the island... impressive!

Immature Magnificent Frigatebirds

However, both Pacheca and Pachequilla islands were covered in Blue-footed Boobies... hundreds of them!  Pachequilla was literally covered with them.  These amazing numbers of Blue-footed Boobies are not usual... they are easily seen from shore at the continent in several beaches, and hundreds of them rest in islets close to Panama City as well.

Blue-footed Boobies

Blue-footed Boobies

In the other hand, the Brown Boobies were not more than 10... and all of them at Pachequilla island.  In fact, we saw some more in the open sea during the ferry trip from Panama City.  I have to mention that this seems to be a recent shift in the boobies population in these nesting sites.  According to Angehr & Kushlan (Waterbirds 2007; 30: 335-57), the "Brown Boobies nested in similar sites as Blue-footed Boobies but were more widely distributed", and that "although commonly seen roosting in the outer islands of the Pearls, Blue-footed Boobies are relatively rare, scattered, and perhaps irregular as breeders".

Brown Boobies

However, the biggest surprise was a small group of Peruvian Boobies resting at Pachequilla island!  They were easily identified due to their contrasting white head and necks, smaller size and checkered upperparts (and, of course, none of these had blue feet).

Peruvian (and three Blue-footed) Boobies in Pachequilla island 

Peruvian and Blue-footed Boobies in Pachequilla island

We are experiencing an invasion of Peruvian Boobies in Panamanian waters, probably displaced by warmer conditions in their usual range in South America.  Until that day, they were only reported from Panama City and a nearby islet.  We were quite excited about this... but know that these are not exactly good news for the birds.  The last birds we saw while circumnavigating Pacheca island were these two American Oystercatchers... always a nice sight!

American Oystercatchers

We really had fun and enjoyed every second of this flash trip to the Pearl Islands.  Hope you enjoyed it as well!

Isleta island

Peñón de San José revisited

The finding of Peruvian Boobies at the Peñón de San José (a rocky islet in Panama Bay) was pretty exciting news for the panamanian birders (although not exactly good news for the birds); however, having to ID these birds through scopes at 1.6 km away was not that satisfactory. That's why I joined Osvaldo Quintero, Rafael Luck and Venicio "Beny" Wilson in a short boat trip to the islet yesterday's morning.  After leaving the dock, our captain took us swiftly around Flamenco Island (from where we scoped the boobies last time), seeing a colony of Brown Pelicans and many Magnificent Frigatebirds and Neotropic Cormorants passing by.  Soon, we were approaching the Peñón de San José, that was full of boobies!

Blue-footed Boobies

Blue-footed Boobies

As you can see, most of them were Blue-footed Boobies... tons of them.  We counted at least 200 birds, including many immature birds, as in the photo above.  Of course, the main objective of our trip were the Peruvian Boobies scoped from shore, but considering the huge numbers of Blue-footed Boobies in this and other islets around Panama Bay make us wonder if some of these birds are southern visitors too.  Notice the solid brown wings of the immature birds, different to the scaled pattern of the back and wings of Peruvian Boobies immatures.  After a while, we started to see Peruvian Boobies... two at first, then three more, then more and more... WOW!  we counted 38 adult Peruvian Boobies... at least!

Peruvian Boobies

Apart of the obvious differences in legs color, notice the white neck and head (with no brown streaks) and, as mentioned before, the scaled effect of the upperparts.  The Peruvian are also smaller than the Blue-footed Boobies.  Most of these birds were resting in the vertical cliffs of the southern/eastern face of the islet... in fact, the next two Peruvian Boobies were the only that we saw in the northern cliff (the one that can be seen from Flamenco Island).

Peruvian Boobies

After visiting the islet, we visit some other islets, like Changame, Tortolita and Tórtola islands.  In Tórtola, we saw many more Blue-footed Boobies and tons of Brown Pelicans... and yes, we checked the field marks.

The Brown Pelican is the only regularly seen species of pelican in Panama... but if we just saw Peruvian Boobies, why not Peruvian Pelicans?  The adult birds looked normal-sized (Peruvian are considerably larger) with uniformly dark upperwings coverts and the juvenile birds (with all brown head and white bellies) had gray gular pouches.  OK, not Peruvian Pelicans... but I'll keep searching!

Rafael, Beny, Osvaldo and me!

Seeing the effects of "El Niño"

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is, as its name suggests, an oscillation of the ocean-atmosphere system and is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.  The fishermen in northern Peru noticed that these phenomena usually occurred during the last months of the year, associating it with Christmas and with the niño Jesus, hence the name.  During strong El Niño events, the birds populations along the Humboldt Current disperse looking for reachable source of food.

Peruvian Boobies resting in a rocky island off the coast of Lima (Peru)

One particularly susceptible species is the Peruvian Booby.  They specialized in capturing anchovies by bomb-diving in rich waters of upwellings; however, when the water temperature rise, these anchovies schools move to deeper waters or migrate to other latitudes, out of reach for the boobies.  So, the presence of several Peruvian Boobies in the coast of Panama City is not exactly a good new.  The last time we saw such numbers of Peruvian Boobies (during the 1982-83 El Niño) at our coasts, the population collapsed in their usual range... from 3 to only 0.2 millions of birds!

Peñón de San José

The first Peruvian Booby recorded this season was found weakened in the Amador Causeway, in Panama City.  Its story appears in this article and in this Xenornis report.  Then, more than one month later, more Peruvian Boobies were seen in Panama City, specifically at a rocky islet known as Peñón de San José, 1.6 km to the south of the Flamenco marina at the end of the Amador Causeway (except for a photogenic individual found in private property in Punta Pacifica).  Yesterday, I joined Rosabel Miró (who photographed the Punta Pacifica bird and found the first Peruvian Booby at the islet), Michele Caballero and Andrea Carrillo to the Amador Causeway in order to aim the scopes towards the islet.  Leslie and Cindy Lieurance were already scoping the islet and, after a while, Darien Montañez and Osvaldo Quintero joined us as well.

Soon, several Peruvian Boobies started to appeared; both resting and flying.  They were too far away for our DSLR cameras, and my poor attempts to digiscope these birds produced the marginal photo I'm showing next:

Peruvian Booby (yes... in the center of the picture)

I know it is not too much... but the clean-white head and neck, contrasting with the dark and slightly checkered back is evident.  These birds (at least five different individuals... surely more) were mixed with Blue-footed Boobies.  A large flock offshore of boobies floating in the ocean may have had more individual.  I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg, and that we will have more and more Peruvian Boobies at our coasts, so stay alert!