Ten years counting migrant raptors!

Today was the closure of this season's hawk count over the Ancon Hill in Panama City.  This was a record year, including the largest number of diurnal raptors counted in one day: 2,105,060 bird in November 2nd!

Turkey Vultures

Turkey Vultures and Swainson's Hawk

For ten years now, the Panama Audubon Society (PAS) has organized these counts with the intention to monitor the migration of these species throughout the region.  Panama City is right under the path of these migrating kettles, so every year we marvel at this magnificent spectacle that nature gives us.  Many species of diurnal raptors migrate through Panama, but the most conspicuous are the Turkey Vultures and both Swainson's and Broad-winged Hawks.

Swainson's Hawk (adult, pale phase)

Swainson's Hawk (immature, dark phase)

Broad-winged Hawk

I want to thank the PAS and all the counters and volunteers who every year perform this arduous task. For them, CONGRATULATIONS!

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!

October = Migration !!!

If you live in Panama, or happen that you visits Panama City in october, then watch the skies... you may be missing one of the greatest spectacle this land has to offer!  The southward migration of millions of raptors passing right by the city (enlarge the photo and try to count the dots).

Each year, almost all the populations of Turkey Vultures, Broad-winged Hawks and Swainson's Hawks, fly from their breeding grounds in North America, to their wintering grounds in South America.  In their migration route, the isthmus of Panama is a kind of bottle neck where huge kettles forms, looking like an aerial highway of birds.

This is a diurnal migration, since these birds needs the ascending thermal currents to gain height.  Once at the top of the thermal, they simply glide to the base of the next current and so on.  In this way (gliding), they save a lot of energy during the travel, that can be as long as 14000 miles (22400 km) in the case of the Swainson Hawk.

The three species mentioned above form the bulk of the living mass flying through Panama, but many other species of raptors migrates through Panama too.  Just check at HawkCount.org the number of species and, more important, the number of individuals counted this month only at the Ancon Hill hawkwatch site in Panama City... IMPRESSIVE! 

Sometimes, the number of birds is so high, that the domestic flights in Panama City have been suspended.  Thanks God this plane was flying much higher than the birds in that moment.

So, if you want to see a real river of raptors, come to Panama and enjoy!

No doubt these photos were taken in Panama!

Birding La Escalera

We finally were at the base of the Pantepui region in southeastern Venezuela, after birding three days in and around El Palmar, and after our traveling day to Las Claritas the day before. Rafael Cortes and your blogger host were now guests of Henry Cleve at his lovely Barquilla de Fresa Inn, and very early he was taking us to La Escalera, the windy road that ascends all the way to La Gran Sabana, delimiting, in part, the huge Canaima National Park!

The Plateu Theory indicates that once, only one HUGE tepui existed: the Pantepui. Over millions of years, the erosion gave place to the table-top mountains known as tepuis, a process that still continues... so, La Escalera takes you along the forested slope of this ancient Pantepui all the way to the grassy plateu named now La Gran Sabana, that is the actual level reached by erosion!

We stopped at several sites along the road, including al the km 102 where a nice black-rock lookout (mirador) offers an excellent, overwhelming view of the surrounding forests and towards the tepuis beyond. This black-rock formation of Precambric origin, one of the most ancient formations in the Americas!

That day we flushed a Blackish Nightjar, but the star of the show wasn't a bird, but an amphibian: Henry found for us a beautiful (and deadly) Yellow-banded Poison Dart Frog (Dendrobates leucomelas) for our delight.

At km 111, a mixed flock with Tepui Greenlets, Bananaquits, Orange-bellied Euphonia, Slate-throated Whitestart, Sharpbill, Slate-crowned Shrike-Vireo and Golden-olive Woodpecker, amon others kept us entertaining... a group of Olive-backed Tanagers and a Orange-bellied Manakin where apart of the flock... I only managed this creepy photo... but at least you can see why this manakin is named this way. Pitifully, I have no photo of the impressive males Guianan Cock-of-the-Rocks that repeatedly crossed the street, with one individual perching briefly close to us allowing a great view! Those birds look like fire balls when flying!

We started to hear the White Bellbirds from the middle part of La Escalera, and soon we were seeing several males perched exposed on top of tall trees making their bizarre, very loud calls. Higher up we saw the Bearded Bellbird too, but that male didn't allow photos. According to Henry, the long wattle of the male bellbird are part of its sexual attractive to females... can you imagine what would think a White Bellbird female about our resident species of bellbird in Panama (the Three-wattled Bellbird)?

In the higher part of La Escalera (around km 135), Henry found for us several Pantepui endemics, including Tepui Antwren, Fiery-shouldered Parakeet, McConnells -"Lema"- Flycatcher, Rose-collared Piha (a female), and amazing males Scarlet-horned Manakins... what a beauty!

We lunched at the monument to the pioneering soldier, in La Gran Sabana, after watching Black-faced and Burnished-buff Tanagers, accompanied by a Yellow-headed Caracara and a strange-looking Turkey Vulture due to its partial albinism, because it was a leucistic bird (thanks J.C.)

It was an excellent day, full of lifers, pantepui endemics and astonishing landscapes... but it was only the first day, so stay tuned!

Rafael Cortes and Henry Cleve at km 124, La Escalera, Bolívar state.

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.

More and more migrants

I went yesterday to the Metropolitan Natural Park of Panama City, taking advantage of the free day. The two previous day have been amazing due to the thousands of hawks and vultures that flew over the city in their way to the south and yesterday the counters at Ancon Hill (that hill with the panamanian flag covered in migrant Turkey Vultures) that the raptors stayed at the forest surrounding the former Canal Area. So, I was expecting to find many raptors in the park waiting for the day to heat-up to re-start the migration. The same did Osvaldo Quintero and Itzel Fong... they also went to the park looking for sleepy raptors. We hardly saw any migrant raptor in our way to El Mirador, but saw many migrant songbirds, specially tons of Swainson's Thrushes and Eastern Wood-Pewees (both were aboundant). At El Mirador, the activity was low... but after a few minutes we started to see some Turkey Vultures, then other group, and then another! In seconds, we saw tons of Turkey Vultures at the thermal currents gaining altitude from all the surrounding forests! Then we saw some Swainson's Hawks too approaching quite close to us, including one individual that flew so close over our heads that I barely captured part of it in the photo. By that time, the whole city was covered in migrat vultures and hawks, literally!!!

We realized that the main route was following the coast, a little distant of us, so we started to walk the way down to the parking lot at the entrance of the trails. We found a big mixed flock after passing the entrance to La Cieneguita trail with many resident species like Lesser and Golden-fronted Greenlets, White-shouldered Tanagers, one Green Shrike-Vireo and some Red-throated Ant-Tanagers; but also including some migrant warblers. The most common was the Bay-breasted Warbler. We found several individuals with variable amount of chestnut on its flanks. I checked them all very well looking for something rarer... but all seemed to be Bay-breasted Warblers in basic plumage. The other pretty common parulid was the Chestnut-sided Warbler. It is amazing how much they change... the alternate and basic-plumaged birds look like different species! However, it is very distinctive even with its winter dress. You can recognize them (even in my photo) by its bright-green crown and back, the complete white eye-ring and its lemon-yellow wingbars. The flock also included a magnificent male Golden-winged Warbler. It was so active, never stopping its quest for insects high on the trees, so I only got blurry photos. It is a shame because that bird is a real jewel. Other warblers at the park, but not in that particular flock, were the Yellow Warblers and the Blackburnian Warblers (both photos are from Costa del Este recently). The Yellow Warbler is one of the most common migrant songbird in Panama, but not in the forest. We also have a resident population, the "Mangrove" Warbler, distinctive different and considered by many as a good species. About the Blackburnians, they become very common in the park (and around the city) for a short period of time... this time I saw only one probable individual briefly while seeing the raptors from El Mirador (this species was pretty common just a couple of weeks ago). Close to the parking lot (at "El Castillo"), I saw a thrush perched quietly at the border of the trail. A quick look with my binoculars confirmed it to be a Gray-cheeked Thrush instead of the aboundant Swainsons'. Both Itzel and Osvaldo asked me: who??, so I showed them the bird, who stayed enough for some photos. It turned out that it was a lifer for both of them! Curiously, that was the second time this season that I see the bird exactly in the same place... so it was not a new year-bird for me, but an exciting lifer (and life photo) for my companions. We then drove to the Visitors Center of the park to have a well-deserved drink... but Osvaldo had a surprise for us. He took us behind the wildlife rehab facilities and in a matter of seconds, a splendid young Common "Mangrove" Black-Hawk appeared to inspect us, probably waiting for us to feed him. Of course we took tons of photos of the cooperative bird, who stayed in the nearby forest when the park's personnel released him. Great way to end the day!