Great day at the feeders!

Yesterday, I joined Osvaldo Quintero, Rafael Luck and Itzel Fong in a day-trip to Cerro Azul, the gated community in the foothills to the east of Panama City.  Our destination was Birder's View, known by its well-kept hummingbird feeders and lush garden attracting many species of birds.  At our arrival, we were attracted to the feeders... just like the tons of hummingbirds swarming around!

What a great spectacle!  Both White-necked Jacobin and Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer (like the one above) were the most common species.  Those red feet are so distinctive among the Panamanian hummingbirds.  Other common species was the Snowy-bellied Hummingbird.  Notice the sharp contrast between the iridescent green breast and the snowy white belly.  They have an easily recognizable call, quite metallic in quality.

As I said before, Cerro Azul is the most reliable site (in the world) to find the near-endemic for Panama Violet-capped Hummingbird.  This bird is very special... and beautiful... the only member of the genus Goldmania.  With the right angle, these birds literally glow!

The same for this Crowned (Violet-crowned) Woodnymph.  Usually, it looks pretty dark... almost black, but then... PAM!  Shock of color!

Other common species at the feeders were the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird and Green Hermits.  In fact, one of these hermits was trapped inside the house.  Luckily, Carlos (the house keeper) rescued him and released it smoothly.

Some other regular species were present in lower numbers, like the Violet-headed Hummingbird (one of my favorites) and the stunning Purple-crowned Fairy.  This one looked like a stuffed bird!

The Long-billed Starthroat and the Green-crowned Brilliant made a single appearance, not enough for photos.  However, we did not lack subjects to photograph.  Not only hummingbirds were attending the feeders: Bananaquits, Green, Red-legged and Shining Honeycreepers were trying to slurp a bit of sugar water.  We even saw a male Yellow-faced Grassquit drinking at the feeder.

What a great day in the foothills!

Coquette and others hummers in Cerro Azul

The last place visited during our saturday trip to Cerro Azul (foothills east of Panama City) was the lovely home of our good friends Williams and Claudia Ahrens (both members of The 600 Club). They are full time residents in Los Altos de Cerro Azul, and they have banana and hummingbird feeders all over their place. After trying to find the Rufous-crested Coquette in Birders' View, Rafael Luck, Osvaldo Quintero and your blogger host, headed to the Ahrens' place (after seeing only the regular Violet-headed Hummingbird at the supposed coquette site). As usual, the place was full of birds, not only hummingbirds, but also tanagers, honeycreepers and woodcreepers among others. Bill and Claudia welcomed us warmly and invited us to check their feeders, where we immediately saw the usual suspects, mainly White-necked Jacobins, but also some Amazilia hummingbirds and even a male and female Violet-crowned Woodnymph (female on a feeder). We were surprised with the answer to our question about the coquette: Bill said "ahhh, she is at the feeders right now, or in the Verbenas outside". What!!??? The coquette was there all the time? Just seconds after his answer, I saw a little black dot leaving the feeder that he pointed, heading to the purple flowers of the Verbena : a female Rufous-crested Coquette!!! We all started shooting while the beautiful creature was quietly visiting the flowers, with its tail cocked up and looking like a big bee. They say that at least two female-plumaged birds have been visiting their grounds in the past few day, one probably is an immature male. An adult male often appears too, but not recently. We were lined up in front of the Verbena, only the shooter's noise was heard. Definitively, we looked like paparazzis taking photos of a celebrity, the coquette certainly is one. Then, Claudia saw another specialty of her garden visiting one of the feeders, a Long-billed Starthroat that quickly flew to a perch in a pine tree. The colourful gorget (the "star" throat) is hard to see in the field, but the white moustache and the long and straight bill are diagnostic. The coquette reappeared in the same bush, and we took many more photos. Eventually she left the place, leaving us astonished! We barely paid attention to the others hummers in the property, despite a Snowy-bellied Hummingbird did its best to show us that it can be radiant too, showing its glowing feathers with the sun. Thank you Bill and Claudia, and lets us know if the male coquette appears!

Mostly common birds at Cerro Azul (plus Thorntail)

I visited Cerro Azul (foothills close to Panama City) three times in the past seven days. The reason: last week report of the very rare (for Panama) Brown Violetear at Birders' View. In the first two visits I recorded almost exactly the same species of birds, most of them common backyard birds in Cerro Azul, with the only exception of the female Green Thorntail that I saw atop the white-flowered tree of the parking lot with Gloriela during my first visit exactly seven days ago. She (the thorntail, not Gloriela) was a new year-bird for me... more or less a year ago I got my life thorntails in that very same tree. No photos of that first visit because of the clouded and dark day up there. During my second visit (this time with Osvaldo Quintero and Rafael Luck) last sunday, the light conditions were much better, and I got pictures of many common birds, including all the photos I'm showing in this post. It is true that the protagonist of the day was the White-tipped Sicklebill, but that is matter of another post. Back to the Birders' View garden, the Yellow-faced Grassquits were abundant, making their thrilling call everywhere and having an snack at the feeders, but also checking the native plants. At first they were a little shy, but after a couple of minutes they got very close to us because we stayed next to the feeder. We also saw a pair of Variable Seedeaters working the bushes away of the feeders. This is one of the most common species in Panama, with a rich song that is a common sound in the lowlands, but also up there. This black and white form is the dominant one in most of Panama, but we also have a totally-black form in the Caribbean slope (hence the name "Variable"). Another little friend that is quite common, but hard to see, is the Scaly-crested Pygmy-Tyrant. It has a loud voice, for such a tiny bird, that usually reveals the true commoness of this tiny flycatcher. The full crest is often seen in the field, but usually you can see the flattened look of its head and a bit of color of the hidden crest by the nape (not in this picture by the way). We also saw a lot of common hummingbirds, including Green Hermits, White-necked Jacobins, Bronze-tailed Plumeleteers, Blue-chested, Snowy-bellied, Rufous-tailed, Violet-headed and Violet-capped Hummingbirds. The last species is near-endemic to Panama, only found in this mountain range all the way to the Tacarcuna range and adjacent parts of Colombia (also in the Maje range in the Pacific slope of Panama-Darien provinces), making Cerro Azul the most reliable site IN THE WORLD to see this little jewel... so even a photo of a female at a feeder is good photo! Of course, I also got photos of my favorite hummer in that garden: the Violet-headed Hummingbird! In the way out we saw another of the Cerro Azul's regular birds. Perched on a telephone wire, an immature male American Kestrel was inspecting its surroundings. It was in Cerro Azul when some years ago the first signs of breeding for this species was noticed in Panama... now they are year-round residents in central and eastern Panama, a population that probably came from the south (Colombia) to firmly stablished here. Well, all these birds may be common, but they are so interesting anyway!

2010's bird # 600: Violet-headed Hummingbird

Yesterday I visited Cerro Azul (foothills to the east of Panama City) with Itzel Fong and Osvaldo Quintero. We simply wanted to enjoy some easy birding at the foothills, but I also had in mind to find my year-bird # 600 since I was only one bird away of my goal (I'm participating in Panama's 600 Club). Once I got out of the car, I started to search. Soon, my desired bird appear, in the form of a beautiful male Violet-headed Hummingbird feeding at the little flowers of the garden at Birder's View (thanks Rosabel).

Despite it is a common hummer, it was new because it was my first time at Cerro Azul this year (despite it is only a 45-minutes drive from the city). In fact, all the other new year-birds of the day were common species at this site (five in total, three were hummingbirds). We saw at least two different individuals. These hummingbirds liked the little, tubular flowers growing wild in the garden, never visiting the hummingbird feeders frequented by many other species. Notice that all the flowers in these pictures are similar, except by its color.

This male perched frequently no far away of the flowers, sometimes singing incessantly its insignificant song. It was so nice to have this little guy as my year-bird # 600!

This post was submitted to Bird Photography Weekly # 116. Check it out!

Still around... thorntails and others

On november 24 I went back to Cerro Azul, east of Panama city, this time with Osvaldo Quintero and Osvaldo Quintero Jr, in order to relocate the Green Thorntails that have been around since last saturday, first noticed by Rosabel Miró. Again, we arrived in the afternoon, around 4:00 pm. The activity around the tree with the white flowers at the parking lot was low, but soon we found the first hummingbirds but no thorntails. After five long minutes I saw it again (well, I saw its tail again), elegantly flying around the flowers and even perching in order to suck the nectar. This time, it was not so showy, nor so agressive, and was keeping a low profile, with long periods of time without seeing it at all. The female (only one this time) was shy also. Again, its preference for the canopy of the tree, and the poor light conditions (plus the fog) made difficult to photograph it... so this time I concentrate in the others species attending the same tree. Perhaps, the most interesting hummingbird of the group (apart of the thorntails, of course) was the Violet-capped Hummingbird. The female that I picture here may look extremely ordinary at first glance (please note the hint of dull reddish chestnut in the rectrices)... but this species is near-endemic to Panama, barely reaching extreme NW Colombia. The beautiful males are less often spotted than the females, specially around Rosabel's house in Cerro Azul, but are somewhat commoner at higher elevations (Cerro Jefe, Cerro Chucanti). If you don't see the deep reddish-chestnut tail, you can still recognize this beauty by its particular green irridiscence at the back, quite different from that of any other hummingbird in range. Even the history of this little friend is quite interesting, being described by E. W. Nelson as a monotypic species (Goldmania violiceps) and named in honor of Mr. Edward A. Goldman, who collected the type specimen from the higher slopes of Cerro Azul nearly a hundred years ago during one of his Smithsonian Biological Surveys in the Canal Zone and adjacent parts of Panama. By far, this is the easiest place to see this species in the world!! They are adaptable birds, and they do visit hummingbird feeders, unlike the next species that was also haunting around the thorntails' tree: the Violet-headed Hummingbird. It is readily identified by its small size and prominent white, tear-like post-ocular dot (its genus, Klais, literally means tears, referring to this particular mark) and usually they are kept visiting the flowers at low and medium-sized shrubs, avoiding the canopy of tall trees. A male was working at the lower flowers while a female appeared for few seconds behind us, visiting the Verbenas (Stachytarpheta) and being furiously banished by a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. By the end of the evening we recorded nine hummingbirds species (we missed the Fairy), plus tons of tanager, honeycreepers and dacnises. I will not get tired of saying it... if all the backyard birding were like this!