First birding day in a while!

An open space with a sign that reads "Keep physical distancing"

After almost six months of confinement due to the sanitary emergency, I finally went out to have a birding day, searching for shorebirds in order to participate in the World Shorebirds Day.  The high tide was quite early, so I started with the first lights.  My plan was to visit several places along the waterfront of Panama City, following the tide.  With the water level high, I chose a rocky spot that provide resting sites for tired shorebirds when they are not foraging in the mudflats.  As expected, I found some loose flocks with some of the most common species, plus rocky shores specialists, like Ruddy Turnstones and Surfbirds.  However, they were too distant for decent photos, so I concentrated my shots in some nearby targets, like the groups of Least, Semipalmated and Spotted Sandpipers that were checking the small puddles on the rocks.

Least Sandpiper

Semipalmated Sandpipers

Spotted Sandpiper

After 30 minutes carrying my backpack, camera, lens and binoculars, I realized that I was exhausted!  Certainly, the sedentary routine of my confinement had something to do with that!  The air conditioner of my car was huge relief... but I had no time to waste, the tide was retiring, exposing the mudflats of my next stop: Costa del Este.  The wetlands of the Upper Bay of Panama are of hemispheric importance for the migratory shorebirds.  Millions of birds use the area during their annual paths, the reason why Panama Audubon Society has worked incessantly in protecting the site, monitoring its birds and doing environmental education in the surrounding communities... and Costa del Este is one of those communities.  From the lookout with interpretative signs depicting shorebirds, I was able to scan the extensive mudflats at the mouth of the Matía Hernández river, adding Black-necked Stilts, Black-bellied Plovers, Greater Yellowlegs, Short-billed Dowitchers and, specially, thousands of Western Sandpipers, although widely dispersed.

Greater Yellowlegs

Western Sandpipers

After my short 30-min stop at Costa del Este, I went to a nearby site for a change.  If you want to see a greater diversity of species, then you need to visit different habitats, so I went to a grassy meadow with artificial ponds, known as MetroPark.  The pond had Wattled Jacanas, Black-necked Stilts and both Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs, while the grassland had Whimbrels and many Southern Lapwings.  I was not the only human being at the site, several people use the open spaces to work out and breath "fresh air"... of course, following the sanitary recommendations, as explained in the multiple signs all over the place (as you can see in the first photo).  My last stop was, again, a different habitat... the only sandy beach of the waterfront, right at the Panama City's coastal belt, by the mouth of the Matasnillo river.  As expected, it produced my only Sanderlings of the day.  Two pale birds were agitatedly feeding in the sand, going forth and back with the waves.  By that time, the tide was low enough to take a break until the next high tide, in the afternoon.

Southern Lapwing

Sanderling

For the second round, I joined my friends Rosabel Miró, Venicio "Beny" Wilson and Aitor Gonzalo, who were also participating in the World Shorebirds Day.  We were after an species that occurs near the city only at one reliable site at the West Bank of the Panama Canal.  The combination of sandy and rocky beaches with tons of bivalves and other mollusks to feed is ideal for the American Oystercatcher.  we knew a place where they breed, so we went there and were rewarded with a pair of vocalizing birds that flew right above us... what a sight!

American Oystercatchers

Pitifully, we were not able to find two plovers species that are also found at that habitat: Collared and Wilson's Plovers, which are also localized near the city.  To take advantage of the few hours of light left, we swiftly moved back to Costa del Este, where the tide cornered the birds in a section adjacent to the mangroves, where these birds spend the night.  We added Marbled Godwit to our checklists, but were impressed with the thousands of peeps present at the site, mostly Semipalmated Plovers, Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers.

Almost at night, we left the mangroves (and the mosquitoes), our final count was more than 5000 peeps in that little corner of mangroves.  At the end of the day, I managed to record 19 different species of shorebirds at, or near, Panama City.. an excellent number!  So tell me, how was your World Shorebirds Day?    

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!

Today is World Shorebirds Day!

All over the world we celebrate today the shorebirds!  Delicate in appearance but certainly some of the most strong flyers in this planet, many shorebirds species make, twice a year, long-distance migrations, some of them traversing more than 15,000 miles annually!  Being birds that visit whole continents, it is important to join efforts not only to protect their breeding grounds, but also their wintering grounds and stopover sites along the migration routes.

The Upper Bay of Panama, a site of hemispheric importance for shorebirds survival

That's why the World Shorebirds Day celebration was created... to raise GLOBAL public awareness about the conservation of, and research about, shorebirds (you can read more at the World Shorebirds Day Official Website).  During this past weekend, I participated in the global shorebirds counting among other members of the Panama Audubon Society in two sites of the Upper Bay of Panama: Costa del Este and Panama Viejo.  In spite of the season (in Panama, the migration season is just starting), the numbers present in both site were impressive... as usual!

Peeps in Costa del Este (September 3rd, 2016)

The most abundant species were the peeps... with Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers as the most common.  ID is difficult of course in their basic plumages... but in both sites you can get them side-by-side, making the whole thing a little bit easier.

Western and Semipalmated Sandpiper in Panama Viejo (September 4th, 2016)

The approximate count was close to 8000 peeps in Costa del Este,  a low number compared to other seasons.  We entered our records into eBird (in two checklists http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31398127, http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31419633) thus joining hundreds of other birdwatchers around the world.  Panama shorebirds were well represented, with 14 species recorded by me in both sites (12 species shared by both sites, plus another one in Costa del Este -Least Sandpiper- that I didn't manage to see, but recorded by other observer).  Here are some of them:

Whimbrels, Willets, Marbled Godwits, Short-billed Dowitchers and Black-bellied Plovers in Costa del Este (September 3rd, 2016)

Greater Yellowlegs in Panama Viejo (September 4th, 2016

Semipalmated Plover in Panama Viejo (September 4th, 2016)

All these species are regular and quite common in Panama; however, we also found a Long-billed Curlew in Panama Viejo.  This one is considered a vagrant in Panama, but one individual had spent many winters in the mudflats of Panama Viejo (but is difficult to find).

Long-billed Curlew (September 4th, 2016)

Almost all the shorebirds recorded were long-distance migrants, but we also saw three resident species: Southern Lapwing, Wilson's Plover and Black-necked Stilt.  The first one is common all over Panama, while the other two breed in small colonies in just few sites in the country.  Each winter, their populations increase with migratory individuals from other latitudes.

Black-necked Stilt at Costa del Este (September 3rd, 2016)

And you, how do you spent your World Shorebirds Day?

Look for the flags!

Last week, I went to Costa del Este (Panama City), taking advantage of a short gap in my daily duties to see what can I find at the mudflats.  The skyline of Panama City, as seen from the mouth of the Matías Hernández river in Costa del Este, is outstanding!

Panama City

As soon as I got there, the birds started to show up.  The upper Panama Bay is a very important shorebird conservation area of the western hemisphere... literally thousands of peeps and other shorebirds were feeding at the extensive mudflats or resting at the mangroves.  I recorded 11 shorebird species, plus many other aquatic birds, like herons, pelicans, cormorants, frigatebirds and gulls.  Most of them were exhibiting traces of their alternate plumage, like this Short-billed Dowitcher:

Short-billed Dowitcher

... or these Western Sandpipers (in fact, they have most of their alternate plumage):

Western Sandpipers

These two species were close enough to shore in order to obtain these photos... and in order to notice that at least one of the Western Sandpipers was banded!

Western Sandpipers

Probably is hard to tell from these photos, but the bird had a yellow band in the right leg and a gray engraved flag in the left leg.  After many photos and field observations, I was able to read the code XAV at the flag.  This cropped picture shows the code:

Western Sandpiper

Of course, I reported this sighting at http://report.bandedbirds.org/ReportResighting.aspx .  I know this bird was banded in Panama due to the combination of colors... and because I saw when they were banded (although not this same individual) in Costa del Este some weeks ago in a joint effort of Panama Audubon Society and The Center for Conservation Biology (sponsored by Environment Canada, National Audubon Society, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service).

Banding a Western Sandpiper

So, keep an eye for these banded bird while birding at the Upper Bay of Panama!

World Shorebirds Day. Part II

Due to technical problems, I was unable to post this story before (as many others as well).  Last weekend, many countries celebrated the World Shorebirds Day, and Panama was not the exception.  Many official institutions and NGOs, organized by the Panama Audubon Society (PAS), gathered in Costa del Este (Panama City) at high tide last september 6th to participate in the Shorebirds Challenge.  After the event, some PAS members stayed to count shorebirds... I joined them the next day.

Shorebirds in Costa del Este

After last sunday's coastal cleanup event in Costa del Este, I joined Rosabel Miró, Michele Caballero and others at shore in the mouth of the Matías Hernández river... the impressive diversity of shorebirds species amazed us... just the photo above shows seven shorebirds species plus Laughing Gulls and a Great Egret... can you ID these species?  Little after I took the above photo, we started to see the flocks of peeps approaching.

Mostly Western Sandpipers

Western Sandpipers

Thousands of peeps, mostly Western Sandpipers, started to appear in the exposed mudflats and in the mangroves.  These birds use the Upper Bay of Panama as feeding station during their passages or as winter grounds.  In an effort to better understand these movements, many of these birds have been ringed with flags of specific colors for each country (more about it in this post).  Earlier that day, Yenifer Díaz and Michele saw briefly one of these birds for short time but they were not able to read the characters in the flag.  Then, through the scopes, we managed to find three different birds with rings and flags.  Rosabel got this distant photo:

Banded Western Sandpiper.  Photo by Rosabel Miró

This particular bird had a muddy flag.  The other two birds had legible flags.  Both were banded almost in the same site last season earlier this year.  Simply amazing!  Only some 200 birds were banded... and we saw three of them!  However, more strange was this little guy:

Semipalmated Sandpiper

As you can see, this is a Semipalmated Sandpiper (notice the short bill)... a leucistic individual (a condition characterized by reduced pigmentation).  Is the first one I ever see... but the web is full of galleries showing these aberrant beauties.  In total, we saw 16 shorebirds species (plus another species seen the previous day)... and three banded ones!

At the mouth of the Pacora river

The upper Bay of Panama comprises 48,919 ha of sandy beaches, mudflats and mangrove forests along our central Pacific coast.  The western end of this area is under great pressure by urbanization and the expansion of Panama City and, until recently, its protected status was threatened by particular and economic interests.  Iconic sites (for shorebirds watching) included in the Upper Bay are Panama Viejo, Costa del Este and Juan Díaz (although the first two are out of the protected area); however, I just visited a new site at the mouth of the Pacora river where the Panama Audubon Society (PAS) has conducted shorebirds surveys since some years now in association with others NGOs, like the National Audubon Society and the Center for Conservation Biology, among others.

That's me in Panama Viejo.  Notice the peeps in the background (photo by Osvaldo Quintero)

Getting there ain't easy... the muddy road from the Panamerican highway is slippery and rough in some sites... and it is at least a 1-hour long drive to the beach.  However, this road crosses open habitats, shrubs, gallery forests, rice fields and some wetlands that are highly diverse in terms of avian species.  We did several stops along the way to watch some interesting species... I was driving, so I did'n take so many photos in this part of the trip.  Once in the beach, we started to work..., yes, to work.  This was not an usual birding trip.  With us was a grad student in Marine Biology of the Universidad Internacional Marítima de Panamá, Stephany Carty, some volunteers, an academic advisor from the Universidad de Panama and PAS' resident biologist, Michele Caballero.

Stephany and a volunteer sampling at the study site

Stephany is doing her thesis in these mudflats, characterizing benthic organisms associated with resting and feeding areas for resident and migratory shorebirds (benthic refers to the collection of organisms living on or in sea or lakes bottom -thanks Michele for the explanation).  This and other studies have the aim to begin a process of documentation of this critical habitat with hemispheric importance for shorebirds, and the PAS is supporting these studies while at the same time makes an important work of environmental education in communities adjacent to the protected area.

Western and Least Sandpipers at the beach

In the other hand, PAS' Executive Director, Rosabel Miró, and others PAS members (including me) were searching banded shorebirds.  Last season, some sandpipers were fitted with coded leg flags allowing individual identification.  Those flags assigned for Panama were gray with black characters (as you can see in the "Pluma Fina" section of this PAS' bulletin).  We saw some huge flocks of peeps, including Semipalmated, Western and Least Sandpipers as you can see in the picture above.  We scoped them, but none of these were banded.  We also saw Black-necked Stilts, Marbled Godwits, Willets, Whimbrels, Short-billed Dowitchers and my favorite shorebird: Red Knots.

Black Skimmers, Short-billed Dowitchers and Red Knots

These birds were easily identified by their pale red underparts, reminiscent of their alternate plumages.  This is an uncommon species in Panama and it seems to have declined in the last years.  In fact, this species is object of intense research because the populations wintering in South America dropped over 50% from the mid-1980s to 2003 (article in pdf here).  Not only waders, we also saw hundreds of other species, like resident Brown Pelicans and Neotropic Cormorants plus an amazing number of terns species... the most common were the Elegant Terns, but at the end we recorded six different terns species, including some uncommon Caspian Terns.

Caspian Terns

Notice the red, heavy-looking bill and the dark underside of the outer primaries in flight.  The highlight were three Common Terns seen flying first and then resting in the sand.  They are not common at all in Panama, as its name may suggest.

Common Terns, Willets and Semipalmated Plovers

In the picture above you can see the Common Terns resting close to a flock of Willets and two Semipalmated Plovers (we saw five plovers species in total).  The slender profile and black carpal bar is characteristic.  However, the most abundant (and intriguing) tern-like species was the Black Skimmer.  A huge flock of these elegant birds were resting in the beach (as you can see in the picture above with Red Knots).  But I noticed something strange when they took off... watch these photos:

Black Skimmers

Black Skimmers

Notice the gray underside of the wings (this can depend on light and angle, but compare the color with the white underparts), the thin (rather than broad) white trailing edge to the secondaries and, more important, the gray tail (instead of white).  All these marks are characteristics of the cinerascens subspecies from South America.

Black Skimmers and Marbled Godwits

The relative abundance of this subspecies with respect to the North American migrants is unknown.  Now I wonder if I have ever seen the North American subspecies niger in Panama (during my first years of birdwatching I didn't notice those details).  As you can see, you can have fun while contributing to scientific knowledge!

Tight together by the tide

Last friday 16-feet tide was high enough to push all the shorebirds of Panama Viejo to a tiny piece of beach close to the road. When I got to the place, it was raining so I started to watch them with my binoculars, waiting for the rain to stop. I noticed a plump-shaped shorebird accompanying the flock of peeps, evidently larger than them and looking quite similar to a dowitcher, except for its short bill... it also behaved different. A closer look revealed it to be a basic-plumaged Red Knot, which is not often found there. The rain stopped so I left the car and started to approach the birds. The knot did not stay, but all the others shorebirds did, including the flock of Short-billed Dowitchers. I usually don't have these close encounters with the dowitchers, so I took all the photos I could, including the molting individual that still was exhibiting some juvenal feathers at the coverts and the tail (the third photo).But definitively, the main show was protagonized by the three peeps species. I have to say that in Panama, these birds show their alternate plumage just for a brief period of time. The Least Sandpiper is, perhaps, the most easily identified, with its yellow legs, the thin bill and darker back. The size per se is not a good field mark as you can see in the next photo. Also, they usually like to wander close to the grassy coast and to the mangroves, instead at the extensive tidal flats like the other two species.In basic plumage the Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers are very difficult to distinguish. The main field marks are bill lenght and shape. Other field marks, like body shape, grade of facial contrast and vocalizations are not easy to determine under usual viewing conditions. Even with close and careful observations, many sandpipers will be left unidentified. I can id for sure the extremes... that is, long-billed females Westerns' (almost always with an evident dropped tip of the bill) and short, straight-billed males Semipalmateds'. For example, the next three photos are Western Sandpipers (the last two photos of a juvenile molting into basic-plumaged adult?).And the next ones are of a Semipalmated Sandpiper.Bear in mind that both species can show the rufous tinge to the scapulars, so it is not a good field mark in Panama. That day, it seemed that most of the peeps present were Western Sandpipers.
The peeps were all tight together in the same flock, with the dowitchers and some plovers, specially Wilson's and Semipalmated Plovers, with few basic-plumaged Black-bellied Plovers among the multitudes.

In general, the big shorebirds were apart of the peeps. The exception were the Willets... they looked immense compared to the peeps surrounding them.

But my favorites were the Marbled Godwits. That bubblegum-pink bill is unreal.

Well, a typical day at the Panama Viejo's mudflats!