Visiting Finca Bayano

Since the closure of the former Tocumen marshes to birders some years ago, we have been visiting a rice farm to the east of Panama City known as Finca Bayano, looking for those open habitat species of birds difficult to find around Panama City.  The site is promising since it have a nice mixture of habitats: pastures, gallery forests, scrubs and bushes, cultivated fields and so on...  So we visited it last weekend, reaching the place at sunrise.

Finca Bayano

I joined Rosabel Miro and Bill Adsett for this birding adventure... and to be honest, I was expecting a regular day in the field, however, we soon noticed that everything was set to have a great day!  Literally hundreds of herons, egrets, ibises and storks were feeding on the flooded fields.

Well, but all these species were common ones... then we started to notice some shorebirds in the same fields... first some scattered groups... by the end of the trip we saw no less than 100 Pectoral Sandpipers, both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Spotted, Solitary, Western, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers... but more important, we saw at least two Stilt Sandpipers, pretty uncommon for Panama. I took a short video showing some Pectoral Sandpipers (is the first time I saw so many of them!).

As you can see, my digiscoping abilities are close to zero... but I just wanted to document the numbers.  The waders were not the only highlights.  We saw many species with nesting materials or feeding young.  In fact, we saw several pairs of elegant Pied Water-Tyrants making nests and at least two Pale-breasted Spinetails feeding young birds (they look rather plain).

Pied Water-Tyrant

Also impressive was the number and variety of raptors in those fields: both Caracaras, Bat and Laughing Falcons, Pearl, White-tailed and Hook-billed Kites, Common Black, Roadside, Gray-lined, Savanna and Zone-tailed Hawks were hunting all over the place... in fact, we just saw this Zone-tailed Hawk to grab a whiptail lizard from the ground.

Zone-tailed Hawk with whiptail lizard

However, the most surprising bird (at least for me) was another raptor... but not a diurnal one.  Over a field with dry grass I saw a ghostly figure approaching low to land over a bush facing away.  After a while, the bird turned its head 180º towards me... a Barn Owl was making eye-contact with me under a bright sun!

Barn Owl

Any day with an owl is a good day!

Face-to-face with a Zone-tailed

To live on the sixth floor of an apartment block over a hill in Panama City has its advantages.  One is that you can have close encounters with the raptors that take advantage of the ascending thermal current to gain height.  Only good lucks assure you a correct ID of some of theses raptors, specially if one of these mimics a more common species.

That is the case of the Zone-tailed Hawk.  Of course there is no doubt of its identity in the above photo... but when you see this bird high in the sky, it becomes quite difficult to separate from the similar Turkey Vulture.  In fact, with some experience you can notice the smaller size of the hawk as the first evidence of its identity.  Some days ago, I had the opportunity to watch one of these masters of flight circling close to my apartment.  I had my camera close, so I grabbed it just before noticing that the bird was turning towards me.

After a few seconds, it was flying just in front of me, mere 4 or 5 meters away!  The bird saw me directly without deviating from its course... I could swear I felt its penetrating glare!

The hawk gained height swiftly, leaving me astonished!  Now that's the way to enjoy a Zone-tailed!

Rain and birds

If your free day starts chilly and rainy, most of us prefer to stay in bed rather to wake up.  I usually do that... however, this time I preferred to grab my binoculars and started to watch through the windows and from the balcony of our apartment, in Panama City.  At first, nothing moved... then, I started to see some species, holding under the rain.

The time was not appropriate for flying... specially for raptors and vultures.  This pair of Black Vultures decided to wait the rain to stop atop the roof of a nearby mall.  In the other hand, this completely wet Yellow-headed Caracara preferred the trees of the little hill facing the balcony.

Any corner is good for shelter, as these Rock Pigeons proved.  They were very close to my window... they not noticed my presence.

However, some species were flying around in spite of the rain, like a flock of Gray-breasted Martins and this Zone-tailed Hawk that, at first, I thought it was a Turkey Vulture.  The similarity is impressive, even the way to fly from one side to another taking advantage of any breeze, making it look effortless.

A nice thing about the rain is that, when it stops, is like a new dawn... all the hungry birds come out... in my case, a pair of migrant Scarlet Tanagers just in front of the balcony!

What a great way to spend a rainy day!

October = Migration !!! (Part II)

In my last post, I wrote about the impressive diurnal migration of hawks and vultures over Panama City in october... but october is also the peak of the migration of many other birds, including many song birds (passerines),  and the Ancon Hill is also an excellent site to watch them as well.

Sometimes, it is not clear if you are watching a migrant or a resident bird... for example, I know that the Zone-tailed Hawks nest in Panama, but definitively I see them around more often during the migration season, like the one pictured above at the Ancon Hill.  Other times, it is obvious you are seeing resident birds... like the Keel-billed Toucan... who paints these birds anyway?

It is nice to see how our common species share their food sources with the migrants.  For example, several Scarlet Tanagers were feeding in the same bush with a group of ubiquitous Social Flycatchers.

During the migration, some species are way more easy to see than in other seasons... this Mourning Warbler was hoping around merely three feet of me! 

Sometimes, the migrant species resemble the resident ones.  Take for example this Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher.  They are transient migrants (that is, they do not winter in Panama), temporarily quite common all over Panama, where they share habitats with our resident Streaked Flycatchers... the only reliable field mark to tell apart these two is the black chin of the migrants!

Well, this is Panama in migration... I still need some migrants in my life list... so this is not my last time in Ancon Hill looking for them (and yes, I am talking about Black-billed Cuckoos)!

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.

My balcony list

Not always you can get out to a pristine habitat to chase rare birds. That is why quite often I go to my balcony just to see what can I find to deal with my birding abstinence syndrome (I live in a fourth floor in the center of Panama City). Usually I get the same common species, but sometimes I get surprises. I keep a balcony list where I include all the birds heard or watched while I am standing at my balcony. It is different to a backyard list because it is not restricted to a backyard (in anycase I don't have one)... I count all the birds that I can identify in my field of view, which includes part of the Metropolitan Natural and Camino de Cruces National Parks and the Ancon Hill as well (all are distant forested areas). I also have some photos showing the birds on or over man-made structures like telephone posts, wires, antennas, communication towers, etc... (that is the idea, to show them in an urban environment). So here is, my balcony list:

Magnificent Frigatebird

Great Egret
Wood Stork
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey

White-tailed Kite
Broad-winged Hawk
Short-tailed Hawk
Swainson's Hawk
Zone-tailed Hawk

Yellow-headed Caracara
Anhinga
Southern Lapwing
Laughing Gull
Rock Pigeon
Pale-vented Pigeon

Ruddy Ground-Dove
Orange-chinned Parakeet
Blue-headed Parrot
Red-lored AmazonYellow-crowned Amazon
Common Nighthawk
Chimney Swift
Short-tailed Swift
Rufous-tailed HummingbirdRinged Kingfisher
Red-crowned Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Acadian Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Social Flycatcher
Streaked Flycatcher
Tropical Kingbird
Gray Kingbird
Fork-tailed FlycatcherGray-breasted Martin
Southern Rough-winged Swallow
Bank Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Clay-colored Thrush
Tropical Mockingbird
Yellow Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Yellow-crowned Euphonia
Blue-gray Tanager
Palm Tanager
Crimson-backed Tanager
Great-tailed Grackle
House Sparrow

Fifty-three species in total by now, but expect additions to this list in the years to come. In the other hand, if I do not find birds from the balcony, it is always nice to enjoy the sunset every afternoon.