2012 CBCs: Pacific circle

December is a month of festivities... but also of bird counts!  The Panama Audubon Society organizes three Christmas Bird Counts in central Panama, and I pretend to participate in all of them.  In fact, I already participated last sunday, december 16th, in the first count, the Pacific circle.  As usual, my count area was the coastal strip of the west bank of the canal, including Farfan, Palo Seco and Vercaruz, accompanied this time by Rafael Luck, Jennifer Wolcott, Dan Heinrichs and Neville Lincoln.

The tide was pretty high early in the morning, so we concentrated first in the huge pond at Farfan, finding many waterbirds, like Roseate Spoonbill, Neotropic Cormorants, ton of egrets and White Ibises, both Belted and Ringed Kingfishers and many more.

One good thing about our counting area is the variety of habitats... we visited mudflats, ponds and mangroves before moving to a dry forest three minutes away... the forests around the (former) Palo Seco Hospital.  In spite that it has been abandoned for a couple of years now, the jungle already took it and only some buildings are evident now.

The forest was very quiet, however, we still recorded Lesser Greenlets, Tropical Gnatcatcher, Lance-tailed Manakin and the particular sight of both Turkey and Black Vultures resting side-by-side.

Most of the main targets at our count area were waders, and the best place to look after them is around Veracruz beach.  This year, we didn't see many shorebirds compared to other years, but we got at least the cutest of them all: Collared Plovers!

The final habitat visited was the taller and wetter forest just north of Veracruz, where we found different species like Lineated Woodpecker, Cocoa Woodcreeper and, surprisingly, a group of five White-vented Euphonias.

However, it was almost noon when we reached this patch of forest, and by that time, the forest borders and the open areas were more productive than the forest itself... just check the cooperative Gray Kingbird and the bright Saffron Finch that we found.

We recorded 113 species in total, not a bad number for only six hours of birding!

What is singing over there?

If you have asked this before, then you will be glad to know that Xeno-canto announced some weeks ago that they are launching an automated sound recognition system called Pai-luiz, designed by Hermann Redies. It is available for all the users in the Americas only. You can try it at http://www.xeno-canto.org/america/neocrex.php and then tell me what you think.

So... it is time to solve all those mysteries tape-recorded!

Photo: male Saffron Finch singing its lungs out at Amador, Panama City.

From white to black... and some yellow!

I visited the area of Amador in Panama City under the heat of a midday sun just to see if I could find some yellow in the form of a Cattle Tyrant that has been reported there several times. Instead, I found a lot of white, black and different shades of gray in the form of many common birds in the surroundings... most of them Fork-tailed Flycatchers. These amazing birds have very elongated rectrices (tail feathers) that they display while chasing the flying insects which they eat, mostly with acrobatic aerial maneuvers. They are pretty common in the open habitats of the Pacific slope all along Panama (except the Darien province), where you can see one or many individuals calmly perched atop a bush waiting for an insect. They breed in Panama, but we also have migrants from the north and maybe from South America too. The exact movements of this species in Panama are not well known yet. For example, I saw a huge flock in the Gatun locks of the Panama Canal last january in the Caribbean slope, where it is supposed to be uncommon. Maybe it was a flock of migrants. Now, I saw also a huge flock in Amador, with at least 100 birds scattered along the extensive gardens and fields of the area. The Birds of Panama Fieldguide mention that it is possible that these birds leave their breeding grounds in big flocks and who knows if this is an evidence of that. Anyway, they are funny to see. Some even descended to the sidewalk to drink water and others were feeding with fruits of a palm tree. Sometimes thery were joined by the Great-tailed Grackles and the Tropical Mockingbirds that abound in the area (then, giving some black and gray to my former black-and-white linen). Two white dots in a distant field turned out to be a pair of White Ibises feeding in the grass like Cattle Egrets, not even noticing the group of kids playing soccer in the field next to them. According to some reports, the flock of ibises feeding in the grass of the Amador area can have dozens of birds, just like in other grassy areas within the city, like the Omar Park and others. So, now it is not rare to see White Ibises outside the coast of the city. And what about the yellow? Well, I did not find the Cattle Tyrant, but found others common tyrannids, like the omnipresent Social Flycatcher and the more-than-familiar Tropical Kingbird. A day without these two is not a day in Panama! Both birds are known in Panama as "pechiamarillo" (yellow-breasted), just like all the other medium to large-sized flycatchers with mostly yellow underparts, so including also the kiskadees, the Boat-billed Flycatcher and many others Myiozetetes flycatchers. Both, the Social Flycatcher and the Tropical Kingbird, have light yellow underparts; but the bright yellow tone for the visit was given by the hordes of Saffron Finches that patrol the fields, mostly females and immatures, but always with two or more bright males accompanying them. What a beautiful bird and what a beautiful combination of colors in Amador!

Introduced species

They DO count... only if they are well-established. OK, it may sound simple, but it can get complicated. Who determines when an introduced species is well-established depends on the local or regional birding or ornithologists associations based on sightings, historical records, population studies and so on... but sometimes, it can be obvious. Think about the Rock Pigeons. Most of the cities that I have visited until now holds a well-established population of this species. You may say that they are all around because of us and our food sources... but if suddenly all the people that deliberately feed them disappear, they will survive anyway. It was not included in the first edition of the Panama Birds fieldguide (back in the 70's) but now it is part of our official bird list. The populations of these birds are dynamic. There are many factors influencing the establishment of an introduced species to a region: number of individuals, habitat, adaptability, nest sites availability, competence with native or other introduced species. For instance, when I started birding (more than 15 years ago), the Saffron Finch was known only from an introduced population in the charming town of Gatun, in the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal. Back then, it was one of the main targets during the Atlantic CBC, because it was valid for the count, despite its tiny population. Since then, this species have spread along the isthmus and now is a very common resident in Panama City as well (also in some other localities, for example in Vacamonte, at the west side of the Canal). And what about the Tropical Mockingbird? First recorded in Panama City during the 30's, probably brought from Colombia as a popular cage bird due to its song, now is very hard to imagine a park or a neighborhood within Panama's main cities without them. Not only that, they have spread themselves all the way to Central America, being now not uncommon in some sites in Costa Rica. Sometimes, it is about chances of adaptability. In Panama, the urban niche was, more or less, available in order to be occupied by the House Sparrows when they arrived following its incredible expansion from North America. A pair or flocks of these birds is now a common sight at our streets, where they do not compete with any other sparrow species (contrary to what happened in other countries in South America where it competes with the Rufous-collared Sparrow). Many times, those introduced species are seen as invasor alliens that destroy the natural avifauna... but take into consideration that they simply are trying to survive and that usually we are responsible of their first occurrence after all. The ethical dilemmas abound in the literature about erradication methods, with tons of examples along the decades. Well, I think is better to let them alone with their lives... trying not to make worse the situation by introducing MORE species. What do you think?

The Coastal Beltway

Last sunny evening (y'day), I went with Gloriela to the recently opened Coastal Beltway (Cinta Costera). Independently of the controversies, I can't deny that this work has changed the aspect of the city. Is supposed that it will guarantee an efficient solution to the traffic jam on Balboa Avenue but, as you can see in the photo, I think the new four-lane highway soon will not be sufficient. What really I admire is the opening of the public green areas, as well as recreative and cultural areas. We enjoyed seeing families having a walk, people jogging and kids playing basketball along the way. And what about the birds? Despite I only spent 30 minutes, I saw several flycatchers, the omnipresent grackles, a pair of Ruddy Ground-Doves, a female Sporophila seedeater, two Saffron Finches and, of course, all those birds you expect from the mudflats around the Intercontinental Hotel and the Yatch Club (low tide). Let's wait for the migration.