San Andres Island's Big Pond

As mentioned earlier, the Cubilla-Archbold family made an escape to San Andres Island (Colombia) for the weekend.  After leaving the keys of our room at the deck of our resort, we headed to the hilly center of the island, to a natural lagoon known as Big Pond.

We first crossed the urban center and passed through La Loma neighborhood.  You can have breathtaking views of the beaches at this part of the island (and where the First Baptist Church is located as well).  After a while, you reach the pond, surrounded by scrubs and secondary growths.

One of the main attractions there are the Spectacled Caimans (known as "Babillas") that come out the water to inspect the visitors.  Most of them are small, but there are some reports of 2 meters-long individuals.

Spectacled Caiman

We were more interested in the birds... and the site turned out to be quite good.  Immediately, we noticed a nice collection of herons and shorebirds taking advantage of the calm waters: Great and Snowy Egrets, Green, Tricolored and Little Blue Herons plus Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers and two Lesser Yellowlegs.  Even a male Blue-winged Teal was resting at the shore!

Snowy Egret and immature Little Blue Heron 

Tricolored Heron (immature)

Blue-winged Teal (male)

We walked around the pond following our taxi driver Emerson who accompanied us.  This is a short and easy walk, full with migrant species.  We saw Yellow, Tennessee, Protonothary, Magnolia and Yellow-rumped Warblers in quick succession.

Some resident species were present too, like Smooth-billed Anis, Brown-throated Parakeets, herds of Bananaquits and Black-faced Grassquits, San Andres Vireo and a lonely Mangrove Cuckoo that allowed some shots.

Mangrove Cuckoo

However, one resident caught my attention.  While enjoying some cold drinks at a nearby bar, we saw some Tropical Mockingbirds in the surroundings.  The subspecies magnirostris is endemic to San Andres Island... and some authorities considered it a full species.

Tropical "San Andres" Mockingbird

Tropical "San Andres" Mockingbird

These birds were comparatively pale-faced and with an obvious larger bill with curved culmen.  In fact, that is exactly what magnirostris means: large bill.  Compare it with the Tropical Mockingbirds present in Panama.

Tropical Mockingbird (photo from Panama Viejo)

We had enough time to reach our transfer to the airport.  This was an intense weekend, with tons of interesting sites visited, lots of sun, sand and cays and, of course, many special birds (39 species in total).  Surely this will not be our last time on San Andres Island!

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?