Sítio do Cervo. Living with nature, in style.
- Nature Notes

Built to last

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:03:57 -0800

I found this cup-shaped hummingbird's nest just next to the forest trail on the way to the river. The next day there was a violent rain storm with very high winds and I thought it could not possibly have survived, but ...

... two days later, there it was, exactly the same except with a few more pieces of lichen used to line the outside of the nest.

As I stood watching, a buzz of wings announced the arrival of the owner, a female Violet-capped Woodnymph, ready with the latest addition to the structure.

Now, where should I put it?

The joy of decorating.

As often happens, the end of a rainy period brought some especially lively birdlife on a walk to the river, fortunately accompanied by Bruno and his long lens. Just a few minutes looking across the river from our vantage point on the bank shortly after dawn brought us ...

Our best pictures yet of the endemic and Near-threatened Azure Jay, very difficult to get right as its deep blue colouring often appears black in silhouette or even under bright sun: here you can see the contrast between the black head and azure body.

Fabulous views of the Redruffed Fruitcrow in the sun - showing the scarlet pouch with which it makes the deep booming sounds that reverberate through the forest this time of year (click audio player below for an example). You may need to turn up the bass to hear the soft booming above the White-tailed Trogons, Bare-throated Bellbirds, Greyish Mourners and Grey-hooded Atilas.

Still at the river, a final treat as a White-necked Hawk (a Vulnerable species) appeared and circled low in the sun for several minutes.

Back near the house, one of the seasonal species of hummingbirds, the Black-throated Mango, has made an appearance feeding on these purple flowers on a tree we think is a type of ipê (genus Tabebuia). This is a female - the male has a completely black chest without the white stripes.

A final curiosity to report: I have often wondered how the male Brazilian Tanager transforms itself from the fairly dull orangy-brown colouring it shares with the female in early life, to the spectacular bright red plumage of the adult. Well the photo below tells the story - you can see the messy patches of red starting to appear on this juvenile hanging around our feeder the other day. A real case of the ugly duckling ...

Pushing the frontiers

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:32:45 -0800

The sighting of a pair of Swallow-tailed Cotingas gathering nest material in the Chapeu do Sol (Sun Hat) tree by the lake was an important discovery for Sítio do Cervo. This breathtakingly beautiful, Near-threatened species has not previously been recorded nesting in Lowland Atlantic Forest, but was thought to make migratory movements down the slope from the mountains during the austral winter.

The discovery was thanks to a very successful visit to the sítio by the Vice President and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society of London, Professor Lorna Casselton, and her colleague Luke Clarke, policy adviser at the Science Policy Centre. They made the trip after the UK-Brazil Frontiers of Science Symposium in Itatiba, São Paulo State, at which I was invited to speak about the communication of science. On our first walk to the forest, Lorna (whose post dates back nearly 300 years to before there was a Foreign Secretary to the British government) spotted a bird with a swallow-like tail, and Bruno, who was guiding, became very excited as only Bruno can become excited. His excitement became almost unbearable as he saw the pair of cotingas were gathering moss and twigs from the tree, so are clearly nesting here for the spring. The result was this fantastic sequence of photos.

There were other good sightings during the visit. On a walk along the forest edge above the house, we peeked through the undergrowth to see a bunch of male Blue Manakins preparing to do their extraordinary mating dance. Here is a great shot of one of the males taken by Bruno through the thicket.

Also at the forest edge, this Ochre-collared Piculet, a tiny member of the woodpecker family, came down from an upper branch to pose just in front of us, after Bruno played its call.

On a morning walk through the forest to the river, the most dependable of our understorey birds, the Black-cheeked Gnateater, came out for the visitors. Like many species, it shows behaviour only seen during this period at the start of the breeding season - the male holds its head up almost vertically to show off the bright white patch under the chin, a pose Bruno captured nicely in this photograph.

Also on the forest walk, we got our best photo yet of the Sharp-tailed Streamcreeper, a member of the ovenbird family that we always glimpse and hear, well, creeping in streams. Because it tends to be rummaging about amongst leaves and other detritus on the bank, it is not easy to photograph - this one was in a more open area close to a forest wetland. If you look closely you can see a spider in its beak.

Lorna and Luke topped off their visit with a great gift for the Sítio, a print from the Royal Society archive of a colour drawing of a toucan by the 19th century ornithologist John Gould, whose illustrations of Galapagos finches helped inspire Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Best of all, it is even the correct subspecies, Ramphastos Vitellinus Ariel, which we had been observing by the river bank that morning. I will finish off the post with a few more sights from the trip - click on the thumbnails to see the photos full-size and with captions.

On a roll

Sun, 30 May 2010 09:09:59 -0800

Flush with the fruits of Bruno's visit last week, I clocked up a few firsts this weekend during a late-morning walk down to the riverbank. Top of the list was my first photo of the Eye-ringed Tody-tyrant (Hemitriccus orbitatus) a minute and exquisite flycatcher that I hear all the time from high branches at several points in the forest. Because it is so tiny, it is very hard to catch on camera, but this one posed nicely just above the trail that runs along the river.

Like the tody-tyrant, the Unicoloured Antwren (Myrmotherula unicolor) is a Near-Threatened species endemic to the Atlantic Forest. This one turned up near the same place, in a tangle of vines and branches by the riverbank and gave me my best photo yet of the the species.

And on the same walk, another first. Since there was not that much activity I decided to let my sound recorder roll for five minutes on the main trail to see what I might get, and captured this very distinctive song I did not recognise, apparently coming from the canopy.

At first I thought it was some kind of hawk, but on consulting with Bruno I now realise it is a Buff-bellied Puffbird (Notharcus Swainsoni), which Bruno had spotted beyond the fishing lake when he was here. This is the first decent recording in existence, apparently. It shows the advantage of recording lengthy periods at random in the forest, as there are so many species that will only sing once or twice and you can never hope to react quickly enough.

A better view

Thu, 27 May 2010 15:07:36 -0800

I can't believe it is nearly six months since my last post. My ornithologist friend Bruno has just acquired a fabulous 80-400mm Nikon lens and spent a couple of days snapping everything that moved - and finding 7 new species in the process. So it's a good time for a quick (or leisurely) catchup. All the pictures on this page are his - click on the image to see them larger, as some of the photos really are fabulous.

One great piece of news is that just in the last couple of weeks, Channel-billed Toucans (Ramphastos vitellinus ssp ariel) have been coming daily to the banana bunches we hang in front of the house as feeders. It may be connected with the fact this this year's fruit on the Euterpe edulis palmitos has been very poor, probably due to the excessive rains earlier in the year. So let's see if they keep coming. In the second photo here you can clearly see the blue channel on the bill that gives the species its name.

Among the new identifications is this gorgeous tanager species, the Green-chinned Euphonia (male above, female left), Euphonia chalybea, which Bruno spotted from the balcony of the house and subsequently photographed near the banana feeder. It is a Near-Threatened species endemic to the Atlantic Forest which I have probably confused previously with other euphonias - but it is larger and with more of a finch-like bill.

Another significant find is this Grey-capped Tyrannulet (Phyllomyias griseocapilla) which Bruno also spotted from the balcony. Also Near-Threatened and endemic, it is on Birdlife International's list of "restricted range" species, ie those birds whose global breeding range is less than 50,000 sq km and therefore of particular conservation importance. This one is actually associated with mountain rather than lowland habitats, so I don't know what it is doing here. Once Bruno identified its distinctive high whistle I realised that I have heard it quite a lot before, so it is not a fluke visit. It takes the count of tyrant flycatcher species to 36.

Even more exciting for Bruno was to record the song of a Tawny-throated Leaftosser (Sclerurus mexicanus), a member of the ovenbird family which although not threatened is very rare in the Atlantic Forest, where it is separated from other populations in the Amazon and Central America. The nearest previous record of this species was in Ubatuba, about 300km to the North-East of here near the border with Rio de Janeiro state. So this is a genuine discovery, pushing the known range of the species significantly to the SW. Here is Bruno's recording, doctored a bit using Adobe Soundbooth, and including a Yellow-legged Tinamou which nicely confirms the scene as lowland Atlantic Forest.

I also got a recording of an additional tinamou species, the Tataupa Tinamou (Crypturellus tataupa), bringing the confirmed number of tinamous here to 3 (with Brown Tinamou and Yellow-legged Tinamou), with the Solitary Tinamou still just a possible after discovery of an egg some time back. Here's the Tataupa, quite a spooky sound from inside the forest.

Another landmark was the first photo from Sítio do Cervo of the Black-throated Trogon (Trogon rufus) which I hear all the time in the forest but never comes into the open unlike its bolder cousin the White-tailed Trogon (Trogon viridis). We spent about half an hour trying to get this one into view as it called insistently from high branches near the main forest trail. It is very similar to the other trogon but smaller, the breast is a deeper yellow, the male has a green back and the tail markings are more stripey rather than spotty. My recording of the same individual is below, interspersed with the call of a Rufous-capped Ant-thrush and three squirts from a Black-cheeked Gnateater.

Another first was this Spot-breasted Antvireo (Dysithamnus stictothorax), heard all the time from the canopy but fiendishly difficult to photograph. This one came down to a low-ish branch after playback, and the photo nicely shows its spotty breast.

I will finish off with some gratuitously pretty pictures taken during Bruno's visit - call it porn for twitchers. First, the ubiquitous Rufous-capped Ant-thrush (Formicarius Colma), which wanders along the forest floor like a tiny chicken.

The spectacular Scaled Antbird (Drymophila squamata), another understorey species of the forest.

Grey-hooded Attila (Attila rufus), an endemic flycatcher very common in the mid-storey of the forest, sometimes venturing out into the open areas.

Long-billed Wren (Canthorquilus longirostris), forest species always singing sonorously from the undergrowth, emerges excitedly on playback.

Red-crowned Ant-tanager (Habia rubica), flits around head-height in the dark forest alerting everyone else to army ant swarms, now being called a cardinal by the Brazilian bird supremos.

Violet-capped Woodnymph (Thalurania glaucopis), one of the most common hummingbirds here, whose feathers shimmer between deep green and violet depending on light.

And finally - one I took with Bruno's camera, a Yellow-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes flavifrons) taking a bath in a bromelia just next to feeding area, and the hollow tree where they nest.

Hawks on display

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:28:21 -0800

Due to a lot of travel and work, this blog has skipped a whole breeding season at Sítio do Cervo - apologies. But we can return with some exciting and significant news. One of the five threatened bird species recorded here, the White-necked Hawk (Leucopternis lacernulatus) has previously only ever been spotted as a single individual, either perched by the track or riverbank, or circling overhead. But this weekend, I saw from our bedroom balcony that a pair of them were circling together in the morning, their brilliant white plumage glistening in the sun.

This morning as I made a conscious effort to get them close enough together in the camera frame to make a decent picture, I was amazed to catch a third individual of the same species. If you look closely at the photo here (click to enlarge), you will see that they are making spectacular aerobatic displays. I gather from an expert who contacted me via the excellent Wikiaves website, that this is typical behaviour of breeding pairs defending their territory. That suggests that there is a nest either in the forest here or very close by - possibly across the river. It's a surprising discovery as White-necked Hawks are generally associated with extensive areas of primary forest rather than relatively small fragments such as this one.

The species count at Sítio do Cervo is currently up to 217, thanks in no small part to a visit in November by the Ecuadorean bird guide Lelis Navarette of Neblina Forest tours. An amazing professional who is ranked among the top birding guides in South America, Lelis had barely stepped out of the car and he was finding me new species - among them this Variegated Flycatcher (Empidonomus varius) which I subsequently caught on camera next to the barbeque area, catching what looks to be a moth.

Lelis - who also happens to be a thoroughly nice man - had a good day here finding endemic species for his client, and had his first-ever sighting of a Yellow-legged tinamou, the near-threatened species whose spooky hoot is heard all day from the forest during spring and summer here, but which is notoriously hard to see.

A final bit of news - the Southern Lapwings that breed in the open area of the farm each year have somehow managed to protect their four chicks from the hazards of hawks, turkey vultures, wildcats and dogs. They grow amazingly quickly, and at just 5 weeks after hatching are not much smaller than their parents, but still very fluffy and cute.

A string nest

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:27:20 -0800

Everywhere you look, birds are carrying nest material right now. This Masked Water-tyrant, a very tame flycatcher which always hangs around in pairs close to the house, lake and pool, has built a nest in a small tree overhanging the fishing lake. Look carefully and you can see that amongst the nest ingredients is a piece of red string which he salvaged from somewhere on the farm.

Another tame resident, this Yellow-fronted Woodpecker, has for the third year running set up home in the holes drilled in a dead trunk just in front of our barbecue, conveniently place to feed on the hanging bananas which they love.

September has brought its usual batch of spring visitors, such as this Fawn-breasted Tanager, which always seems to appear this time of year even though my field guide says it is supposed to turn up in winter. Maybe it just uses our place as a staging post from somewhere, because my records show the sightings are pretty much confined to September, suggesting it moves somewhere else to nest.

I couldn't resist putting up this picture of a male Brazilian Tanager, posing dramatically in the late afternoon sunlight by the lake yesterday. Even though it is one of the most common species amongst the fruit trees near the house, it still take my breath away. For some reason it is surprisingly difficult to capture its features clearly, but this photo shows the distinctive white mark at the base of the bill.

Finally, some sounds of the season. Fortunately, the Dusky-throated Hermits, the small forest hummingbirds I identified last year, have returned to the same location by the start of the main trail to the river, singing heartily in their leks and buzzing around the heliconia flowers. The Bare-throated Bellbirds, brilliant white cotingas classed as Vulnerable but fortunately quite common here, are in full voice virtually all day, sounding their extremely loud metallic song from early morning until dusk. One of them stays singing quite close to the house from the forest canopy, but frustratingly just out of sight. And this Yellow-legged Thrush put on a virtuoso performance for me the other day from a low branch near the main forest trail, confirming it for me as the champion musician amongst the four thrush species we get here. Listen carefully and you will also hear Grey-hooded Attila, Yellow-legged Tinamou, Red-rumped Cacique, Greyish Mourner and Bare-throated Bellbird.

Orphan owl

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:49:16 -0800

Just a quick one - here is a video (my first Youtube post on the website) showing a young Tropical Screech Owl (Megascops choliba) we found looking miserable on the ground, with injuries to its wing and throat. We took it to the back of the house where it is now sitting happily on top of the washing machine being fed moths and the occasional piece of contrafilet steak. We think it may have been dropped by a hawk.

It's for you!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:03:37 -0800

I don't expect those nice people at Nokia had birdwatching in mind when they designed their E63 phone - but having just acquired one, I find it is a perfect tool for getting better pictures and recordings. I have downloaded songs and calls of most of the species we know about here - and a few we hope to find - and am using the phone as a "playback" device. Some like this Swallow-tailed manakin (aka Blue Manakin) come out instantly, even though it must have been confused that I played the "lekking" song which it stopped using months ago.

Another keen responder is this Grey-Hooded Attila, mainly a forest bird, but it can easily be persuaded to come right next to our balcony when I play its piercing call and insistent song. I almost feel guilty watching its confusion as it tries to work out where this other bird is.

My new toy is already paying dividends. One of the endemic birds I had on the list, but only from reports by visiting experts, was the Black-capped Foliage-Gleaner, one of the many species that stays well hidden in the understorey. Just as an experiment I played the call yesterday on my morning walk, and instantly got a response - in this recording you can hear me playing the call on the phone about 40 seconds in, and the real bird answering from just a few feet away. Trying it again on the main, more open trail again today it came out instantly and posed for a photo on a nearby branch (in very low light so this is with flash).

Of course, playback is a standard technique of bird-guiding, so I am not claiming any great novelty here - it is great fun to try it out myself, though, having learned quite a bit about which species to try calling and where. Also I think my set-up with the Nokia has one fairly unique element - when I find I am missing a species, I just get to a place where I can find my Wi-fi signal (it even reaches a little into the forest!), and download the recording from the excellent bird-sound catalogue at www.xeno-canto.org !

Finally, a very welcome new visitor to our banana-feeder is this Saffron Toucanet, one of the smaller members of the toucan family which is more solitary and much less predictable than the "proper" toucans. It is also a near-threatened species. This one sat on a branch just above the bananas eyeing me cautiously but staying put as I approached for this photo.

Winter feeding

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:15:01 -0800

The fruiting season of the juçara palmito, such a draw for birdlife, is over. At least, here in the Lowland Atlantic Forest it is. The fruit ripens later in the year, the further you go up the continental slope. There is evidence that some species follow the fruit in an altitudinal migration. Here, however, the end of the season marks a time in which native fruit is relatively sparse in the forest, so our own feeders and fruit trees become very popular. I caught this Channel-billed Toucan by surprise, feeding on a banana tree just next to our fishing lake this morning.

The area closer to the house where we suspend bunches of bananas has become even more of a riot of colour than normal. Here, two male Yellow-fronted Woodpeckers (only the males have red caps) are enjoying the feast. I don't think of woodpeckers as fruit eaters, but the feeder constantly attracts two species, this small variety and the much larger Blond-crested Woodpecker. I recorded the very piercing song of the latter this morning, showing why one local bird guide refers to it as the "Psycho bird".

Below the bananas we have a small platform where we put assorted fruit, and this attracts large numbers of the ultra-colourful Green-headed Tanager (Tangara seledon), whose Portuguese name Saira Sete-cores means seven-coloured tanager, which is a better description. Confusingly, there is another species whose English common name is Seven-coloured Tanager (Tangara fastuosa), but this is confined to the very small remnants of North-eastern Atlantic Forest in Alagoas and Pernambuco.

Another feature of the winter is that the hummingbirds are especially appreciative of the sugar water available from feeders. It is one thing I know we have not made the most of here, especially seeing the way our one single feeder placed rather awkwardly just by the kitchen door is proving so popular at present. For the past two days, this Sombre Hummingbird seems to have taken ownership of it - he perches most of the day on a nearby twig and dive-bombs any other hummingbird with the audacity to try out the feeder. Although the colouring of this species can seem dull as its name suggests, a closer look through binoculars reveals a subtle irridescence of its feathers, which shifts the colour constantly from lime green through a kind of deep purple, according to the light.

On an afternoon walk today I got my first sight of the formation of an army ant-swarm. As I passed the hollow base of a big tree at the top of the main trail, it was totally seething with a mass of ants (see photo above), a phenomenon I had seen before, but this time it was even thicker - poking a stick into the middle of them, it was still going through solid ant-mass a good foot from the surface. When I returned to the same spot about half an hour later, there were rivers of ants marching down from the hollow, and covering the entire trail like a moving carpet. Instantly they began to attract the ant-following birds, with this male White-shouldered Fireye first on the scene. Red-crowned Ant-tanagers were not far behind. I suspect that when I return to the spot tomorrow all the ants may well be gone.

White hawks and eagles

Tue, 12 May 2009 12:26:10 -0800

I have neglected this blog in favour of the easier option of regular updates of bird news using my Twitter widget toy (see panel to the right and on my birdwatching page). However, a great day's discovery with the help of visiting ornithologist Bruno Lima has given me a good excuse to come back to it. The most interesting news is that this magnificent raptor gleaming in the sun while soaring over the house this afternoon turns out to be a Black-and-White Hawk-Eagle (Spizastur melanoleucus). At first we both thought it was the White-necked Hawk, the threatened species I have seen and photographed often here. But look at the two together below - first the hawk-eagle, next the hawk (from August), and you can see clear differences, notably the mask around the hawk-eagle's eyes and very different tails, plus the hawk's wing-feathers are totally white from below apart from a black rim.

Less than an hour before this sighting, Bruno had added another species to our list for the property, hearing from the bedroom balcony the song of the Pin-tailed Manakin (Ilicura militaris) from just inside the forest, behind the house. This is another species endemic to the Atlantic Forest (our 61st!), and together with the new hawk-eagle, the total species count is up to 205.

A mystery was definitively solved today, too. For the past week we have been puzzled by a group of large blackbirds hanging around the upper part of the pines in front of the house, making a strange squeaking noise a bit like a wheelbarrow that needs oiling. Bruno was racking his brains until we realised it was a group of Giant Cowbirds, already identified in December walking rather like a crow on the ground in the open pasture, but here congregating in a noisy group of 15-20 in the canopy. It is not common to see them in Atlantic Forest areas.

Finally, a gratuitously pretty picture I took of a butterfly on an orange flower that has been appearing alongside the upper entrance track to the property, where it passes through a fairly open grass/scrub area. They are magnets for all sort of butterflies (second one below) as well as hummingbirds such as the White-chinned Sapphire.

And just a final post-script. The Black-headed Berryeater, very elusive and threatened Cotinga which we had not heard between July and April, has returned to the forest here, much to our relief as it is one of the "star" species of this place. I had been hearing its distinctive whistle just occasionally, but Bruno returned from the main forest trail just now reporting that he had really good sightings of it after attracting it close just by imitating the whistle.

Sítio do Cervo. Living with nature, in style. - Nature Notes