Hawks on display 12/06/2009
  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 09/05/2009
  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 07/25/2009
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! 06/22/2009
 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 06/14/2009
  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 05/12/2009
 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. The ant followers 03/22/2009
  Sitting out on the upstairs terrace of our house, the excited singing of three White-shouldered Fire-eyes (Pyriglena leucoptera) from just inside the forest below aroused my curiosity. I went to the start of one of the trails that goes into the closed forest, and had my best view so far of the amazing phenomenon of an army ant swarm. It is difficult to convey in photographs, but it really is like a whole forest area is alive with ants, little rivers of them rushing over the leaf litter, up and down every twig and branch, and even up the trunks of big trees.  It may sound gruesome, but standing in the middle of the swarm, you realise how crucial this phenomenon is to the variety of birdlife in the forest interior. The undergrowth and mid-storey were a constant flutter of the various species that are associated with the "mixed flocks" following army ants. Not just the antbirds such as the Fireye that stay quite close to the ground, but also woodcreepers zooming up the trunks picking off their lunch. A hawk called from the canopy nearby, presumably excited by the potential prey attracted by the ants - and so it goes on.  The palm fruit continues to attract toucans close to the house and all around the forest edge - this Channel-billed one was part of a flock of around fifteen that came right next to our barbeque area as I was having lunch the other day. It confirms that this period - March-April - is most definitely the prime toucan-viewing time here, although it is always frustratingly difficult to predict or guarantee to visitors when or where they will appear. They have a horrible habit of coming out in force just after guests have left! Reaching the double century 03/11/2009
 Since this post is mainly about sounds, I have put up a fairly random photo of one of the forest views here, looking across the São Laurenço valley from the main track approaching the farm. The lingering morning mist shows the line of the river. The big news to report is that I have finally managed to confirm the 200th bird species encountered at Sítio do Cervo and its immediate surroundings.  This was the scene confronting me two weeks ago as I tried to do my usual walk to the riverbank. There had been several days of incredibly torrential rain, and widespread flooding in the region. The whole of the low-lying area of forest beyond the hill which separates our living areas from the river was underwater for several days, and when I managed to return there a week or so ago it was covered by a layer of slimy mud. Palmito party begins 02/28/2009
  In just a few minutes spent in the area with lots of mature palmitos in front of the forest edge, I was able to see this morning how their ripening fruit is a magnet for some of our most charismatic bird species. A group of 4-5 White-tailed Trogons (Trogon viridis) sat perched for a long time on branches near the fruit, every now and again swooping in with their characteristic technique of picking fruit on the fly, using specially-serrated beaks. The individual here and in the top photo is a male, as you can see from the deep turquoise back and more rounded tail pattern.  The female, shown here with a palmito fruit in her mouth, has a more geometric-stripe pattern on the tail. It is a real treat to see these trogons so close up - their soft call, a bit like a distant seagull, can often be heard from quite high branches inside the forest, but it is mainly during this fruiting season that they come out into the open.   Next to arrive on the scene was this Dusky-legged Guan or Jacu (Penelope obscura), a rare opportunity to get a clear shot of this species in full light, as they tend to be most active after sunset and around dawn. Bearing in mind these are large birds about the size of a peacock or pheasant, you can see from the photo above just how abundant the fruit is on the larger palmito trees, and why it is such a draw when it emerges.  And finally the inevitable toucans turned up - this one a Channel-billed toucan, which were suddenly all over the place feasting on the palmito fruit, and they were also joined by their Red-breasted cousins. Waiting for no. 200 02/20/2009
 A particularly noisy species at the moment is the Boat-billed flycatcher (Megarhyncus pitangua), very similar looking to the ultra-common Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus) but with a more pronounced bill and more black around the eyes. It only appears in spring and summer, and groups in the canopy near the house are calling from early morning, both with the characteristic "Nenenei" which provides one version of its Portuguese common name (Neinei), and a more insistent, querulous song that I have only heard at this time of year. I guess they may be getting ready for their Northern migration which can't be too far away. The recording linked to here, incidentally, includes a flock of Scaly-headed Parrots (Pionus maximiliani) on one of their regular morning flights high above the forest.  Two new identifications during a recent visit by ornithologist Bruno Lima have brought our bird species list here to the tantalising number of 199. The latest IDs included the call of Chicli Spinetail - aka Spix's spinetail (Synallaxis spixi) alongside the entrance track leading to the farm, which passes an open grassland area alongside some electricity pylons. In this area you tend to see many species associated with open landscapes rather than forest, some of which have spread their range due to deforestation. The second "new" species identified by its call was the Planalto Tyrannulet (Phyllomyias fasciatus), one of those very inconspicuous small flycatcher species that I would never spot without expert help. A visit from a bird guide nearly always adds an extra species or two, so hopefully the next one will tip the list over that magic 200 number!  The fruit of the juçara palm, although mostly still green, is already starting to attract forest fruit-eaters into the open areas where this tree grows. Most excitingly, we came across a Spot-billed Toucanet (Selenidera maculirostris) on one of the "palmito" trees just next to the entrance to our main forest trail - the first time I have seen this charismatic species outside the deep forest. Of course I did not have my camera with me, but hopefully there will be other chances as the fruit ripens over the next couple of months.  Finally, just as I was complaining that February was a dead month on the banana feeder, some snaps I took this morning during a break from the computer screen: first a Bananaquit (Coereba flaveloa)....  ...Sayaca Tanager (Thraupis sayaca)  ... and its cousin the Palm Tanager (Thraupis palmarum). | TimA Brit in Brazil reporting on wildife observations at a forested property in São Paulo state. |
