Search and Serendipity: A Birder's Blog

Solomon Islands birds

david — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:36:02 +0000

HONIARA, SOLOMON ISLANDS — It’s a cool, gray morning on the ridge overlooking Honiara. Common Mynas, introduced from Asia, are screeching loudly as always. Sunbirds twitter in the frangipanis, and Coconut Lorikeets zip past from time to time.

Birding is tough in the Solomon Islands. Only a few very common, widespread species venture into the towns and villages. Most of these are colorful, or at least charismatic, but the country’s real jewels — the scarce endemics — prefer to stay in the more densely forested areas, which are largely inacessible without a lot of effort.

The Yellow-bibbed Lory (Lorius chlorocercus) is a beautiful eastern Solomons endemic that will come to the outskirts of town along with Coconut Lorikeets (a split from Rainbow) and Cardinal Lories.

I was happy to discover that my American host is a birder (serendipity!), and we made a couple of runs up Mount Austen and visited a private property along the coast. These trips were rewarding, with Mount Austen yielding several very nice birds like Buff-headed Coucal (awesome!), Chestnut-bellied Monarch, Claret-breasted Fruit Dove, and the unbelievably minuscule Emerald Pygmy Parrot.

So from my lists for Guadalcanal and Malaita, you can see that we got some excellent birds, but have really only scratched the surface in this remote and fascinating corner of the world.

That seems to be the story of my life though — and now it’s on to Vanuatu!

Oz from top to bottom

david — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:49:42 +0000

HONIARA, SOLOMON ISLANDS — I’m in the Solomon Islands now, hoping desperately to have time for some birding before I leave this week. Last month, I was in Australia, and I’ve finally gotten some photos posted.

I started off in Darwin, where I had a great time birding with fellow Birdstacker Fregata and her husband. The couple took me to several sites near Darwin, including Fogg Dam and Charles Darwin National Park.

My best bird of the day was this marvelous little Rainbow Pitta (Pitta iris)! I’d long wanted to see a pitta of any sort, but they are elusive and hard to come by. This bird, though, sat quietly on the monsoon forest floor, preening and feeding, offering just spectacular looks. Wow, wow, wow!

Pittas have absurdly short tails. The Rainbow Pitta has a few iridescent green-blue feathers just above it stubby tail feathers. I should add that our pitta observations came at a price — the forest was jammed full of mozzies.

For more on the trip (which also featured jacanas, Scrubfowl, Magpie Geese, egrets, cockatoos, and Wedge-tailed Eagles), check out Fregata’s Fogg Dam trip list.

I also had time for a trip to Kakadu National Park, where I got several large and charismatic birds, including nesting White-bellied Sea Eagles. I’ve seen them in other countries too, but they never fail to impress.

And what Australia trip report would be complete without a crocodile photo? The saltwater crocodile is a wide-ranging species in the Old World tropics, and it’s become rather abundant in northern Australia since being protected from hunting.

More bird, animal, and plant photos are available in my Top End gallery.

From the hot, wet Top End, I flew down to the arid Red Center, which is cool now because it’s winter. Work commitments sort of fell through, so I took a day trip from Alice Springs to Uluru (which is a LONG trip). It didn’t make for excellent birding, but the landscape is pretty amazing in itself.

Along the road, I saw Crested Pigeons (shown here). Huge, impressive Wedge-tailed Eagles and small, noisy Little Crows were fairly common along the road too because of all the roadkilled kangaroos.

Hakea (Proteaceae) plants were in flower, attracting White-plumed Honeyeaters and Zebra Finches. More photographs are posted in the Red Center gallery.

From Alice Springs, I flew to Melbourne, where it’s a cold and periodically drizzly winter. I explored the Melbourne suburb where I was staying, and I went birding with John O’Malley of Geelong, who helped me find Rufous Bristlebird, Hooded Dotterel, and many other excellent birds.

I saw Eastern Grey Kangroos nearly every day. Absolutely wonderful animals!

One thing I really love about Australia is the diversity and abundance of parrots and their kin. From enormous Red-tailed Black Cockatoos in the Top End to lovely, jewel-like Eastern Rosellas in Victoria, the birds are just fantastic. Here, a pair of raspberry sherbet colored Galahs feeds on the lawn behind my flat.

Maned Ducks (Australian Wood Ducks) were common in grassy and pasture areas. They’re pretty sharp-looking ducks. More photos available in the gallery.

I’ll be back in Australia later this month and hope to get a chance to explore even more of that fascinating and very birdy continent. But first, I need to find some birds in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Kagu-mania!

david — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:52:19 +0000

KANGAROO GROUND, AUSTRALIA — I never could have imagined that I would develop an antagonistic relationship with a Kagu. But apparently, anything is possible in New Caledonia.

There I was: hungry, tired from miles of walking, dripping wet, and worried about camping for three days in the rain. As I sloshed back into my campsite, I heard a harsh, unpleasant hiss. Kagus. As I neared the picnic shelter, he hissed again.

I was in no mood to take that sort of cheek, not even from a Kagu, and I muttered something that would only sound silly if I repeated it here.

Next thing I knew, the Kagu had run around and come up onto the picnic table, just inches from my baggage. Like an inspection. And when I changed my clothes, I felt like he and his mate were watching.

The Kagu, Rhynochetos jubatus, is a strange and unique bird endemic to New Caledonia’s Grande Terre (the main island). It is the only living member of its family, and its closest living relative may be the enigmatic Sunbittern of the Neotropics. Nearly driven to extinction by habitat loss and marauding dogs, Kagus now thrive at Parc Provincial de la Rivière Bleue (Blue River Provincial Park).

This is the Rivière Bleue (Blue River) for which the park is named. In this protected valley, and that of the neighboring White River, Kagus are doing very well. Perhaps half of the world’s wild population lives in the park. More about Kagus: Gray Ghosts of the Cloud Forest and Don Roberson’s Kagu page.

Kagus are residents of the forest floor, and they behave a bit like gigantic thrushes as they hunt for worms and other invertebrates, rushing forward a few steps only to pause with one foot lifted, peering intently at the ground, eventually plunging a strong orange bill into the mud or beneath the leaves and coming up with a prize.

A pair of Kagus regularly hunted the Pont Germain campsite, which is where I camped. Though our relationship got off to a rocky start, I’d like to think that the pair eventually accepted me. One member of the pair was ringed — I think it was the male. When he and his mate had wandered apart, he would raise his crest and charge toward her, as shown here. And one morning, I heard their weird yipping duet at first light — wow!

Ah yes, and here’s proof that the Kagu really did climb up onto the table to check me out. They don’t fly (or at least not much), so he must have hopped up there. I was very surprised to turn around and see him there.

One of my friends urged me to photograph myself with a Kagu, inspired by the shot of Dr. James Clements published in the 5th edition of his world bird checklist. This was the best I could manage under difficult conditions.

New Caledonia has lots of other great endemics too. How about this Red-throated Parrotfinch (Erythrura psittacea)? Beautiful!

There is so much yet to learn and describe about Melanesian avifauna. Female Melanesian Flycatchers in New Caledonia have bold white eyerings and largely white outer tail feathers, as shown in this photo. But neither of these features is illustrated or mentioned in Doughty, Day, and Plant’s field guide to the region.

The Southern Shrikebill (Clytorhynchus pachycephaloides) is an odd monarch flycatcher that also occurs in Vanuatu. Its bill is laterally compressed, like that of an oystercatcher.

There were other birds too — the weird and brilliant Horned Parakeets, the colorful myzomelas, the lovely Barred Honeyeaters. Deep, powerful hooting was often the only clue to the presence of Goliath Imperial Pigeons, but I managed to see three of them — shockingly huge pigeons, the size of a male Red-tailed Hawk.

And on my last morning, when I’d almost given up hope, there was the Crow Honeyeater rushing past my face and slipping through the brush — a brief but satisfying encounter with one of the world’s rarest birds.

You can read about each of the species I encountered in more detail on my New Caledonia list (change to report view to see notes and details).

New Caledonia is also famous for its plants, an amazing 75% of which are endemic. I saw several orchids, including this beautiful pink job. Can anyone identify it?

New Caledonia has an endemic pitcher plant (Nepenthes vieillardii), which like other Old World pitcher plants sprouts insect-trapping pitchers from the tips of its leaves. Insects dissolved in the pitchers offer additional nutrients to the plant.

There are dozens more photos of birds, plants, etc., in the photo gallery. There are photos of the Melanesian Cuckooshrike and the endemic Yellow-bellied Robin, plus more Kagu shots. There are also lots of unidentified plants, so if you’re botanically inclined, perhaps you can help put names on a few shots.

New Caledonia logistics

New Caledonia does not receive the volume of birders that some other places do, and information (at least, information in English) is a bit sparse. Here’s what I learned; perhaps it will be helpful.

Two main points:

Rent a car, rent a car, rent a car!
New Caledonia is tough to do on a shoestring budget.

There is public transport in New Caledonia, but it can be difficult to use (e.g., once-a-day runs, no runs on Sunday), and strikes sometimes shut things down. Also, buses don’t go to all of the places birders want to go (so I missed Mont Khogi, which was probably my best shot at Cloven-feathered Dove). You really need your own transport to have the freedom of movement that birders require.

New Caledonia is part of France. It’s an expensive country to eat, sleep, and travel in. If you try to do it cheap, you’ll be eating hard biscuits and tinned meats and camping in the rain, as I did. French is the language of communication. I got by with a small amount of French and could sometimes use English. English is taught in schools, so some people can speak reasonable amounts.

Be prepared to deal with heavy rainfall, and bring warm clothes if you’re going in the winter.

Rivière Bleue

This is the place to see Kagus and Crow Honeyeaters. Kagus are easy; Crow Honeyeaters are hard. On my best day, I had approximately 10 Kagus. I birded mainly between Pont Germain and Le Grand Kaori, walking the road and the trails. This is the humid forest, and this is where you can find most of the species of interest. Kagus are possible all along the road. I found Crow Honeyeater at the Grand Kaori platform.

You can camp at Pont Germain. This gives you a shot at hearing the Kagus duetting early in the morning. Whatever you do, don’t rush. Take time to experience the birds. Camping for a night or two is a good way to do that.

There is no drinking water available at the campsite. There is a tap, but the sign says that it has not been treated. It may be that boiling that water would be safe, but I didn’t have anyone to ask, so I decided not to risk it. I collected rainwater when I ran out of bottled water. I would have brought more bottles, but I had read some old information saying potable water was available.

Which raises a good point — don’t rely on old information. Thing change regularly, so always check. Don’t rely on a trip report from 1999 or, for that matter, from 2008.

Park access is one thing that has changed in recent years. You can drive into the park up to Pont Perignon (a bridge — “pont” is bridge in French), which is closed to vehicular traffic. To get to the good birding areas, you park at Pont Perignon, walk across the bridge, and take a park shuttle deeper into the park. You have to book your shuttle rides in and out when you check in at the park entrance.

The distances are big — 10-15 kilometers between points, so you do need a car and the shuttle to get around, unless you want to spend all day hiking. Once you get to Pont Germain or Le Grand Kaori, you can easily walk the 2 or 2.5 kilometers between the two, and all along the road is good birding. The only vehicular traffic permitted there is the official park shuttle, though there are a few cyclists. This makes it safe and quiet. For that reason, it seems that Pont Perignon will remain closed to vehicles indefinitely. That’s good for the birds, and it’s good for the birders, if you plan ahead to overcome the logistical hurdles.

Two other complications: First, the park stops admitting visitors at 2 p.m. Second, the park is closed on Mondays. This means that you can’t camp there Sunday night or Monday night. Across the highway from the park entrance road is a camping area called Les Bois du Sud (The Southern Woods), where you can camp for a fee. Again, you’d need a car to get there easily.

The local Birdlife International affiliate, Société Calédonienne d’Ornithologie, can provide advice and information, and they should have people who can correspond in English.

A postcard from Timor

david — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:04:03 +0000

KUPANG, INDONESIA –

I spotted a pair of Five-colored Munias (Lonchura quinticolor) feeding unobtrusively among several other species this morning. It’s a clean, classy-looking munia, and it’s endemic to the Lesser Sunda Islands.

Blazing through Asia

david — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:11:11 +0000

DARWIN, AUSTRALIA — Asia is not a place through which one should hurry. But with little choice in the matter, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. My arrival in Japan on 29 April marked the sixth continent (if you subscribe to the seven-continent model) on which I’ve had the pleasure to bird.

Good birds in Japan, Thailand, and Singapore over the following days put me close to another important milestone: I’m now less than 20 species away from having seen 1000 life birds. (See my life list). With any luck, I’ll break 1000 on Timor, but if not there, then certainly in New Caledonia later this month.

With just a short layover in Japan, I dashed outside the airport and took a taxi to the nearby ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel in Narita (thanks to Charlie for the directions). It was warm in the middle of the afternoon, but I managed several good birds including several Japanese Wagtails (Motacilla grandis), shown here, Varied Tit, and Brown-eared Bulbul.

This singing male White-rumped Shama was one of the more beautiful birds I encountered in Thailand, along with colorful Yellow-cheeked Tits and a spectacular Greater Racket-tailed Drongo — wow! Mynas and Eurasian Tree Sparrows were common in the cities, along with various doves and bulbuls.

Green-tailed Sunbirds was a breathtaking find high in Thailand’s mountains — tiny and glowing with nearly every color of the rainbow! This photo doesn’t do it justice.

For more photos, be sure to see the photo gallery.

In Singapore, as in Japan, I had a few hours between flights. I took a boat to Ubin Island, where in a couple of hours I picked up gems like Oriental Pied Hornbill and Blue-throated Bee-eater. Pink-necked Green Pigeons and Asian Glossy Starlings were also great, and White-bellied Sea Eagles never fail to impress. Here’s a list from the island.

Just before I hopped in a taxi to return to the airport, I glimpsed two hornbills over a busy street through Changi Village. Hornbills are scarce on mainland Singapore, but the Bird Ecology Study Group has some information and photos about the hornbills at Changi.

I wish I had time to share more, but I’ve got another plane to catch. More when I can!

Ozarks warblers and wildflowers

david — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:53:57 +0000

GREENE CO., MO. — Today I joined the GOAS field trip in Christian County, Missouri.

It’s been a cool, extraordinarily wet spring in the Ozarks, and tree buds are just now starting to open up. Nevertheless, the southern breeding warblers are mostly in place; I personally had eight warbler species including Ovenbird, redstart, parula, yellow-throated, Kentucky, and Pine Warbler during the morning. Boreal breeders like Chestnut-sided Warbler haven’t quite started coming through yet.

Greg Swick tries to point out a Hermit Thrush for a crowd of eager observers. (Greg has posted his own account of the day: Red Bridge Round Up.) It was fun to see my old friends again. They call me a world traveler (which, I suppose, is true) and like to joke that they taught me everything I know (which is probably truer than they realize).

Lovely spring wildflowers bloomed among the rocks and trees. This is rue anemone.

And this is Trillium sessile (which I think sounds nicer than “toadshade”). Sessile means without a stalk, and as you can see, both the flower and the leaflets lack appreciable stalks and are nestled together. More wildflower photos are available in today’s gallery: Ozarks wildflowers.

Next stop, Texas!

Legends live in clouds

david — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:16:38 +0000

MORAVIA, COSTA RICA — You are in a place so still that a falling leaf makes you jump, so tranquil that a buzzing insect makes you flinch. You are breathing off bits of a cloud, for it is all around you. You begin to wonder whether the thunder really is coming from the sky you cannot see or instead from an invisible mountain across the valley, bidding goodnight to its neighbor. And there is birdsong, always there is birdsong, ethereal, strident, modest, wild.

Costa Rica. At last I had escaped the pressures and demands of travel for a private retreat in the Talamanca Cordillera.

On the first morning, I awoke to this — the Resplendent Quetzal — shimmering blue-green in the cool light of dawn. What a bird, easily among the most spectacular in all the world. It has lived in legend for centuries, since at least the time of the Aztecs. Absolutely magnificent.

I stayed at Savegre Mountain Hotel, which is very nice and recommended. They have a system of trails both up the mountain and down the valley, offering up-close access to excellent birds. I couldn’t afford both lodging AND food, but it turns out that electric coffee pots do cook ramen noodles pretty well. I hear their restaurant is good though, so try it if you can. You can explore on your own, as I did, or hire birding guides. Guides can probably help (or at least improve chances) with tough species that I missed, and they say that a guide is required if you want to ascend Cerro de la Muerte (Hill of Death) for the high elevation páramo species. I wasn’t able to afford that either, unfortunately.

I had a respectable 64 species during my three-day stay. This is high-elevation birding, so the diversity is not like the lowlands, but it’s still quite good. Even more important, huge numbers of the species in these mountains are endemic to the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama. Over a third of the 64 species I saw are restricted to this very small region of the world. Here’s a complete trip list: Savegre Mountain Lodge 2008. Now for more photos:

The key to finding many of the passerine species is watching and listening for mixed flocks foraging in the vegetation. The flocks are often composed primarily of Yellow-thighed Finches (shown here) and Sooty-capped Bush Tanagers, or just a couple of hundred feet lower down the valley, the similar Common Bush Tanager. Mixed in with these species are smaller numbers of warblers, wrens, tanagers, woodcreepers, and funariids.

Funariids (ovenbirds) and woodcreepers are members of the huge Neotropical assemblage of suboscine passerines. Woodcreepers look and behave rather like woodpeckers, even supporting themselves with their tails as they hitch up trunks and limbs, poking around in search of insects. Most ovenbirds in Costa Rica’s mountains are smaller but behave in similar ways, much like nuthatches and small woodpeckers, though members of the family further south are quite different. They are mostly patterened with rusty, buffy, brown, and white shades, not terribly difficult to identify but demanding attention to detail and observation of habits. Fun.

But there are colorful birds too — the brilliant tanagers, euphonias, and chlorophonias. I exclaimed out loud when I first glimpsed a lovely green, yellow, and blue Golden-browed Chlorophonia. And the Collared Whitestarts flit about looking for all the world like tiny clowns.

Then there are the hummingbirds. Magnificent Hummingbirds are large and often look mostly black. But when the males turn toward you, they almost explode with colorful purple and green-blue hues. Little wonder that their specific epithet, fulgens, comes from a Latin word meaning “to flash” or “to shine.”

Green Violetears are abundant around the headquarters sugar water feeders. During confrontations, they can flare those purple face patches out sideways like ears!

At three inches long including the bill, Volcano Hummingbirds are the tiniest bird I’ve ever seen. They’re hardly bigger than a good-sized bumblebee. There are three races in Costa Rica; the one here has a very subdued greenish-gray gorget, as seen in the photo.

Torrent Tyrannulets live along the fast-moving mountain rivers, fluttering moth-like over the water in pursuit of small insects. They are similar in coloration and ecology to the Torrent Flyrobins I observed in Papua New Guinea. I supposed the coloration is advantageous against the rippling water.

Moisture abounds in the cloud forest, and virtually every surface is covered with epiphytic mosses, lichens, orchids, bromeliads, ferns, and liverworts. Ochraceous Wrens, Buffy Tuftedcheeks, and many other species probe the vegetation in search of prey. It’s a soft, soggy, and intricate world.

Copious amounts of water allow moisture-loving plants like this filmy fern to thrive.

And there are beautiful flowers, like this begonia, that we may recognize from our gardens. But this is their home, where they flourish and thrive.

Orchids seem to grow fairly high up as epiphytes on limbs and trunks. I saw three or four species in bloom, but they were a bit difficult to photograph.

Are you still reading? Good. I could keep going and going, but I think I’d better point you off to my photo gallery if you’re still hungry for more. I’ve posted almost 90 photos — there are more quetzals, more hummingbirds, other birds, botanical wonders from lichens to tree ferns to heliconias, scenic shots, and even a fish. So have a look, enjoy, and marvel: Savegre Mountain Lodge photos.

Pretty boy

david — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:52:35 +0000

MORAVIA, COSTA RICA –

I’d been watching a pair of Finsch’s Parakeets (Crimson-fronted Parakeets), Aratinga finschi, clambering around the outside of the neighbor’s apartment this morning, when one bird flew over and landed right in front of me. Wow!

This attractive, engaging parakeet is endemic to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, but it is a common city and suburban bird around San José.

City birds in Lima, Peru

david — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:53:00 +0000

MORAVIA, COSTA RICA — My whirlwind trip through Latin America is now almost over. Much to my disappointment, I had very little opportunity for birding on the world’s birdiest continent, South America. I’m trying to arrange a couple days off here in Costa Rica; we’ll see if it works out.

When I was in Lima, Peru, last month, I took a few photos of urban birds from the balcony of the apartment where I was staying:

This relative of the more northerly White-winged Dove is the bird of Lima, almost invariably present in trees, on sidewalks and roofs, and flying high overhead in flocks containing dozens of birds. Its bare orbital skin is an intense blue color, and unlike its cousin, its iris is dark.

I saw a rare rainfall on my third morning in Lima. Lima is in the Sechura Desert and in most months records its precipitation in fractions of a millimeter. As the water fell, doves all around the neighborhood extended their wings to let drops fall on their feathers, as I’d once seen a Mourning Dove do at home.

Eared Doves are also common in Lima, as they are throughout much of South America. The race in Lima is rather like Mourning Doves with shorter tails, different voices, and some plumage differences.

Vermilion Flycatchers are also fairly common in Lima. Some are brightly colored like the birds in the southern United States, but some birds (like this one) are all-dark sooty morphs.

Lima has two blackbirds — the Shiny Cowbird (female illustrated here) and the Scrub Blackbird. Female Shiny Cowbirds are easy to identify, but male cowbirds and Scrub Blackbirds are tricky at first. Scrub Blackbirds have longer bills and heads; cowbirds have shorter, more conical bills and a short, round head. There are other differences too, but the jizz is fairly easy to call with a few days’ practice.

Tiny Southern Beardless Tyrannulets win the cuteness award; they’re smaller than some hummingbirds.

Birdless Buenos Aires

david — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:22:13 +0000

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA — I’m finishing up a few days in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where summer is drawing to a close and life goes on as usual for 13 million Argentines. It’s a huge, bustling city, and it has very few birds. For the first couple of days, I was convinced that the only bird species present were House Sparrows and Rock Doves.

But yesterday, I picked up a few more species, including Eared Dove (the Mourning Dove equivalent), Cattle Tyrant (a ground-dwelling flycatcher species), and Rufous Hornero (a common, noisy ovenbird).

There is an ecological reserve along the Rio Plato, but we didn’t have time to go. We’re leaving for Paraguay by overnight bus today, so I’m hoping for better luck in a less developed part of the world.

To get from Costa Rica to Argentina, we flew through Miami, where we had a 24-hour layover. I didn’t see any life birds while running around the Keys and the Everglades, but I did see my first Great “White” Heron, and I got some nice pictures, which I hope to post at some point.

Anyway, off to Paraguay!