Neotropical Birding » Uncategorized

Cape Petrel at Pucusana Bay

Jean Paul Perret — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:34:35 +0000

Yesterday, while I was leading a Field Guides/Manu Expeditions group around Pucusana fishing port in Lima, we found a Cape Petrel feeding in a frenzy that included Gray, Belcher’s and Kelp Gulls and fishermen.

According to the local fishermen in recent days a mass of very cold water entered the Pucusana Bay, bringing species not usually seen so close to the shore.

Cape Petrel | © Jean Paul Perret

The Cape Petrel is common and widespread in the southern hemisphere where is associated to areas of cold water upwelling. It is known to follow vessels over long distances feeding on fish waste, so it’s not really a surprise to see it anywhere, but still it was a nice and unexpected surprise for us.

Other Petrels, in the broad sense of the word, that we usually found very close to the shore in Pucusana includes Sooty Shearwater, White-chinned Petrel, some Storm-petrels and Peruvian Diving-petrel.

Recent splits from the Neotropical Region

Jean Paul Perret — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:45:20 +0000

As was anticipated 5 months ago in another post, the South America Classification Committee (SACC) unanimously approved the proposal 412 splitting the Blue-crowned Motmot (Momotus momota) into five species.

New species:

· Blue-diademed Motmot (Momotus lessonni)

· Highland (Andean) Motmot (Momotus aequatorialis)

· Whooping Motmot (Momotus subrufescens)

· Trinidad Motmot (Momotus bahamensis)

· Amazonia Motmot (Momotus momota)

Another important decision of the SACC has been the recognition of 3 species in Cinclodes fuscus. For this decision, the SACC was based on a mtDNA-based phylogeographic analysis from Sanín et al.

New species:

· Chestnut-winged Cinclodes* (Cinclodes albidiventris)

Chestnut-winged Cinclodes | © John Jackson

· Cream-winged Cinclodes* (Cinclodes albiventris)

Cream-winged Cinclodes | © Carol Foil

*English names proposed by Alvaro Jaramillo

Finally, the recently approved proposal 416, splits the New World Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata) from the Old World Common Moorhen (G. chloropus) based on vocalizations and genetic studies.

New species:

· Common Gallinule* (Gallinula galeata)

*English names proposed by Alvaro Jaramillo

More splits very soon…

First Long-whiskered Owlet video

Jean Paul Perret — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:47:57 +0000

The Long-whiskered Owlet (Xenoglaux loweryi), one of the most elusive birds in the world, was watched and photographed on January 24^th in the town of La Esperanza in Peru. The Owlet was observed by Shachar Alterman, an Israeli birdwatcher who joined a Neotropical Primate Conservation project to carry out birds’ surveys in the region, Noga Shanee, co-founder of the organization, and Edin Fonseca, a local guide who find the bird.

Long-whiskered Owlet was discovered in 1976, when it was caught in the mist nest of a Louisiana State University team. Since it was first sighted, the owlet was found only a very few times. It is endemic to a small area in the Andean mountains in Amazonas and San Martín in northern Peru. It is restricted to cloud forests with dense undergrowth and epiphytes at about 1890-2200 meters (6200-7220 ft) above sea level and is categorized as endangered species by IUCN Red List.

On the same night the owlet was found, the N.P.C group heard no less than five birds which responded to the recorded calls played by the team. No previous record of such dense population exists so far. Two other species of rare and endemic birds; Rusty-Tinged Antpitta and the Johnson’s Tody-Tyrant were identified in Peroles at the same trip.

This is only the fourth time this rare bird is ever seen in the wild – and the first time it is captured on video.

Playing with the new camera

Jean Paul Perret — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:49:59 +0000

Sorry for not posting for such a long time, I’ll do my best to keep posting more frequently. I wanted to share with you all some photos that I took today at Pantanos de Villa, a protected area for birds to the south of Lima, Peru. I recently bought a Canon 50D camera and a 400mm f/5.6 lens to take with me on my birding trips. Last week I went to Pantanos de Villa to try out the camera for the first time with some disappointing results. I had some problems with the autofocus as well as the exposition of the photos. However, after taking photos of unsuspecting pigeons outside my window, I think I have figured out some of the issues. While I still have a great deal to learn and improve in my photography I wanted to show you all some of the shots that I took today.

WELCOME!

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:11:42 +0000

Dear Friends,

Welcome to our new home!

We have changed to a self-hosted domain in order to take advantage of more options for our blog. As you can see, we are still working to have this new location set up, so please bear with us until our migration is completed.

Please don’t forget to update your bookmarks, feed readers and email subscriptions to continue receiving our latest posts, or keep coming back to see the latest news about neotropical birds.

Also, in the following weeks we are going to set up our web site (not the blog) in this same domain www.neotropicbirding.com with useful information for birding in the neotropics.

If you have any suggestions or subjects that you would like to see here, please send us an email at neotropicalbirding [at] gmail DOT com.

Best,

Jean Paul Perret
Neotropical Birding