Neotropical Birding

Cape Petrel at Pucusana Bay

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

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.

A New Addition: Birds of Peru in Flickr

Are you familiar with Flickr? If not, Flickr is a great online tool to share photos. The problem is that Flickr is so popular that sometimes it is a bit hard to find exactly what we want. To help with this situation there are groups where users can share photos grouped according to different subjects.

Now let’s talk about the subject that interests us, birds. On Flickr there are many groups for birds. Some of them are related to families of birds, hummingbirds, owls, shorebirds, etc.

Others are classified depending on the geographical location. Globally the most ambitious and organized group is Field Guide: Birds of the World, with photographs of more than 6000 species of birds. In the Neotropical region we have a great group called Neotropical Birds. Then each country has their own group, for example Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil. Amazing right? But there was a very important country not part of this list…

Although it seems incredible Peru did not have a group on Flickr to organize its bird photos. This situation changed 48 hours ago with the creation of Birds of Peru. The idea of the group is to organize and classify pictures of all species (and hopefully someday subspecies) of birds of Peru. If you have traveled to Peru and have pictures of birds please add them to the group and do not forget to put a tag with the scientific and english names to help organize our index. On the other hand, if you’ve never been to Peru, take look at the photos and see what you are missing!

So far the group is working very well, with over 500 photos submitted during the first 24 hours! Very soon we will enable an area where you can discuss various topics related to birds of Peru and there will be a section designed to help with bird ID. I hope that many birders join the group and take advantage of this resource.

New Species of Antpitta from Colombia

UPDATE 6/25/2010: One month ago we published the description of this species in the middle of a controversy between ProAves and Mr. Caranton who discovered and collected the species. At that time we only had access to ProAves version since Mr Caranton had not yet published his description. Now we provide the other side of the story hopeing that our readers can draw their own conclusions.

A NEW SPECIES OF ANTPITTA (GRALLARIIDAE: GRALLARIA ) FROM THE NORTHERN SECTOR OF THE WESTERN ANDES OF COLOMBIA

The Price of Priority

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ORIGINAL POST

A new species of bird for science has been discovered and named after a leading conservation family. The bird is named Fenwick’s Antpitta (Grallaria fenwickorum), after American Bird Conservancy (ABC) President George Fenwick and his family.

Fenwick’s Antpitta | © ProAves Colombia

The announcement was made after a comprehensive two-year study and review process following the bird’s discovery in 2008. The capture and evaluation process itself was remarkable in that it is one of the first times that a new species for science has been described from an individual captured, banded, measured, photographed, sampled for DNA, and then released alive back into the wild.

The bird that provided the so-called “holotype” for the description was captured in the Colibri del Sol Bird Reserve located on the Paramo del Sol massif in the western Andes of Colombia. The reserve is managed by Fundación ProAves. The 11,322 acre reserve, founded in 2005, is known for a stunning array of threatened birds, including the Critically Endangered Dusky Starfrontlet that was rediscovered in 2004 after being “lost” for over 50 years, and which provided the initial impetus for the Fenwick family’s support to establish the bird reserve.

Habitat | © ProAves Colombia

The new bird species inhabits a highly restricted area of montane cloud forest where dwarf bamboo thickets thrive on rich volcanic soils on the less-humid eastern-facing slopes; a habitat that has undergone extensive clearance for pasturelands in recent decades. The bird has been proposed as Critically Endangered under IUCN-World Conservation Union criteria, with a population described as extremely small and of great conservation concern, making it a priority for ABC.

Fenwick’s Antpitta is a medium-sized, cinnamon and gray colored, thrush-like bird, with a height of about seven inches, and a weight of only about two ounces. G. fenwickorum is considered probably most closely related to Brown-banded Antpitta G. milleri due to similarities in voice and biometrics and generally non-descript plumage. There are two described subspecies of G. milleri: G. m. milleri occurs 165 km southeast in the Central Andes, and the larger G. m. gilesi occurs 70 km east in the northern sector of the Central Andes. G. fenwickorum can be easily diagnosed from both taxa by the complete lack of a brown breast band (with the breast instead being uniform slate grey) and lighter brown dorsal plumage. Its vocalizations are also distinct.

Fenwick’s Antpitta | © ProAves Colombia

The song of Grallaria fenwickorum consists of three notes, progressively increasing in acoustic frequency and length, with the first note briefest and lowest, and the final note longest and highest. The song could be transcribed as: “tu, tuut, TUUET”. The song of G. milleri is similar to that of G. fenwickorum, also comprising three notes of progressively higher pitch and greater length. However, each note of the G. milleri song is diagnosably longer and higher pitched than the equivalent note in G. fenwickorum.

Read the complete description of the species here.

Photos: ProAves Colombia

Source: American Bird Conservancy and ProAves Colombia

Help Us to Conserve the Long-whiskered Owlet

Long-Whiskered Owlet | © Shachar Alterman/NPC Please help us conserve one of the most enigmatic owl species of the world, the Long-whiskered Owlet. This species was discovered in 1976 and since then has been observed in the wild only by a few people, perhaps less than 10 times. It is found only in the montane forests of northern Peru, an area that is threatened by the rapid development of agriculture and mining.

In an effort to preserve the Long-whiskered Owlet habitat, the local NGO ECOAN created a private reserve around Abra Patricia, an area that now is famous worldwide for birders. Many tourists visit Abra Patricia hoping to find this bird, but despite their efforts they usually never see it.

In 2009, the Israeli birder Shachar Alterman was able to find Long-whiskered Owlets living in a forest 30 km. from Abra Patricia, outside the protected area. This place has become the best (and only) place to observe this species. So far five groups of birdwatchers have visited the area and they all have observed the Owlet as well as two other rare and endemic species of birds; Rusty-Tinged Antpitta, Johnson’s Tody-Tyrant. Another very interesting species that can be observed in these forests includes the Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey, also in danger of extinction with a restricted range in northern Peru.

Shachar Alterman was part of a group of enthusiastic conservationists from the Neotropical Primate Conservation. They are trying to protect the forest area through a partnership with the local community. The community has taken the first steps to have this area designated as a protected space by the national government. Their greatest hope is that ecotourism will help protect the forest and the species that inhabit it, including the Long-whiskered Owlet.

It takes approximately three and a half hours to reach this area through difficult terrain. But this hike is a small effort in comparison to the rewarding experience of seeing this rare species in its habitat.

How can you help?

Our company wants to support the efforts of the community, La Esperanza, by offering tours to this forest. This tour will include a short visit to the Florida/Pomacochas area where you can see another beautiful and endemic species including the Marvelous Spatuletail hummingbird. You can also combine this trip with a longer visit to the area around Abra Patricia. For more details please see our information page. If you want to set a date for this tour or if you have questions please feel free to contact us.
Additionally, our company is evaluating a compensation scheme for carbon emissions for all tours available in Peru. Proceeds will go directly to Neotropical Primate Conservation (NPC) to support the conservation of these forests.
Neotropical Birding Tours will also make a donation to the NPC reforestation program to plant 50 trees for every tourist that take part in this tour.
If you can’t travel to the area, but want to contribute to the project, please consider making a donation directly to Neotropical Primate Conservation.

2010 List of the Birds of Peru

The Peruvian ornithologist Manuel Plenge has just published the 2010 List of the Birds of Peru.

Plenge has followed the classification of South American Classification Committee (SACC). Including its ‘inclusion criteria’ by codes which are described at the end of the list. The species without a code corresponds to the ‘X’ of SACC.

Therefore, the number of species per code is:

X = resident: 1477
E = endemic: 103
NB = nonbreeding resident: 135
V = vagrant: 16
IN = introduced species: 2
EX = extinct: 1
H = hypothetical: 98

Total: 1831

However, there are the following four species which are not in the list of SACC. The explanation lies in the last page in the notes highlighted in color. Theristicus branickii, Calidris ruficollis, Gygis alba and Icterus chrysocephalus. Then the total number of bird species would be 1835.

Two species in the list are no longer considered hypothetical (H) for Peru:

Northern Giant Petrel: Zavalaga et al. (2009) Immature Northern Giant Petrels Macronectes halli visiting the coast of Peru. Marine Ornithology, 37: 237-240.

Magellanic Penguin: Zavalaga et al. (2009) Records of Magellanic Penguins Spheniscus magellanicus in Peru. Marine Ornithology, 37: 281-282.

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