Bulletin 395 - Colombia 2021 #12 - Tanagers Pt 2

  I finally made it back to Colombia for my second visit and again used the guide services of Pablo Florez. I went with my friend Martin Jackson. We visited Inirida on the Orinoco, Santa Marta of course, Guajira Peninsula on the Caribbean coast, and a couple of National Parks around Bogota.

Tanagers are a large New World family of mostly colorful birds. They include seedeaters, conebills, tanagers, flowerpiercers etc. Any birding trip to the tropics will find a large number of them.

Grassquits are tiny finch like tanagers. The males are mostly black and the females dull brownish like sparrows. The 4" male Black-faced Grassquit (Tiaris bicolor) has a black head and breast and brown back.

Black-faced Grassquit - male

The 4" male Blue-black Grassquit (Volatinia jacarina) is solid glossy black.

Blue-black Grassquit - male

The 6.5" Glaucous Tanager (Thraupis glaucolpa) is mostly gray but has an aquamarine blue breast and wings.

Glaucous Tanager

The 6.5" Golden-crowned Tanager (Iridosonrnis rufivertex) is a stunning bird and an easy ID if you see it.

Golden-crowned Tanager

The 9" Hooded Mountain Tanager (Buthraupis montana) has a black head, yellow breast, blue back and red eye.

Hooded Mountain Tanager

The 7.5" Scarlet-bellied Mountain Tanager (Anisognathus igniventris) is another wow bird!

Scarlet-bellied Mountain Tanager

The 5" female Blue Dacnis (Dacnis cayana) is a green bird with bluish wash on her heaed. The male is blue and black.

Blue Dacnis - female

The 7" female Silver-beaked Tanager (Ramphocelus carbo) is reddish-brown with a light colored bill. The male is dark red and black.

 Silver-beaked Tanager - female

I put the different bird/mammal families in single folders for easy viewing

I have photos of 114 of the 385 species of tanagers

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2022 David McDonald

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Bulletin 186 - Puerto Rico #2 - other passerines

We found and photgraphed several other birds in Puerto Rico. Some of these also occur in the USA, usually in South Florida where they may reside or just be an occasional vagrant.

The Gray Kingbird (Tyrannus dominicensis) was very common on the Island of Vieques. They loved to perch on the wires and were so common, that Lisa took to calling them 'Line Birds.' It is very similar to the Eastern Kingbird of North America, but is distinguished by a dark mask through the eye. It has a bit of a notched tail as well. I had photographed this bird in Miami previously where it is a resident.

Gray Kingbird

The other bird of this genus we saw was the Loggerhead Kingbird (Tyrannus caudifasciatus). This bird is quite similar, but the tail is square, and the whole head is dark. Like most kingbirds, it has a stripe on the crown which seldom is seen. In this species it is yellow, and I was surprised to see that I got it in this photo. This was a life bird for all of us. This bird is a resident from the Bahamas to Puerto Rico. It occasionally shows up in south Florida as a vagrant.

Interestingly, the guide told us that it may be split with the Puerto Rico population being split from the rest. I tried playing the tape (iBird Pro) on 2 different birds and neither time did they respond.

Loggerhead Kingbird

The Black-faced Grassquit (Tiaris bicolor) is a small (4.5") black member of the tanager family. It is common through much of the West Indies.

Black-faced Grassquit



The Greater Antillean Grackle (Quiscalus niger)  is a small (11") typical large-tailed grackle, all black and a pale eye.

Greater Antillean Grackle

Lastly, the Bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) is a common Caribbean bird. It used to classified with the Tanagers, but now is in its own family. It is also a vagrant to south Florida. It has a black head with white stripe above the eye, red spot on the bill, and a yellow breast.

Bananaquit

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2013 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.