Bulletin 342 - 100 Birds to See Before You Die - # 3

I discovered this book "100 Birds to See Before you Die" by 2 Brits David Chandler and Dominic Couzens about 11 years ago while browsing in a bookstore on vacation. The sub title is "The Ultimate Wish List for Birders Everywhere". It sort of peaked my interest as a 'bucket list' of the rarest and most unusual birds in the world, according to the 2 authors.

It has the smallest (Bee Hummingbird)  and largest (Ostrich) birds, some of the most beautiful (Birds of Paradise) and some quite ugly (Shoebill) and strange (Hoatzin). There are birds on all the continents as well as Arctic and Antarctic regions. 

There are also a number of island endemics. In the south Pacific, there are entries for Hawaii (1), New Caledonia (2) , New Guinea (3), Sulawesi (1), Mindanao (1), and New Zealand (2). The Galapagos has 1 entry.  Madagascar has 3. The Caribbean is well represented with Cuba (1), Hispaniola (2) and Montserrat (1).

There are about 240 families of birds, so obviously they are not all represented on this list. There are 3 each of Birds-of-Paradise, Gulls and Terns, Cotingas, and Tyrant Flycatchers. There are several unique birds that are sole members of their family. These are the Hoatzin, Kagu, Oilbird, Crab Plover, Ibisbill, Wallcreeper and Shoebill, For those of us in North America, not a single New World Warbler is on the list.

Each entry has a full page photograph and facing page article of what makes the bird rare, unusual or interesting to warrant its inclusion.

This is the third group of 10 birds. The first installment is here. And the second is here.

Number 86 is the Paradise Tanager (Tangara chilensis). This very gaudy bird is what everyone thinks jungle birds should be like. It is a resident in Amazonia.

Paradise Tanager

Number 68 is the Golden-headed Manakin (Ceratopipra erythrocephala). These 3.5" birds are resident of northern South America. The males are black with a yellow head. the males perform elaborate dance displays on the lek to attract a female.

Golden-headed Manakin - male

Number 62 is the Little Forktail (Enicurus scouleri). This 5" black and white cutie is a resident along fast flowing streams in high mountains at an altitude of 5,500 to 11,000 feet in southest Asia. It is one of 8 species of forktails in the old world flycatcher family.

Little Forktail

Number 56 is the Pearled Treerunner (Margarornis squamiger). This brown bird with spotted breast is a common bird in the montane forests of the Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia. I have seen it several times. It is a member of the ovenbird family.

Pearled Treerunner

Number 53 is the magnificent Blue-and-yellow Macaw (Ara ararauna). It is resident in Amazonia and south-central South America. 

Blue-and-yellow Macaw

Number 51 is the Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops). This 11" bird has a huge crest and long thin bill. It is a common bird across Eurasia and one of 3 species of hoopoe. The photos in the book show it with its crest elevated but I have not seen that yet.

Eurasian Hoopoe

Number 36 is the strange looking Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoatzin). This prehistoric looking bird resides along slow moving streams in Amazonia. It is the sole member of the Hoatzin family.

Hoatzin

Number 29 is the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock (Rupicola peruvianus). This is one of the 3 cotingas in the book and the most beautiful with his bushy crest and red and black with silver plumage.

Andean Cock-of-the-Rock - male

Number 27 is the huge Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus). It is the worlds largest bird of prey with a length to 50 inches, weight to 33 pounds and wingspan of 10.5 feet.

Andean Condor

Number 19 is the Oilbird (Steatornis caripensis). It is a noctunal bird related to nightjars, but it is a fruit eater. It is unique in its own family. They roost in caves during the day. This one was photographed in Colombia. It is a resident from Panama across northern south America and on Trinidad.

Oilbird

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2019 David McDonald

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

Bulletin 287 - Colombia #10 - Cardinals, Manakins, Tapaculo, and others

Pablo Florez, the main guide, has co-written a book where to bird in Colombia. In it, he has a list of the Top 30 Most Sought-after Birds by a group of 40 birders visiting Colombia. I saw 12 of them on the trip and got photos of 10. When I show one of these birds,  I will mention its placement on the list.

The habia genus of ant tanagers were formerly in the tanager family, but have been moved into the cardinal family. We had 2 species on the trip. The 6.75" male Crested Ant Tanager (Habia cristata) looks very similar to our Northern Cardinal. The female however, is red without much of a crest. It is endemic to Colombia.

Crested Ant Tanager - male

His cousin, the 6.75" Sooty Ant Tanager (Habia gutturalis) is gray with a bushy red crest and throat. the female is similar but lacks a crest.

Sooty Ant Tanager - male

The manakins are a small (52 species) New World family of small songbirds. They are known for the elaborate displays that the males perform on a lek. I photographed 2 new species on this trip. The first was the 3.5" Western Striped Manakin (Machaeropterus striolatus). This is a recent split from Striped Manakin. The male shown here has a red crown, green back, and white underparts with red streaks.

Western Striped Manakin - male

The second one was a real treat to see several males at a lek and this allowed a half hour of viewing the birds and several photos. The 3.5" male Golden-headed Manakin (Ceratopipra erythrocephala). It is an easy ID with the black body and golden head.

Golden-headed Manakin

I photographed 2 Jays on the trip. The 14" Black-chested Jay (Cyanocorax affinis) has a black face and chest and yellow eye.

Black-chested Jay

The 12" Inca Jay (Cyanocorax yncas) is similar to our South Texas Green Jay and in fact they were considered a single species until split by the IOC in 2009. 

Inca Jay

The 6" White-winged Becard (Pachyramphus polychopterus) is a member of the small family (45 species) of tityras and becards all in New world. It is black with white wing bars.

White-winged Becard

Swallows are difficult to photograph until you can get them on a wire, or perched near their nest. With their graceful flight, I have always loved swallows and  it is a pleasure whenever I can photograph a new species. I managed 1 species on the trip, the 5" Brown-bellied Swallow (Notiochelidon murina). This is a bird of high elevations in the Andes and the paramo. We drove past a farm house and they were nesting under the eaves and sitting on the tile roof.

Brown-bellied Swallow

A family of birds I have not written about previously is the tapaculos. The reason for this is I had never seen one until this trip. There are 60 species and all except one are in South America. I heard several on previous trips, but they are small (5") dark birds that stay close to the ground in thick brush. Finally, I got to see 4 species and managed to photograph the most exciting one, the large 8.5" Ocellated Tapaculo (Acroptemis orthonyx). This is the largest and only colorful one in the Colombia field guide. It has a black body with small white spots and an orange face. This bird is #14 on the top 30 target birds in Colombia.

Ocellated Tapaculo

The other ones I saw were the Stile's Tapaculo (a Colombian endemic and I missed a photo I should have gotten), the Blackish Tapaculo (they are all mostly black LOL) and a new species to science the Alto Pisones Tapaculo. This is the tentative name given to this newly discovered species, first described in 2012.

For those birders who may be heading to Colombia to see the avain wonders, there is a new guide book in second edition (2014)  "Field guide to the Birds of Columbia" by McMullan and Donegan. I was unaware of this book and just had Hilty's 1986 huge book which is quite out of date with splits and new species. My guides in Colombia had this newer book, but it is sold out in Colombia. A few copies are available from 3rd parties on Amazon however. New it is $34.95 with one vendor and $90 at 2 others, but used $170, so buy a new one before sold out! It is published by ProAves, a Colombia non-profit that uses the proceeds to buy habitat to protect the rare species. The first edition was in 2010 and this one has all 1903 species recorded at the end 2013.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2017 David McDonald

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