Bulletin 374 - Uganda #18 woodpeckers & USA birds for 2020

 After the week in the Capetown area, the guide Casper Badenhorst, and I flew to Uganda and met a local guide. We started at Entebbe Airport on the southeast corner of Uganda and made a diagonal trip to Murchison Falls NP in the northwest corner. From there, we proceeded south through a chain of nature preserves and parks to the southwest corner at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. We finished along the southern border back to the airport.

Woodpeckers are always a favorite of birders and I had 6 species for the Uganda portion of the trip. The 7.5" male Red-throated Wryneck (Jynx ruficollis) is a spotted brown bird with a red throat. They feed on ants on the ground and use old woodpecker holes for nesting. The 2 wryneck species are the first 2 species in the woodpeckers listing suggesting they are the most primitive of the woodpeckers.

Red-throated Wryneck - male

The 7.5" female Fine-banded Woodpecker (Campethera taeniolaema) has an olive green back and wings and finely barred underparts. She has red on the nape of her neck. The male would have the crown of his head also red. This is a recent split from Tullberg's Woodpecker in West Africa.

Fine-banded Woodpecker - female

Her cousin is the 8" male Nubian Woodpecker (Campethera nubica). He has a brown back and yellow underparts and is spotted all over. This is a male with the fully red head and red whisker.

Nubian Woodpecker - male

The smallest of the woodpeckers was the 5.5" Cardinal Woodpecker (Dendropicos fuscescens)The back is lightly streaked olive and the wings are black with white spots. The face is gray. The male of course would have red on his head where this female has black.

Cardinal Woodpecker - female

Her cousin is the larger 7.5" African Gray Woodpecker (Dendropicos goertae). This bird has a gray head and breast and plain olive back and wings. The male of course has red on his head.

African Gray Woodpecker - female

Lastly is the largest woodpecker I saw in Uganda, the 9" Yellow-crested Woodpecker (Chloropicus xantholophus). It is dark olive on the back with spotted underparts and a boldly patterned black and white face. The male has a tiny yellow tuft on the hindcrown which is difficult to see. This is another bird named for a field mark that is invisible.

Yellow-crested Woodpecker

I have not done much birding at all in the USA in 2020 due to Covid travel restrictions, but in the 4th quarter a few remarkable birds were found and I had to go and photograph them.

The first of these was a beautiful male 9" Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius).This is a western North America bird in the Rocky Mountains from Montana to Alaska and wintering south to California. A few birds end up far east of their normal range. This one was on Surfside Beach south of Galveston, a 30 minute drive for me to see him. It was just the 3rd time I have seen the bird and the only time in the lower 48 states.

Varied Thrush - male

His normal habitat is dense coniferous forests where he forages on the ground in deep shade. So he tended to stay in the shadow of the houses on stilts along the beach. Here he is on a garden hose in front of a trash can. Definitely an unusual place to find this bird.

Varied Thrush - male

A few day later I heard about an Eared Quetzal (Euptilotis neoxenus) being easily seen for the first time ever, in mountains east of Tucson AZ. So I called my Tucson guide Melody Kehl and she confirmed the bird was still present and easily seen. So I went to Tucson that weekend. Melody took me to the location and what a show this pair put on for birders from all over the USA. 

This bird is a regular in the Chiracahua Mountains in SE Arizona, but maybe only a couple of pairs. There are few roads and mostly the bird is found at the top of a trail and then even if spotted, it is gone the next day so it is always 'a 1 day wonder'. This year a pair of juveniles was found in June and were watched by a local resident - but in September, they started to come down into a valley to feed on fruiting trees and there was a road there - so BINGO everyone who has been waiting for a chance to see this fantastic bird finally got an opportunity.

This is a brightly colored 14" bird. The male has an iridescent green head, back, wings chest and tail with a red belly and white under the tail. This is a first year male who has not molted completely to adult plumage. The 'ears' are some wispy feathers on the cheeks that can be seen if you look closely. Obviously, this was a lifer for me.

Eared Quetzal - male

The female has a gray head and breast. The feathers are easier to see on her in this photo.

Eared Quetzal - female

While we were waiting for the Quetzal to appear, several beautiful 24" Chiricahua Fox Squirrels (Sciurus nayaritenesis) were feeding in the trees. This is the northern subspecies of the Mexican Fox Squirrel. This was a life mammal for me - so a bonus after finding the Quetzal.

Mexican Fox Squirrel

A Christmas treat was an exceedingly rare bird for the USA. The story of how it was found was serendipity. A lady who had started birding a few months ago went to a state park south of San Antonio Dec 19th. She had a small camera and took a photo of a bird along the edge of the lake. She could not find the bird in her bird book, so she showed it to the park personnel and it was IDed as a 10.5" Spotted Rail (Pardirallus maculatus). This is a bird from southern Mexico to Argentina. Rails as a group are secretive marsh birds and exceedingly difficult to see well.

Well word went out and people started coming from all over North America to see the bird as he seemed to stay in the same location along the shore in cattail patches. Apparently the best place to see this bird is in Peru or Argentina. The volunteer at the park said a man was even coming from London England to see it!

I went on Dec 26 - 4 hour drive each way and I spent 5 hours waiting for the bird to come out of hiding in the grass along the shore. I was rewarded with 2 looks as he ran between cattail patches for about 30 seconds each time, but the second time my camera was ready and I got a couple of photos. He is black and covered with white spots. He has a long bill that is dark. The adults have a yellow green bill, so this is thought to be a juvenile.

Spotted Rail

And the last bird was a 3.25" Calliope Hummingbird (Selasphorus calliope) I found in my yard on Dec 27th. He is a juvie male as he has just a couple of purple feathers on his throat. He is still here now and I hope he decides to spend the winter. It is only the second time I have had this bird at my house. This is the smallest bird in North America.

Calliope Hummingbird - juvenile male

So my year finished up with some amazing USA birds.

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

I have photos of 59 of the 235 species of woodpeckers

I have photos of 50 of the 167 species of  thrushes

I have photos of 16 of the 43 species of quetzals and trogons

I have photos of 20 of the 282 species of squirrels

I have photos of 19 of the 138 species of rails, coot, and gallinules

I have photos of 126 of the 358 species of hummingbirds

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2021 David McDonald

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

Bulletin #223 - Best of 10 years #4 - Flycatchers and Thrushes

The Tyrannidae family (Tyrant Flycatchers) of the New World is the largest family of birds with some 430 species. Although many are rather plain brown or olive, a few are quite beautiful.

The beautiful Scissor-tailed Flycatcher occurs on grasslands from Kansas to Texas. This male has a pearly gray head and body, salmon underwing and exceptionally long tail feathers. I photographed this bird on the coast during spring migration.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - male

The male Vermilion Flycatcher of the USA southwest is another amazing bird. He has a brown back and wings with red head and underparts and a brown stripe through the eye.

Vermilion Flycatcher - male

This third flycatcher is the cute little Black Phoebe. It is a resident from west Texas to California. It likes to be near water. I photographed this on a rock by the Pacific in Monterey California. He let me walk right up to him and take his photo.

Black Phoebe

The Great Crested Flycatcher has been a life long favorite. It is a resident of eastern North America. We had a pair of them nesting in a bird house for many years when I was growing up in Canada. Flycatchers will eat fruit at times and I photographed this one at High Island during spring migration with a bright red mulberry in his mouth. He is typical of the myiarchus genus with brown back, gray breast and yellow belly. I framed a photo of this and put it in my office and some people noticed a whole parade of bugs walking on the underside of the branch. I hadn't seen the bugs!

Great Crested Flycatcher

The thrushes are a worldwide family of 180 species. They are familiar to everyone in North America as the American Robin and bluebirds are thrushes. Many thrushes are beautiful singers.

The Varied Thrush is a bird of the mountains from northern California to Alaska. I have only seen it twice and I was lucky to get this male on the ground in Alaska. It resembles a robin, but has a stripe across the chest and wing bars.

Varied Thrush - male

The Omao is the thrush on the Big Island of Hawaii. As I talked about in bulletins of Hawaii birds, extinctions have been rampant in the Hawaiian Islands. There were 4 thrushes, but 2 have gone extinct in last 30 years and a third one is critically endangered and being raised in captivity to save it. The Omao is the only one that can be seen.

Omao

The La Selle Thrush is an endemic to Hispaniola. It also sort of resembles an American Robin with the red breast. One has to go to the Dominican Republic to see this bird. I had one morning to see it, and was successful.

La Selle Thrush

The Bicknell's Thrush is a small thrush that is the hardest to find in North America as it nests on mountain tops in New England and New Brunswick, Canada. I had not made a trip to see it. I was pleasantly surprised when I was in Dominican Republic last November, to discover that 90% of the birds winter there. So I was able to add photos of this species.

Bicknell's Thrush

A cousin of the Bicknell's is the Hermit Thrush. I had seen this bird several times in California, but never in Texas until I found this one in my back yard, one Thanksgiving weekend. He spent the winter in my yard and I photographed him many times. Some mornings I would hear him singing his beautiful song. This was the best of hundreds of photos and was right outside my kitchen window. He had become used to me and I could approach to within 15 feet of him. This photo made it on the Houston Audubon web site as well.

Hermit Thrush

The last is the male Eastern Bluebird. In 25 years of birding in Texas, I have seen it in my yard 4-5 times. This one landed on my bird bath and stayed long enough for me to run and get the camera set up and take his photo. What a treat to have such a beautiful bird by your house.

Eastern Bluebird - male

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2015 David McDonald

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

Bulletin #118 – Alaska #6 – passerines

David McDonald Photography

Friendswood Texas
August 1, 2010

Bulletin #118 – Alaska #6 – passerines

I had a great trip to Alaska with TOS (Texas Ornithology Society). They run an annual trip to Alaska in early June. We visited Anchorage, Nome, Barrow, Denali Highway and had a pelagic trip out of Seward. It was a fantastic trip with most usual birds seen and photographed along with numerous mammal species.

Just as with shorebirds, there are a number of songbirds (passerines) from Asia that regularly extend their range into western Alaska. We saw several of these birds including Bluethroat and Eastern Yellow Wagtail but didn’t manage to get good photos. However, I did get photos of 2 species.

The Arctic Warbler (Phylloscopus borealis) is a member of the Old World Warbler family (Sylviidae) that also includes the gnatcatchers. The Arctic Warbler is a dull olive backed bird with a light eye line. It is best IDed by voice. This was a life bird.

Another Asian bird was the Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe). It is a member of the thrush family (Turdidae). The breeding male has a gray back, pale breast washed with buff, and a black mask. In flight, they have a distinctive white rump and tail with a black terminal band.

The male Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius) is similar to the American Robin, but it has orange stripes on the face and wings. There is also a dark stripe across the breast. This was only me second time to see this bird.

We saw several species of wood-warblers including Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Wilson’s, Orange-crowned, Blackpoll and Northern Waterthrush. I was surprised that we didn’t find a Townsend’s Warbler, as their range extends into southeast Alaska. The only photos I took were of a male Blackpoll Warbler (Dendroica striata). This black and white warbler has a solid black cap and white face. The legs are orange or pink.

2 members of the sparrow family were lifers for me. The male Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis) is a striking white bird with black wings. These birds was found in Barrow.

The other bird was the Lapland Longspur (Calcarius lapponicus). We saw lots of these birds in the Nome area. The stunning breeding male has a black head and throat, reddish collar across the back of neck, brown streaked back and white breast.

The American Dipper (Cinclus mexicanus) is the only aquatic songbird. It feeds by hopping into swift flowing streams and walking along the bottom to catch insect larvae. It is overall dark gray with a short tail. We found a family of them using a nest box at a fish hatchery on the Denali Highway. I had never heard of these birds using a nest box, so I took a photo of it. It was on open rectangular box and they used moss as nesting material. Here is the bird with food in its mouth and the nest box.

The White-winged Crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) is a finch. They use their unusual crossed bill tip to pry open cones of evergreen trees to get the seeds. The male is reddish with white wing bars. The female shown here is yellowish.

The Boreal Chickadee (Poecile hudsonica) has a brown cap rather than black.

The last bird is the Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia). This black and white bird with a long tail is a member of the crow family. It is unmistakable.

I will be leading a 9 day bird photography tour to Costa Rica in conjunction with Lillian Scott-Baer of Baer Travel March 3-11, 2011. We have worked out an itinerary to visit La Selva Preserve, Savegre Mountain Hotel in the central mountains for Resplendant Quetzal and other montane species and Wilson Botanical Gardens (Las Cruces). We have also retained the services of local guide Rudy Zamora to accompany us and locate and ID the birds for us to photograph. We will also have beautiful flowers and hopefully some mammals - tamanduas, monkeys etc.

I will be giving several talks in the evening on bird photography, Photoshop etc.


The price will be $1960 double to $2380 single. This includes hotels, all meals, guide, transportation in Costa Rica etc. The only other cost will be airfare and personal purchases (alcohol, souvenirs etc) . Space is limited to 10 persons to maximize our opportunity to see and photograph the birds. I have birded in Costa Rica previously. It is a wonderful country to visit and the bird life is exceptional. I hope that you can join us.


Here is the schedule of payments for the trip.


$ 25 reservation fee (not refundable)
$ 575 due April 30, 2010
$ 600 due July 30, 2010
$ 740 due January 15, 2011
Please send deposits to:


ScoBar Inc.
34 Galway Place
The Woodlands, TX 77382


There are only 2 spaces left for this trip as of today, so please email me, if interested.


All comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

email: davidkmcd@comcast.net

photos copyright 2010 David McDonald

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