NEOTROPICAL BIRD GUIDE ONLINE

Cornell University’s Ornithology Lab is putting together a comprehensive list and description of Neotropical birds online. Here is the link. I am about to get my first look at Panama’s avians so this site has been fun to explore. I’m on one of our PIB trips with a great local guide.
This Neotropical site works very much like the Birds of North America Online which I find to be a valuable resaource when I am writing about our native birds here in the U.S. The Noetropical site already has 4000 species, more than 4 times the total on the older BNA site. Such is the species diversity of Central and South America plus the Caribean Islands. We regularly get four breeding species of tanager in North America, further south there are many dozens. Even more flycatchers in Latin America than any other family, nearly 400 species.

ONE MORE REASON TO VISIT ECUADOR: OILBIRDS

The Oilbird is a sparsely present and unique bird in South America. It is one bird you can see on PIB’s Ecuador trips that tour the Quito area. I saw this fascinating bird in a deep chasm on a private farm that welcomed the PIB tour group. The birds are nocturnal so they were up on the shaded ledges sleeping during the day.
The Oilbird is the only bird in the world that can use echolocation to navigate. It lets them come and go in lightless caves where they roost and nest.
Though closely related to the Nightjar family, the Oilbird has given up esating insects in favor of fruit. Though it evolved first in North America during a hot period in the climate, the Oilbird now has been pushed into the tropical areas of Latin America from Trinidad to Bolivia and east to Guyana.
If you look at the range map for Oilbird in Nigel Cleere’s NIGHTJARS OF THE WORLD you will notice a series of less than fifty dots scattered about northwestern South America. There are few places with adequate caves and a year-round supply of fruit.
Like many fruit-eating birds from waxwings to tanagers to parrots, the Oilbird is gregarious. It roosts, nests and feeds in groups.
So different is the Oilbird from even its closest related species it is not only in its own genus, but in its own taxonomic family, Steatornithidae.
If you want to add this amazing and unqiue bird to your lifelist, check out our Ecuador tours.
References: A NEOTROPICAL COMPANION by John Kricher. Princeton University Press.
NIGHTJARS OF THE WORLD by Nigel Cleere. Princeton University Press.
OILBIRD PHOTO COURTESY OF LELIS NAVARRETE, LEAD GUIDE FOR MANY PIB TOURS IN ECUADOR.