GET YOURSELF TO ECUADOR

PIB has great trips to various habitat zones in Ecuador. And there’s a book you want to take with you. It’s the first-ever, one volume nature guide for anyone headed to Ecuador’s wondrous mountains and rain forest and arid western slopes:
Wildlife of Ecuador:
A Photographic Field Guide to Birds, Mammals, Reptiles, and Amphibians
Andrés Vásquez Noboa. Photography by Pablo Cervantes Daza. Princeton Press. 2017. $29.95.
I wish I’d had a book like this when I was in Ecuador…or even Panama where I got far too close to a pit viper without recognizing it. The bird section is fine but the real value is in all those other critters: face-to-face shots with snakes. It’s the head that matters…look for the heat-sensing pits. You may want to keep your birding guide nearby or back at the ecolodge because only breeding plumage shots are given for most avian species.
Now I know there are two species of agouti in Ecuador and I saw the black in Coca. Not sure even my bird guide knew there were two, certainly didn’t tell us.
Superbly clear range maps. Both English and Latin indices.
My favorite Ecuadoran bird is at the top of page 140…the Collared Inca.
ECUADOR GALLERY FROM MY VISITS:
Yellow-tufted Woodpecker:
Great Ani:Hoatzin at Sani Lodge:Squirrel monkey:
Swallow-tailed Kite over Napo River in Amazon Basin:

BIKING ACCOPANIED BY BIRDSONG

The well-known, often published birdsong expert, Dr. Donald Kroodsma and his son biked across the nation, starting on the East Coast and ending in Oregon where Kroodsma first studied ornithology in graduate school.  The resulting book is an exciting and useful introduction to birdsong, where and when and how to listen.Here’s a sample page, and publishers have now graduated from CDs to on page links to websites with all the relevant birgsongs, accessible for free:

Listening to a Continent Sing:
Birdsong by Bicycle from the Atlantic to the Pacific
By Donald Kroodsma

Princeton Press.  Hardcover | 2016 | $29.95 | £22.95 | ISBN: 9780691166810
336 pp. | 6 x 9 | 125 line illus.

WE SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO THE WARBLERS’ WISDOM

I already knew that we humans are woefully slow to see what’s happening in the natural world, but here comes scientific evidence that even without TV weathercasts, warblers foresee weather problems far better than some slow-moving bipeds.

Here’s one newspaper account of how warblers fled the U.S. to avoid a killer storm.

Here’s a summary of that same report on warbler wisdom from a science website.

That violent series of storms killed 35 humans who chose not to migrate.  Final Score: Warblers +1, Humans -35.

SEEING RED

The Magee Marsh Boardwalk today was alive with feeding warblers as weather and insect activity brought nearly all predators down to lower levels of the forest. Most surprising were the scads of Scarlets who came down with them…Scarlet Tanagars at about fifteen feet above the ground.

Our PIB tour group got twenty species of warbler in addition to many fine views of both male and female Scarlet tanagers during our hours on the Magee Marsh Boardwalk today. Magnolia, Bay-breasted and Blackburnian Warblers drew gasps of appreciation. When two Blackburnians appeared near one another I commented it was a conflagration of Blackburnians (with their flame-colored throats).

Spring here in northwest Ohio comes in many shades, from gray to grass green to brilliant red. Here are a few:
Tufted Titmouse and Cardinal share feeder.

Groundhog, known also as woodchuck. How much wood wuld a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? We await the answer.

Golden-winged Warbler at Wildwoods Metropark in Toledo area. This disappearing warbler is the central figure in a conservation program headed by American Bird Conservancy.

Red-bellied Woodpecker, which has no red belly.
Solitary Sandpiper, Ottawa NWR.

Baltimore Oriole, Magee Marsh.Indigo Bunting male, Oak Openings Preserve.

All these birds seen in the first two days of the Partnership for International Birding Trip, co-sponsored by Golden Gate Audubon, to northwest Ohio for spring migration. So far we have 109 species for the two days and over 20 species of warblers seen.

KETTLES ON; KIDDIES OUTTA THE POOL

There was a kettle of immature Bald Eagles over Pointe Mouillee just south of Detroit this morning. When I first saw this phenomenon I could not imagine what was up:

At one time there were six of them circling and swooping about.

One of the eagles had a duck or coot and the others were hoping to make a steal. Here’s the successful predator carrying its prey.

OKAY, KIDS, OUT OF THE WATER:

Northern Rough-winged Swallow:

Osprey on nest, Pointe Mouillee

Tomorrow we begin the PIB trip to northwestern Ohio, co-sponsored by Golden gate Audubon.

BLACK AND WHITE IN FLIGHT

Along the Magee Marsh the word “beauty” is often spoken…with conviction not irony. With awe not sarcasm. It is a strange and wondrous thing to see so many adults admitting to the beauty of something so small, so valueless in monetary terms and so ephemeral as a migrating warbler less than six inches long: Blackpoll above. Bay-breasted male beliow:

THIS MAY BE MY BEST PICTURE EVER:
This is a Black and White Warbler flying toward me through the trees.

American Redstart

More Black and White

PROTHONOTARY, CUCKOO AND THE KINGBIRD

Here he is, the Prothonotary Warbler male. Great bird, not sure about the stilted name. Some of his admirers are heard to say “golden swamp warbler.” Whatever you call it, this is a bird to behold. Ob the boardwalk at Magee Marsh.

Catbird.

Eastern Kingbird flycatching as any flycatcher is wont to do.

Magnificent Magnolia (Warbler).

The ubiquitous Palm Warbler that cannot be avoided when you are near any trees in northern Ohio this time of year.

Female Yellow Warbler.
Here’s a busy Martinopolis at Ottawa NWR.

My second-most exciting bird of the day. A sunning Black-billed Cuckoo:

OAKS OPENINGS, LAPLAND AND MISSISSIPPI

Oaks openings sounds like a twee name for a 3600-acre open space preserve, but once you start birding there it could be named “Walmart” and you wouldn’t care. Great spring birding. Warblers included Canada, Wilson’s, Chestnut-sided. And these guys, as well:

Black-throated Blue in the air, showing large white wing bars.

Bay-breasted Wasrbler along creek in Oaks Openings.

Baltimore Oriole male.

garter snakeRed-headed Woodpecker,

Gray-cheeked Thrush at Oaks Openings.

Lapland Longspur along Krause road where there was small flock of six, three of each gender.
In this picture note the male to the far left, with pale yellow beak.

American Golden Plovers, part of flock of thirteen, seen along Krause Road west of Ottawa NWR.

Rarest bird we saw all day was Mississippi Kite flying over Ottawa NWR late in the day. There are only two previous confirmed sightings in this part of Ohio for that species.

Railing and Blackburnian Color

Here in Northwestern Ohio a line of thunderstorms passed thru on their way to Canada, leaving behind water, winds and warblers. Not the least of these: the male Blackburnian Warblers. By evening the winds had abated but the Blackburnian throat colors seemed to have heated up:
The warbler drawing the biggest crowds was a female Cerulean, the only one of her species found here so far this week. The bird was found by Lelis Navarette of Quito who leads many of POIB’s trips in his native Ecuador. The Cerulean is one of America’s most trouble warblers. It is beset by habitat removal in its Columbian wintering grounds and mountaintop removal in West Virginia where many breed. Profiteers versus a beautiful but helpless creature.
The Black and White Warblers are one of the most abundant warblers here and their ability to scale trunks and climb upside on limbs may explain why there are so few nuthatches to find here.

American Redstart.

This Sora was along the Auto Tour route in Ottawa NWR, found by a woman who didn’t know what it was. it was only her second day of birding and she’d gotten out of her car to “find that diving duck [Pied-billed Grebe]” and then flushed this funny-looking bird. Another birder driving by told her what it was, which meant nothing to her.