The Last: Bat Falcon

8 March 2013.  The last half day of birding at El Jaguar (more than a week ago already) brought us 3 new Nicaragua species and 2 more life birds.  The Strong-billed Woodcreeper looks like a giant-on-steroids version of North America’s Brown Creeper, but my favorite bird of the trip was the last lifer, Bat Falcon.  A stunning black, white, and orange bird, this small falcon zoomed through the sky like an aerobat, catching and eating insects and—was that a bird it just ate?—other creatures on the fly.  For a moment I thought the falcon was a white-collared swift, but no, it was bigger and had those cool looking orange legs and belly that flashed at us when it banked the right way.  It flew around and around above the openness of the coffee plantation, giving us plenty of time to enjoy the show.

In all we found 15 new life birds and another 23 new for Nicaragua.  With so many others remaining on the reserve's list, we left El Jaguar with lots of reasons to go back again someday.  The fact that the chigger bites did not exceed the total number of new birds was an added bonus.

By the way, if you shop at Whole Foods in the US, you can buy El Jaguar's coffee.  It is sold under the Allegro brand name and is labeled "Nicaragua El Jaguar."  If you try it, you'll be drinking the same delicious and bird-friendly coffee we heartily enjoyed during our stay at El Jaguar.  The birds will thank you for it. 

Los Pinos

Today we visited Los Pinos, the pines, north of San Rafael del Norte.  The terrain was much like the pine-oak habitat of southeast Arizona, but rather more open because the land is used for cattle grazing.  It seems most of the green and black warblers of north America like this habitat.  We saw Hermit, Townsend’s, Black-throated Green and Grace’s warblers, all in the pines.  We missed the Golden-cheeked, but it’s sometimes found there, too.  Other birds were the highlights of the visit, though.  Black-headed Siskin, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (for Peggy), and Lesser Roadrunner were the lifers.  Later, at man-made Lake Apanás, we found a group of Grassland Yellow Finches for the last lifer of the day.

We have one more half day of birding here at El Jaguar.  We clearly aren’t going to make my goal of 25 life birds, but we already have 13 and that is quite respectable I think.

The Chlorophonia Show

24 February 2013.  In two days of birding at El Jaguar we haven’t seen as many life birds as I had dreamed, but we have certainly seen enough to keep our spirits high.  So far we have seen 9 life birds and another 11 species we had not previously seen in Nicaragua.  Not bad at all.  

The most fun today were the very small Blue-crowned Chlorophonias, 3 of them, seen very high in the forest canopy sitting in a little window of direct sunlight in the lowering late afternoon sun.  Their lemon yellow bellies and fluorescent green heads and wings glowed neon-like in glorious contrast to the shadows cast by the leaves surrounding them.  The show of light and color was especially satisfying because we already today we had twice missed seeing this species, and we only found this threesome by craning our necks and scanning the canopy for many minutes, searching in the general direction from which we heard their cooing song.  As each of us finally fixed on the birds, each in turn “wowed” at their brilliance.  They were, quite literally, the highlight of the day

The Subjunctive Holiday

23 February 2013.  We are making progress.  I’m just sure of it.  We have to keep reminding ourselves – we’re making progress.

This afternoon I am sitting on the porch of our cabin for the weekend.  We are in El Jaguar Private Reserve, where they both grow shade-grown coffee and cater to birds and birders.  There is no internet here, so it will be days before this gets posted.  I am looking out over a narrow valley.  On the down slope in front of me are coffee plants, banana trees and flowers.  On the opposite slope is a beautiful forest.  It’s quiet now, all the birds are taking siestas, too. 

We are taking a holiday from our studies.  For the last five weeks we have been hitting the Spanish hard.  Trying to learn, understand, and remember the subjunctive tense has been making us tense.  It has not been an easy time lately, but we are our own worst problem.  We talk to each other in English instead of Spanish.  But I have to say, after 4 hours of class each day I need a nap, and then when I’ve finally finished my homework, I really feel ready for bed.  It seems the only relaxation time we have is when we speak English.

But I know we are making progress.  When we arrived at El Jaguar, we spoke several minutes with the young man who greeted us before we learned he speaks a little English.  He will be guiding is in our birding the next few days, and I think it may actually be easier for us all to communicate in Spanish.  At least as long as I’m not required to express my thoughts and desires in the subjunctive. 

We already have one life bird for the day, Plain-capped Starthroat—a hummingbird.  The bird list for the preserve includes as “common” 37 more species that would be lifers, plus another 22 that are merely uncommon.  Let’s see, if we see only 40% of the common and uncommon life bird candidates, we would have seen (this is in some kind of subjunctive, by the way) about 24 species.  And we are also going to visit some other spots that feature other interesting new birds.  So I think an ambitious target of 25 sounds good.  Only 24 more to go.  Time to hit the trail.