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2011
16 September: I'm about to leave for another tour in Brazil, but I couldn't resist adding this Jaguar photo to the blog at the last minute. As obsessed as I am about birds, seeing a wild Jaguar like this in the Pantanal was better than any bird I have ever seen. Truly awesome! This last set also features nice photos Rufous-sided Pygmy-Tyrant, the caatinga race of Spot-backed Puffbird, and a dozen more.
13 September: Today's update features blue macaws, parakeets, hawks, and various other miscellaneous species.
11 September: Gilt-edged Tanager is one of those classic Neotropical tanagers with such gaudy colors that it almost seems to glow in the dark. It's endemic to Brazil, where it can be found in montane Atlantic Rainforest in the Southeast, but it also occurs in drier, scrubbier forest in the interior, such as where this photo was taken. Other new photos today are a rare Banded Cotinga, Rufous-browed Peppershrike, Stripe-breasted Starthroat, Long-tailed Woodnymph, Stripe-necked Tody-Tyrant, an active nest of a Blue-gray Tanager, Rufous-capped Antthrush, Turquoise (White-bellied) Tanager, Slender-footed Tyrannulet, and Nacunda Nighthawk.
8 September: The Sincora Antwren was one of my favorites of my trip to northeastern Brazil, party because it is a newly described species, but also because I spend ages looking for it on my previous trip in 2007 without success. One shot of the male is shown here, and two more can be found in the gallery page. Other new photos for today are Black-bellied Antwren, Stripe-backed Antbird, Red-shouldered Spinetail, Alagoas Tyrannulet, and White-naped Jay.
5 September: No new species today, but I've replaced some older photos with some much better ones, especially the Rufous-winged Antshrike that is now the "featured photo" and the Silvery-cheeked Antshrike below. Neither of these antshrikes are particularly shy, frequently sitting in the open to the gratification of photographers! I've also added new subspecies from NE Brazil of Barred Antshrike and Long-billed Wren and uploaded a mediocre shot of São Francisco Sparrow, which is marginally better than the one I had.
1 September: I've finished uploading my photos from Iguazú falls this morning. My favorite of this set is the female Yellow-fronted Woodpecker below. Other additions include Sepia-capped Flycatcher, Magpie Tanager, Saffron Finch, Green-winged Saltator, Band-tailed Manakin, and Variable Oriole.
30 August: Eight weeks away, including six weeks straight of leading three tours in Brazil. Quite a marathon stretch even by my standards. It's nice to have a break, if only for a few days! All but one day of that was in Brazil, when I raced across the border into Argentina for a day at Iguazú falls. I don't have huge numbers of photos this time; a lot of that was due to the difficulty of getting photos while leading tours. Still, I got some very nice ones. My favorite photo wasn't even a bird, but I might upload it anyway because it was so breathtaking. That's for later... I'll start with my photos from Iguaçu Falls (Brazil) and Iguazú Falls (Argentina). I timed my trip to the Falls with a frigid cold front that brought early morning temperatures down to near the freezing mark, and the birding (and me...) certainly suffered for it, but I did see a few nice things. I had two lifers, Creamy-bellied Gnatcatcher (no photos unfortunately) and this rather scruffy juvenile male Glaucous-blue Grosbeak. Other photos I'm uploading today include Blue-naped Chlorophonia, Southern Lapwing, Ochre-collared Piculet, Plain-brown (Plain-winged) Woodcreeper, Eared Pygmy-Tyrant, and White-bearded Manakin.
25 June: I've got a large update today, finishing all of my Mitú photos. I've also written a detailed trip report of our Mitú trip, that should be useful to anyone planning a visit there, which I highly recommend as long as you understand what it involves. Photography in Mitú, like everywhere else in the Amazon, is very challenging, and my favorite shots of this last batch are of some quite common species; see below. Other species for today include Azure-naped Jay, Red-throated Caracara, Ringed Antpipit, Drab Water Tyrant, Plain-breasted Ground-Dove, Yellow-crowned Manakin, Spot-backed Antbird, Imeri Warbling-Antbird, Amazonian Antshrike, Dark-billed Cuckoo, White-banded Swallow, and Bar-bellied Woodcreeper.
Silver-beaked Tanager from Mitú, Colombia
Yellow-bellied Tanager from Mitú, Colombia
Swallow-winged Puffbird from Mitú, Colombia
22 June: A few more photos from Mitú today, including the neat shot below of a Lettered Aracari drinking out of a hollow in a tree. Others new for today include Striped Woodcreeper, Tawny-tufted Toucanet, and Yellow-tufted Woodpecker.
20 June: One reason why Mitú is such an intesting place to bird is that there is a lot of white-sand forest nearby. A few species specialize in this very localized habitat, such as the Black Manakin and Gray-bellied Anbird that I uploaded two days ago. Another neat bird that likes this habitat is the monotypic White-naped Seedeater featured below; while it is currently classified in the monotypic finch genus Dolospingus, it is quite similar in many ways to some members of the tanager genus Conothraupis, especially the rare Cone-billed Tanager. It wouldn't surprise me if further research showed that the two genera should be merged. I've also uploaded shots of a pair of Cherrie's Antwren, a species that likes the white-sand forests but does not seem to be restricted to them, as well as a poor shot of the rare Black Bushbird, and a record shot of a Black-tailed Flycatcher that appears to represent a significant range extension.
18 June: I spent a week around Mitú in eastern Colombia with Andrew Spencer and Ian Davies. Amazing trip! We saw virtually all of our targets including rarities like Gray-bellied and Chestnut-crested Antbirds, Orinoco Piculet, Tawny-tufted Toucanet, and Bar-bellied Woodcreeper. It was somewhat of a challenge logistically, but ended up being easier than I thought, and I am working on writing a detailed report about the trip which should be useful to independent birders planning a visit. I'll be uploading photos from this trip over the next two weeks; apart from the ones below, today I have added Black Manakin , Black-headed Antbird, and Spot-winged Antshrike.
5 June: The Passerines gallery for my Colorado trip is now ready. There's some nice stuff in there like lots of rosy-finches, American Dipper, and Chestnut-collared Longspur, but my favorite shot is the Canyon Wren here; but then I have a thing for wrens. There will be no more non-neotropical distractions for me for quite a while; I will be "stranded" in the Neotropics for the next nine months with many trips planned, the first one starting next week to a remote part of the Colombian Amazon.
28 May: I've finished the first of two photo galleries from my Colorado trip, which I have added into the page of non-neotropical galleries. It includes photos of displaying grouse and prairie-chickens as well as links to short video clips. Check it out! One of my favorite shots is the lekking Greater Sage-Grouse below.
5 May: I spent about five days in Colorado doing a whirlwhing trip around the state with Andrew Spencer and Sam Woods. All I can say is Holy Crap! The lekking displays of the grouse and prairie-chickens are as amazing as anything I have ever seen in my birding career. While the birds may not be as colorful, their displays might even be better than those of the birds-of-paradise I saw in New Guinea, and I never thought I would say that. I've got chips full of photos to go through before uploading anything from the leks, but here's one I have ready now, a White-tailed Ptarmigan at Loveland Pass, crossed buy one of the highest paved roads in the US... still snowing in early May and there were skiers everywhere. This bird was fearless, allowing us to approach within a foot or two without so so much as blinking.
28 April: My last update for a while, since I'm off to the States for some birding and to see my family. I'll be at the Biggest Week in American Birding for the last weekend, where I'll give a presentation on birding in Brazil. I've updated the featured photo with the Plushcap I got a few weeks ago, and also added two more very nice shots from Papallacta, including the Rainbow-bearded Thornbill below. This Cinereous Conebill may actually be a better photo, but it just lacks that "wow" factor, so I didn't put it on the front page.
17 April: I've got a few new species today, but nothing that can match some of the shots from last weekend; the best one is this Stripe-headed Brush-Finch. I have also finished "renovating" most of the photos in the Puffbirds gallery with larger shots and better image processing. It's one of my best covered families on antpitta.com with 80% of all species represented.
14 April: A few more shots from Papallacta: Black-backed Bush Tanager and Agile Tit-Tyrant. I've also added one more, but I'm keeping it secret for now, since it will be the next "featured photo". It's in the galleries somewhere, so you might stumble upon it.
13 April: A few more from Papallacta today: this Rufous-breasted Chat-Tyrant as well as Sedge Wren and Blue-backed Conebill.
12 April: Another nice photo from my morning at Papallacta on Sunday, a Buff-breasted Mountain-Tanager that was following a thrilling mixed species flock in the elfin forest. I've also added a shot of Brown-backed Chat-Tyrant. More soon!
11 April: It was still raining Sunday morning, but I went for it anyway; amazingly the weather cleared up as I drive up the steep road to Papallacta, and it was a truly fantastic morning. I nearly filled a chip in just a few hours and nailed some shots of some species I had been trying to get for years. I'll work on processing them this week, but her's the first one, a singing Glossy Flowerpiercer.
9 April: I was planning on getting out of the city and spending the day photographing up in the high Andes, but I awoke to heavy rain and fog so called it off. Maybe tomorrow? Today I'm featuring a Scarlet-headed Blackbird, one of my favorite icterids, but I've also uploaded some odds and ends like Flavescent Flycatcher, Swallow-tailed Hummingbird, Mottle-backed Elaenia, White-bellied Pygmy-Tyrant, and Epaulet (Moriche) Oriole. I'm pretty much totally caught up on all my recent photos, but I've started to upgrade some of the photo galleries with larger shots and better image processing, starting with the heron gallery.
7 April: I've finished uploading by Costa Rica photos. There's nothing spectacular in this final set, though there are some shots of a number of "Chiriquí endemics", species restricted to the high mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama. I've featured the Fiery-throated Hummingbird below, but other shots include Flame-throated Warbler, Black-cheeked Warbler, Collared Redstart, and Black-billed Nightingale-Thrush.
5 April: No new photos today, but I have updated the taxonomy to reflect the latest SACC and NACC changes, fixed a lot of inconsistencies, corrected a few mistakes, and finally fixed a few browser display glitches that had been bothering me for years.
2 April: antpitta.com is nearly four years old now, and I look back at some of the first photos I put on and think, jeez, I can do a lot better than that now. The technology has improved so much in that short amount of time, plus I am a better photographer, and know a lot more about image processing. With faster internet I can also get away with posting larger images. In the last few days I've been replacing various older photos with some better ones, like this Volcano Junco, but I have a long way to go. I'd like to reprocess hundreds of images too. I've also added some brand-new species in this latest batch, including Hepatic Tanager, Black-crested Coquette, and Stripe-headed Sparrow.
28 March: Just a small update today, featuring the uncommon Nicaraguan Seed-Finch pictured below. I saw this at a "traditional" site near Tigre in Costa Rica, though the land that it occurs on is now part of a pineapple farm and closed to the public. While trying to get it in, I ran into one of the property's administrators, who gave me permission to go in that time, but told me future visits would require advance permission, which would not be easy to get. If you want to try, the contact person is Michael (email: administracion.cr@swisstropical.ch), though it may prove to be easier to just find another site for this bird. Other new uploads today include a decent White-fronted Parrot, a pair of Great Green Macaws, a Double-striped Thick-knee (my best shot so far of a member of that family), Great Curassow, and Brown Pelican.
24 March: I've got a great set today headlined by this Golden-hooded Tanager. A juvenile Bare-necked Umbrellabird that was hanging out at La Selva is one of the rarer photos I've gotten recently. I like this shot of Paltry Tyrannulet - not a very colorful bird, but no bird deserves the name it was given! Other new additions today include Passerini's Tanager, Band-tailed Barbthroat, White-collared Manakin, Palm Tanager, Great Tinamou, Northern Barred-Woodcreeper, and Buff-throated and Black-headed Saltators.
21 March: Happy spring to all of you from northern climates! I'm now ploughing though photos from my Costa Rica trip in January and February, where many of my best photos seemed to come from the La Selva Science Station. It might be my favorite birding site in Costa Rica. The clearing around the main HQ can be just swarming with birds, even in the middle of the day, allowing for some great photo ops. Cinnamon Becard was a new one for me and a great portrait of a common but hard to photograph species. I also really liked the Band-backed Wren below, an improvement on a previous shot. Other addtions include American Pygmy-Kingfisher and Gray-capped Flycatcher. More coming soon!
17 March: I have now uploaded the gallery for my Philippines trip, with nearly 50 photos. Apart from the pheasant below, some of the better ones are White-browed Crake, Philippine Frogmouth, Silvery Kingfisher, Azure-breasted Pitta, Mountain Warbler, Chestnut-faced Babbler, and Mountain White-eye. I'll start working on adding Costa Rica photos soon.
14 March: Last week I returned from a two and a half week stint in the Philippines with fellow Tropical Birder Keith Barnes. It was basically a "recce" (scouting trip) for future tours, and the trip went well. I had heard horror stories about the habitat destruction in the Philippines and was expecting the worse, though it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and some sites and quite significant stands of forest remaining. I was not prepared for how difficult the photography would be! The birds are scarce, shy, and not very approachable. My 400mm lens was usually not enough and often I felt myself longing for my old digiscoping setup, which I didn't bring because it's not working very well any more. I got a few good shots and a good number of mediocre ones, which I will be uploading as a single gallery later this week. Below is one of my favorite shots, and one of the most beautiful birds in the Philippines, the Palawan Peacock-Pheasant Polyplectron napoleonis. It's endemic to the island of Palawan and generally a very scarce birds. Over the last several years, one wild male has become habituated and visits the ranger station at Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park every morning to eat rice. If this bird didn't come in, almost no one would ever see this gorgeous bird in the wild.
11 February: In the last few weeks I have led a short tour to northern Colombia and a longer one to Costa Rica for a group of 19 Taiwanese birders and bird photographers. Taiwan has a fairly sizable birding community, and it's not the first time I've guided a group from there - in 2005 I took a group to Brazil, and some of my colleagues have led trips for Taiwanese to Australia and Africa. They do like to travel in large groups! That can make it challenging for the birding, but what usually happens is that the photographers go off and do their own thing, and the birders go with the bird guides. I had a co-leader, Michael Retter, so we could split the group when birding on narrow trails. We made it work! So far this week, I've only had time to upload photos from the Colombia trip. I've got some great ones from Costa Rica that will have to wait until I get back from a trip to the Philippines which starts on Monday. My favorite of the Colombia set is definitely the one below, since it's the first species of wood-quail (Odontophorus) that I've ever been able to photograph.
9 January: Well, rather than do more "productive" things, like prepare for my next trips, I've spent the last few hours getting most of my remaining photos uploaded. There aren't really any killer shots there, but the best one may be this nice portrait of a Violet-capped Woodnymph. This might be my last updated for quite a while. I have a million things to do next week and then leave for consecutive trips to Colombia and Costa Rica.
8 January: Too busy lately to do much here, but this morning I took some time to upload a few more shots from last year, like this young Boat-billed Heron from the Pantanal. I've added some nice tanager shots like Blue-necked Tanager and Yellow-rumped Tanager, and a neat shot of a Thick-billed Euphonia feeding a fledgling.
1 January: And a Happy New Year! I'l finally getting back "on-topic" with neotropical bird photos, starting with this White Hawk from Southeast Ecuador, but there will be more distractions coming in a few months when I visit the Philippines in February.
2010
25 December: Merry Christmas everyone! Here's one last Madagascar gallery featuring many of the beautiful mammals found on the islands. It's well worth a look.
23 December: Another first for antpitta.com - a gallery of reptiles and amphibians (plus one random insect) from my trip to Madagascar. Mammals coming soon!
16 December: The fourth and final Madagascar bird gallery is online, featuring some of the less colorful families like the jeries and Malagasy warblers. This Sakalava Weaver is one of the more interesting photos.
11 December: I continue my break from the Neotropics with a third Madagacsar bird gallery. This one has some of the most amazing birds in Madagascar - and that also means some of the most amazing in the world! It also has many of my best shots from the trip, including this very cool shot of two Dark Newtonias.
5 December: A second Madagacar gallery is now live, featuring cuckoos (including Madagascar's amazing couas), nightbirds, kingfishers, and more. My favorite might be the Madagascar Pygmy-Kingfisher below.
3 December: I've added the first Madagascar gallery. I'm working though them taxonomically, so there is still plenty to come. My favorite shots from this first batch are probably the Red-tailed Tropicbirds, a Banded Kestrel having lunch (photo below), and a Subdesert Mesite, the only one of this endemic family I managed to photograph.
30 November: A month of Madagascar was like being in another world with the fantastically unique wildlife. The birds are fantastic, but it was impossible to not get caught up in everything else from the enchanting lemurs, bizarre and beautiful chameleons, and everything else. Opportunities for photography were excellent, and I got shots of birds and other animals on this trip than on any other I've ever done, so over the next few weeks I will be taking a break from uploading neotropical species and add several new galleries (in a separate section) to display them. One of my favorites is below, a Rufous-headed Ground-Roller, a member of what was my favorite family of birds in the country. I highly recommend a visit to Madagascar, and sadly I got the feeling that this should be done sooner rather than later. While there are numerous national parks and reserves, the ousting of President Ravalomanana in 2009 has caused a regression in the conservation, which had been vastly improved during his tenure. One gets the feeling that many of these protected areas, some of which are the last bastions of critically endangered species, could be at risk of disappearing if the political climate takes a turn for the worse, which would be a global tragefy. Most governments do not recognize the new regime and cut off all foreign aid to Madagascar, so a small number of privately-funded NGO's are now the only source of funding for much of the ongoing conservation work. Best to be optimistic though! Hopefully things will improve, and the more ecotourists that visit, the more likely this will happen.
27 October: I'm leaving tomorrow for a nearly month-long trip to Madagascar - a dream destination I've been hoping to go to for years now. Hopefully antpitta.com has room for a few photos of ground-rollers and vangas, maybe even a lemur or two! Fortunately, I've had time to get most of my best photos from Brazil uploaded in the last week. You can see the list down in the recently-added photos below. It's hard to pick a favorite, but here is a nice shot of a Black-masked Finch from the grasslands of Serra da Canastra National Park. This might be one of the last shots I'll ever take with my ancient Samsung V70 digiscoping camera, which is near death and desperately needs to be replaced. It's hard to find decent new digiscoping cameras that fit onto compact digiscoping mounts, so I really don't know what I'm going to replace it with!
25 October: I've uploaded a (mostly!) great set 15 flycatchers today. My favorite is probably the Crested Black-Tyrant below, but check out these Cock-tailed Tyrant, Yellow Tyrannulet, and Southern Antpipit.
22 October: I'm back home for a week after a couple of fantastic tours to Southeast Brazil. Next stop is Madagascar, and there is no way I will have time to upload all the photos I got over the last month. I'll start with some of the amazing antshrikes that the Atlantic Forest is famous for like the Large-tailed Antshrike shown below, Tufted Antshrike (a rare shot of a female), and a much improved shot of White-bearded Antshrike, though still not great. Also, I finally managed some decent shots of some of the coolest tapaculos in the world, Spotted Bamboowren, Slaty Bristlefront - these are not just little gray things! Rounding out this first batch is a nice Chestnut-backed Tanager.
12
September:
It's been a rush to
get caught
up, since I leave for another Brazil trip in a few days, but I've
mostly managed. My favorite from this bunch might be the female
White Woodpecker over to the right here. It's one of the most
striking woodpeckers in all of South America and I always love
seeing them. They're bigger than you expect, too, and are often
in quite large flocks which makes them even more fun. The only
plumage difference between the male and female is that that the
male has some yellow feathers on the hindneck and sometimes the
breast. Some of the other good ones are Common
Tody-Flycatcher,
Pearly-vented
Tody-Tyrant, Grayish
Mourner, Olivaceous
Woodcreeper, Olive
Oropendola, Opal-rumped
Tanager, Agami Heron,
Tawny-bellied
Screech-Owl, Brown
Nunlet, and White-fronted
Nunbird. The
tyrant flycatchers galleries were getting
cumbersom, so I've expanded them to seven galleries and separated
the tityras and becards into a new gallery for the Tityridae,
following SACC. There a few other birds to be transferred into
there which I haven't gotten around to doing yet. I've updated
the species index to discover that the total number of species on
antpitta.com, including birds out of the Neotropics, is exactly
2000. Pretty neat, a nice stopping place.7 September: Over the last week, I've been adding more photos from my trips in Brazil and Ecuador, mostly wrens, furnariids and antbirds. Haven't had as much time as I'd like to work on antpitta.com since we'd been working like crazy to get the new Tropical Birding website launched. That's finally done and it looks really nice. In any case, my favorite photo of this bunch is probably the Moustached wren below, though there are some other nice ones like a terrific Barred Antshrike, a singing female White-shouldered Antbird, a White-plumed Antbird (not a great shot but it's a beautiful bird), and a nice male White-browed Purpletuft.
30
August: I added some more photos from Ecuador and Brazil,
like this roosting Great Tinamou that we found in Yasuní
National Park while we were checking a roosting location for
Ochre-striped Antpitta that one of the researchers told us about.
For a large photo on the tinamou, go here
. Other new shots include Sunbittern,
Great
Potoo, Greater
Rhea, Green-and-rufous
Kingfisher, Jabiru,
and Large-billed
Tern.27 August: Check out a neat photo of a bold Purple Gallinule. I've also added some mediocre shots of some scarce and/or tough to photograph species, Ochre-striped Antpitta, Ash-throated Gnateater, and Gray-breasted Crake.
26 August: A week in Yasuní National Park at the Yasuní Research Station with Andrew Spencer, Nick Leseberg, and Simon Mitchell was a vacation more than anything else. It's not often I get to bird the Amazon without guiding a tour. Weather was hot and insanely humid, but it did not rain more than about 10 drops during the whole week. Great birds there, though it was quite slow at times, perhaps due to the stifling humidity. The normally quiet research station got very crowded for a couple of days when the vice president came in and gave a speech on the Ecuadorian government's proposal to not drill the oil reserves in the national park if wealthy countries pay them not to. An interesting proposal, but it almost sounds like ransoming the Amazon. My best shot is the nesting Lanceolated Monklet that's now the featured photo. Photography in the dark Amazon rainforest is a challenge, but I managed some shots of some rarely photographed species, such as the Chestnut-winged Hookbill below. I haven't had time to add more species to the gallery yet, but hopefully will get a few hours this weekend.
13 August: I'm
beginning to work
through my recent photos, though it's a slow process, hampered by
a horrendous cold I picked up on the airplane. I kind of randomly
started with cracids and vultures. I've managed to replace some
poor shots of Razor-billed
and Bare-faced
Curassows, though they certainly can still be improved on,
and added a shot of Black
Guan
from Costa Rica
that I
overlooked a few months back. I had great luck with both of the
yellow-headed
vultures, getting decent shots of each both perched and in
flight. The photo to the right (Greater) was a rare opportunity
as the bird came down the river to drink.10 August: Just back from a month in Brazil. I started with a soggy recce in the Northeast, then guided two great tours in a row, one was a short trip to the Southeast Atlantic Rainforest, and the other was my yearly trip to the Pantanal and southern Amazon. My recce was a bit frustrating due to rain. With the help of Steve Jones, a British expat living in Recife and also an amateur bird photographer (see hisexcellentwork on WikiAves), I had arranged a trip to RPPN Frei Caneca and the nearby Fazenda Pedra D'Anta, two of the best remaining forest reserves in the region. A couple of weeks before I arrived, the region was afflicted by terrible floods, killing hundreds and washing away large parts of some of the towns near the reserves. It was a very sombre experience to drive through a town where most of the residents had lost everything. I did make it up to the reserves, staying in a park ranger's house with steve, but it rained much of the time we were there, and not only did I not see a lot of what I hoped for, by camera lens got wet and fogged up, drying out only on the day we had to leave, when the weather was of course fantastic! However, on that morning I was treated to the sight of a soaring White-collared Kite, one of the rarest and most endangered raptors in the entire world, which definitely put a smile on my face even if I couldn't photograph it. Thanks to the rain, we did get to watch the last few matches of the World Cup, but I would much preferred to have been out birding I have to admit. Below is my best shot of one of the regional endemics, a Pinto's Spinetail. I've got many new shots to add for the month, which I'll start doing as time permits.
4 July: This will be my last update for a while, since I'm about to head for Brazil to lead a couple of tours and to do a recce in the Northeast. Not much to add other than a few photos that I hadn't uploaded yet. I had a disasterous road trip with Iain Campbell to what we thought was remote area of Southeast Ecuador. A few years ago it would have been great, but somehow Ecuador has gotten funding to widen and pave roads that go absolutely nowhere,
destroying
all the forest next to the road in the process. There were
thousands of hectares of forest not far from the road, but
absolutely no way of getting into it - at least until the
inevitable logging trails go in. Then we had a day from hell -
first it rained all day,
then the car broke down for inexplicable reasons. It started up
again an hour later, and almost immediately we had a flat. We
watched the US lose to Ghana over lunch, got the tire fixed which
took forever, then the car stopped again. The
mechanics had
no idea
what it was. We decided to try to make it to Macas, and the car
died for good a couple miles from the town of Logroño. We
pushed it most of the way and then had someone pull us into town
where there was a hostal and a dodgy bar that we immediately went
to. I ended up having to get the car towed back to Quito at great
expense, hassle and time. It turns out the security system had
broke and was preventing the car from starting. Not something you
can get fixed in the middle of nowhere. I hate security systems,
but you can't insure new cars here without them. There is
something to be said for beat-up second-hand cars... Anyway, we
birded in trashed east-slope woodland for a few hours around
Logroño, hardly managing to photograph anything except
vultures - which seemed appropriate under the circumstances!
20
June: Coming off my antpitta failure of a few weeks ago, I
decided it was time to finally get some decent shots of antpittas
with my new 7D. I took it down to Angel Paz's bird sanctuary over
the weekend and put it to the test. Things didn't start when I
accidentally left my tripod at Tandayapa, and then this little
kid scared away a cock-of-the-rock some of us were trying to
photograph because he wanted to touch it. Well, I have to admit,
the little kid was my godson, so I couldn't get too upset about
that. Gabriel's dad Iain decided it wasn't a great idea to take
him down after the antpittas, so they stayed up top and hand-fed
Toucan Barbets while the rest of us went down. José lent
me his tripod, and I got some shots of "Maria"
and
"Willy"
coming into the worms. I was shooting at 1600 ISO and 1/20th of a
second (flash is not allowed), and was pretty happy with the
results. It's always a great day when I add new shots of
antpittas, so I decided to take the opportunity to embed sounds
recordings that I've uploaded to xeno-canto into the gallery
page. I've got recordings of everything there except for the
newly-described Fenwick's Antpitta, and it adds a nice new
dimension to the page. I got a few other shots from the banana
feeders at Paz de las Aves, including Blue-winged
and Black-chinned
Mountain-Tanagers, Crimson-rumped
Toucanet, and Sickle-winged
Guan.8 June: A few nice new hummer shots today from Mirador Rio Blanco. Again the 7D impresses, as I got some super sharp and nicely lit shots handholding the 400m lens at 800 ISO. Check out the Green-crowned Brilliant and Green Thorntails. Also, I have updated the photo index, this time adding in quality ratings for each species.
7 June: Once again I failed to find Rufous-crowned Antpitta, this time at the Mangaloma reserve. It's becoming a habit. I did get to try out the Canon 7D in the dark rainforest understory. Working without flash and at high ISO levels, I was able to get some surprisingly good shots under the circumstances. This juvenile Barred Forest-Falconwas shot at 3200 ISO with a 1/50th of a second exposure. Noise is certainly obvious in the shot, but it looks decent if not blown up too much. A had a rare opportunity to shoot two Golden-crowned Spadebillsin the same frame. This was at 1600 ISO and also 1/50th of a second. Noise is even less of an issue, but the shot was not 100% sharp, probably due to camera shake at the slow speed. Still, it sharpens up reasonably nicely and I was pretty happy to get something like that under the difficult circumstances. There were a few more shots - see the list below.
30
May: The Biggest Week was a big hit, drawing an estimated
15,000 birders to the migration hotspot of Ohio's Lake Erie
coast. I've added a gallery
of photos I took while there. Definitely the biggest moment
of the week happened when a Kirtland's
Warbler turned up on Friday, May 14th, causing the biggest
"twitch" I've ever experienced in the US. An estimated 2500-3000
birders saw it in a single day. It was a lifer for me, and I got
there within minutes of hearing the news on the Twitter feed.
Sadly, the week ended with a minor disaster, when the trailer
that I was staying in, along with two other owners of TB, burned
to thr ground, destroying a frightening amount of cameras, bins,
scopes, laptops, documents, etc, including my SLR camera that I
had been using for the last year and a half. I've replaced it now
with the newer 7D, and yesterday had a chance to try it out in
the field for the first time. It's very impressive, especially in
low-light conditions. The photo above of a Crowned Chat-Tyrant
was taken at 800 ISO, but shows no significant noise, and it does
reasonably well even at 1600 ISO. I'm looking forward to trying
it out in lowland rainforest.