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November 10, 2010, 5:38 pm A Last Look at South American Birds
By DOUGLAS STOTZ
Bob Stallard Turbos tropicales (Amazonian peat bogs) near the Yaguas River as seen from a helicopter.
Sunday, Nov. 7
It is clear that fish are the stars of this year’s show. The main things on the schedule are finishing up our report drafts, and a practice run-through of the presentation we’ll give here in Iquitos tomorrow. The bird draft has already been turned in, so we don’t have a lot to do besides presentation practice. Juan will present the bird section, so I am theoretically just paying close attention and making incisive comments. But instead I am writing this and thinking, “What a cool fish,” as Armando tells us about the great things the ichthyologists found. The ornithologists’ main claim to fame was a small set of poor-soil specialists. Hard to put that up against a bunch of new species, huge catfish, multiple species of stingrays, etc.
Max Hidalgo Sixto, one of our field assistants, holding a large catfish from the Cotuhe River.
We will also do a presentation in Lima on Tuesday, which will be very different. In Iquitos, it is an open meeting and will probably have 60 or so attendees, but it is about telling people about the interesting area we went to and what great things we found. We don’t expect headway toward getting protection for the region to come out of this presentation except in the most general of ways. In Lima, it will be a much more focused meeting between us and potential decision makers, people who will need to commit to work on making protection for the Yaguas River happen. Instead of every group presenting, **** Smith from the Instituto del Bien Común will present the social context; Bob Stallard will present the geological findings, talking about the high terraces, the “turbos tropicales” — basically Amazonian peat bogs; and Max will dazzle them with the fish. The rest of our results will be presented in much less detail within sections given by Corine and Debby. Then we hope that the discussions that follow will really lead to a road map for the conservation of the area where we’ve just been.
Max Hidalgo A 3-inch-long Amazon small needlefish is a new record for Peru. Most needlefish are marine; large species are up to 4 feet long.
Nigel Pitman and Douglas Stotz
P
I am now back in my wintry hotel room. After nearly three weeks of being hot all the time, in Iquitos I turn on the air conditioner and let it blast. As I write this, I notice the picture on my wall is crooked. It is a photo of the Malecón, a boulevard that runs along the edge of a backwater of the Amazon, just two blocks from our hotel. There is always a lot of activity there. Even at 5:30 a.m., when I go there to bird-watch, there are people — joggers, vendors setting up, cleanup crews, people trying to sell me something: a jungle boat ride perhaps, a native headdress, a T-shirt. In the evening, it is one big street fair with hundreds of people strolling through the area.
The Malecón looks over a big marsh and sections of river. I go out there nearly every day that I am in Iquitos to look at birds. In an hour to an hour and a half, I can see 45 to 55 species of birds. This morning, with no need to get started quite so early, I spent two hours and had 62 species. There is a little day-to-day variation, and I’ve had 78 species in the seven days we’ve been here. The does not compare favorably with the 374 species we had on the inventory, but in three days I’ll be in Chicago, where at this time of year, 50 species is good for a day.
Douglas Stotz The great kiskadee occurs from southern Texas to central Argentina in a variety of open lowland habitats, mostly near water.
Interestingly, of the species I saw this morning, we found only 21 of them on the inventory, so this is a different avifauna, the birds of second growth and big rivers. We got a tiny taste of these birds at our last camp on the inventory along the Yaguas River. Most of these species are widespread; the common flycatchers are tropical kingbird and great kiskadee, which go all the way from the southernmost United States to Argentina.
In the United States, they are much more exciting than they are here. Illinois just had its first tropical kingbird record last year, and one in Massachusetts right now is causing local excitement, but south of the border they are everywhere. The great kiskadee is one of the specialty birds of the Rio Grande delta in Texas. It is spectacular: a big, black-and-white-headed, bright yellow-bellied flycatcher that catches fish and eats fruit. But it, too, is everywhere in the lowlands of tropical America.
But there are also birds with much smaller ranges. A couple of the 15 or so species largely restricted to river islands are easily seen here: lesser hornero and olive-spotted hummingbird (perhaps the least colorful hummingbird in the world, but with a small range along the big rivers of western Amazonia). The common parrot, and the most common bird, is the canary-winged parakeet. Hundreds come every morning to feed in the corn planted along the edge of the marsh; this morning I counted 860. There are oriole blackbirds, spot-breasted woodpeckers, orange-headed tanagers and purple-throated euphonias, plenty to prepare me for a day of report writing.
There are also several North American migrants, which we struggle to find on most inventories. In the Amazon, we are south of the main wintering grounds for North American birds. Most North American migrants stop in Central America and the Caribbean; only about 40 species make it to Amazonia. Today, I had nine migrants, including yellowlegs, eastern kingbird, eastern wood-pewee, three swallows (barn, bank and cliff), summer and scarlet tanagers, and yellow warbler. When I get back to the United States, I’ll have to wait six months to see these birds again, so I enjoy them while I can.
By DOUGLAS STOTZ
Bob Stallard Turbos tropicales (Amazonian peat bogs) near the Yaguas River as seen from a helicopter.Sunday, Nov. 7
It is clear that fish are the stars of this year’s show. The main things on the schedule are finishing up our report drafts, and a practice run-through of the presentation we’ll give here in Iquitos tomorrow. The bird draft has already been turned in, so we don’t have a lot to do besides presentation practice. Juan will present the bird section, so I am theoretically just paying close attention and making incisive comments. But instead I am writing this and thinking, “What a cool fish,” as Armando tells us about the great things the ichthyologists found. The ornithologists’ main claim to fame was a small set of poor-soil specialists. Hard to put that up against a bunch of new species, huge catfish, multiple species of stingrays, etc.
Max Hidalgo Sixto, one of our field assistants, holding a large catfish from the Cotuhe River.We will also do a presentation in Lima on Tuesday, which will be very different. In Iquitos, it is an open meeting and will probably have 60 or so attendees, but it is about telling people about the interesting area we went to and what great things we found. We don’t expect headway toward getting protection for the region to come out of this presentation except in the most general of ways. In Lima, it will be a much more focused meeting between us and potential decision makers, people who will need to commit to work on making protection for the Yaguas River happen. Instead of every group presenting, **** Smith from the Instituto del Bien Común will present the social context; Bob Stallard will present the geological findings, talking about the high terraces, the “turbos tropicales” — basically Amazonian peat bogs; and Max will dazzle them with the fish. The rest of our results will be presented in much less detail within sections given by Corine and Debby. Then we hope that the discussions that follow will really lead to a road map for the conservation of the area where we’ve just been.
Max Hidalgo A 3-inch-long Amazon small needlefish is a new record for Peru. Most needlefish are marine; large species are up to 4 feet long.Nigel Pitman and Douglas Stotz
P
I am now back in my wintry hotel room. After nearly three weeks of being hot all the time, in Iquitos I turn on the air conditioner and let it blast. As I write this, I notice the picture on my wall is crooked. It is a photo of the Malecón, a boulevard that runs along the edge of a backwater of the Amazon, just two blocks from our hotel. There is always a lot of activity there. Even at 5:30 a.m., when I go there to bird-watch, there are people — joggers, vendors setting up, cleanup crews, people trying to sell me something: a jungle boat ride perhaps, a native headdress, a T-shirt. In the evening, it is one big street fair with hundreds of people strolling through the area.
The Malecón looks over a big marsh and sections of river. I go out there nearly every day that I am in Iquitos to look at birds. In an hour to an hour and a half, I can see 45 to 55 species of birds. This morning, with no need to get started quite so early, I spent two hours and had 62 species. There is a little day-to-day variation, and I’ve had 78 species in the seven days we’ve been here. The does not compare favorably with the 374 species we had on the inventory, but in three days I’ll be in Chicago, where at this time of year, 50 species is good for a day.
Douglas Stotz The great kiskadee occurs from southern Texas to central Argentina in a variety of open lowland habitats, mostly near water.Interestingly, of the species I saw this morning, we found only 21 of them on the inventory, so this is a different avifauna, the birds of second growth and big rivers. We got a tiny taste of these birds at our last camp on the inventory along the Yaguas River. Most of these species are widespread; the common flycatchers are tropical kingbird and great kiskadee, which go all the way from the southernmost United States to Argentina.
In the United States, they are much more exciting than they are here. Illinois just had its first tropical kingbird record last year, and one in Massachusetts right now is causing local excitement, but south of the border they are everywhere. The great kiskadee is one of the specialty birds of the Rio Grande delta in Texas. It is spectacular: a big, black-and-white-headed, bright yellow-bellied flycatcher that catches fish and eats fruit. But it, too, is everywhere in the lowlands of tropical America.
But there are also birds with much smaller ranges. A couple of the 15 or so species largely restricted to river islands are easily seen here: lesser hornero and olive-spotted hummingbird (perhaps the least colorful hummingbird in the world, but with a small range along the big rivers of western Amazonia). The common parrot, and the most common bird, is the canary-winged parakeet. Hundreds come every morning to feed in the corn planted along the edge of the marsh; this morning I counted 860. There are oriole blackbirds, spot-breasted woodpeckers, orange-headed tanagers and purple-throated euphonias, plenty to prepare me for a day of report writing.
There are also several North American migrants, which we struggle to find on most inventories. In the Amazon, we are south of the main wintering grounds for North American birds. Most North American migrants stop in Central America and the Caribbean; only about 40 species make it to Amazonia. Today, I had nine migrants, including yellowlegs, eastern kingbird, eastern wood-pewee, three swallows (barn, bank and cliff), summer and scarlet tanagers, and yellow warbler. When I get back to the United States, I’ll have to wait six months to see these birds again, so I enjoy them while I can.
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