Owls of Peru – Part 2: Arid Habitats

Western Peru experiences a formidable rain shadow, which creates a remarkable diversity in habitats. Simply put, all the moisture from the Amazon basin being pushed up the Andes (the prevailing winds are from southeast in this region) gets sucked out on the eastern side as moist air rises and condenses into rain (or snow). This leaves almost nothing for the west side, the leeward side, i.e. as air descends the western slope of the Andes there is no moisture left in it. Maybe your first image of Peru is of lush jungles, but if you are west of the Andes, it should be more like desert and arid scrub or tropical dry forest. So, you might not be expecting to see species like Burrowing Owl as my first Peruvian owl, but the smallish, pale desert subspecies nanodes is common here (much more common than this species is where I live in Manitoba, Canada)...

In the tropical dry forests along the coast (west of the Andes), one of the most common owl species is the diurnal Peruvian Pygmy-Owl. This species comes in a range of colour morphs – here a greyish bird, a brown bird and a rufous bird to show some of the range in colouration.

The Peruvian Pygmy-Owl like all of their congenitors in the genus Glaucidium is tiny (about 16cm though even this dwarfs the Long-whiskered owlet in my previous post which measures a mere 13cm). This photo of a Peruvian Pygmy-Owl being mobbed by an Amazilia Hummingbird should give you a sense of the size.

But don’t be fooled by their size – these little birds pack a lot of punch and can take prey much larger than they are. Can’t you see the feisty personality in their eyes?

As with so many owl species, females are larger than males (female is the lower bird in this pair). In this pair the female has a stronger rufous plumage colour wheras the male is browner but note that colour is not indicative of sex generally.

There are nocturnal owl species in the dry forests too. The Tumbes Screech-Owl (Megascops pacificus) occurs in dry coastal forests of northwestern Peru and southwestern Ecuador. Some authors consider this to be a subspecies of the Peruvian Screech-Owl (Megascops roboratus). This photo shows a grey morph bird (apparently the rufous morph is rare).

While out at night in Chaparrí, we heard a descending hoot call that struck me as being very similar to one of the alarm calls of Eastern Screech-Owl (a series of descending hoots is given and will escalate to “barks”, rattling calls and bill snapping if a threat persists). Sneaking up slowly, I spotted the owl perched about four feet off the ground and looking straight down. The bird was so intently focused on the ground and giving the alarm call persistently. This lead us to conclude that there must have been something like a snake in the leaf litter that was stressing the owl. We never did see a snake so this is only a guess but we got fantastic looks at the owl, who was so focused on the ground that they seemed oblivious to our presence. Here are a few examples of the photos I got…

Over near Jaén, we had much briefer looks at the Peruvian Screech-Owl, the interior species (or subspecies) that is found in dry intermontane river basins and hillsides, especially in the Marañon Valley. Not a great photo though but compare this bird, which is larger and has a proportionately longer tail, with the previous photos of Tumbes Screech-Owl. There are also differences in song…

The dry forest also extends to considerable elevation along the western slope of the Andes and the intermontane valleys. Up above 1800m ASL, the forests are much more “temperate” than tropical in appearance and this is the home to the very little known Koepcke’s Screech-Owl, discovered by great Neotropical ornithologist Maria Koepcke (she thought this taxa to be a race of Peruvian Screch-Owl) but not described until after her death and named in her honour. Koepcke’s Screech-Owl is very poorly known and very patchily and sparsely distributed, so seeing a pair of Koepcke’s Screech-Owls roosting by day was one of the highlights of this trip. The fact they were in, of all things, an introduced eucalyptus tree, only softened the high ever so slightly…

Since we spotted them in the late afternoon, we waited around for them to get active. They began allopreening (preening each other) and calling softly towards dusk.

These owls were high up in the eucalyptus and in amongst many cluttered twigs and branches. As it turns out my best opportunity to see them up close and personal came about an hour before dawn, when I found this bird out on the prowl. Notice, for example, the heavier markings on the breast and belly (also against a whiter base colouration) compared with Peruvian and Tumbes Screech-Owls. You will also notice the paler bare part colouration. Needless to say I was elated to get these photos of this secretive species.

In the dry Apurimac Valley (Abancay area) there is a currently undescribed taxon of screech-owl that has some consider conspecific with Koepcke’s Screech-Owl, but others favour treatement as a full species (awaiting further study). This taxon is nicknamed the Apurimac Screech-Owl and is paler in colouration and shows differences in voice. Another highlight for me was to see this bird after having seen Koepcke’s Screech-Owl (seeing an undescribed species/taxon is always a thrill even if you are not the one to discover them). So, let me introduce you to the Apurimac Screech-Owl…

Certainly a beautiful bird but is this a full species? Well, the song and calls I heard were similar in pattern to Koepcke's but did seem faster and of a higher frequency and there were some plumage differences (colder grey overall, lacking brown tones and also lacking the ochre/greenish tones in the tarsi and with greyer bare part colouration… though none of these mean very much in and of themselves). Since recently more and more authors are coming to accept that Tumbes and Peruvian Screech-Owls function as reproductively isolated species, it will be interesting to see what the conclusion on the Apurimac versus Koepcke’s Screech-Owls is in the long run. So, I end this post with this photo of a most handsome pair of Apurimac Screech-Owls – one of the mysteries of the Peruvian night!

Stay tuned for some owls of Peru’s humid forests…

Owls of Peru – Part 1: LONG-WHISKERED OWLET

I recently spent three amazing weeks in Peru. The biodiversity of this region is truly spectacular and I managed to see 562 species in three weeks (contact me for species list). Included in those 562 species were 16 owl taxa, including one of the least known species on the planet and an undescribed species. What could be better than that? Those who know me can vouch for my obsession with owls, but even for an obsessed, all-night owler, that is a fantastic total.

This trip started with an invite from, as it turns out, an equally owl-obsessed birding friend, Alan Van Norman. Alan had organized a trip to Peru with Birding Ecotours that was tailored to look for owls and he invited me to tag along. That offer was too good to refuse, so I joined Alan and Eduardo Omeche for 10 days of owl-searching in the north and then headed for 10 days of birding on my own in the south (a new expereince for me as I usually bird and backpack around on the cheap). I will blog more generally about this trip in the weeks to come but, as usual, let’s start with the nightlife of Peru…

A big part of the inspiration for this trip was the quest for the bird that is sometimes referred to as the holy grail of Neotropical birding – the Long-whiskered Owlet. Discovered in 1976 and only ever seen a handful of times in a tiny area of Peru, the call of this species remained unknown until a few years ago when one was caught in a mist net and placed in a tent, from where the bird started to sing and was recorded. That recording made it possible to search for this bird. So Alan and I dedicated one night at Abra Patricia and three nights at the La Esperanza, a community conservation project where the owlet was found very recently (http://www.neoprimate.org/), searching. Like so many others, at Abra Patricia we had no luck but La Esperanza, well, read on...

La Esperanza requires a long hike in on a steep and extremely muddy trail (it took us 6 – 7 hours to hike in and we had mules for the packs). There are two rustic cabins where you can stay. On our first night we had no luck with the owlet although we had great looks at Cinnamon Screech-Owl (photos below) and heard Rufous-banded Owl and White-throated Screech-Owl. The sighting of the Cinnamon Screech-Owl was interesting because it happened very shortly after Eduardo had played the owlet tape on spec and a pair flew in, possibly in response to the owlet tape. On the second night, we heard the Long-whiskered Owlet call around 8pm. What followed was a long effort to bring the bird in, which seemed to be working. The call got closer and closer and we waited with baited breath. Then, that moment that makes your heart beat fast – two owls flew in! As we got the flashlight on an owl, the two teenagers who were our guides from the community conservation project got excited, telling us we were looking at the owlet. Unfortunately though, Eduardo, Alan and I were all doubtful – something was wrong! When the owl flew away and we discussed the features and looked at photos Alan had taken it became apparent that we had been looking at a Cinnamon Screech-Owl. The fact the we had had two occasions when Cinnamon Screech-Owl respond aggressively to the owlet tape and the fact that the guide had misidentified the bird had us very concerned – maybe some of the reported sightings from La Esperanza were in fact NOT the enigmatic owlet after all. At least we knew that some of the sightings were of the owlet as we had seen the photos but we suspected that this bird is nowhere near as common at the site as our young guide would have had us believe. Since we were there in August (dry season) and all of the precious few sightings of Long-whiskered Owlet we were aware of were between December and May (wet season) there might also be seasonal differences in calling and response rate that were working against us.

With that major let down, everyone slid back down the mountainside to get some rest... well, everyone except me that is – I stayed up all night in a vain effort to find the owlet but didn’t hear so much as a peep. Nightfall on our third and final night in La Esperanza found us in position on a steep slope where we had heard the owlet call the night before. We weren’t waiting long when the rain began (as so often happens when you go out at night in cloud forest). We waited and waited until 10pm or thereabouts when the rain started to let up and then tried searching for the owlet in vain for an hour or so. In the continuing drizzle and processing all that had happened, Alan and Eduardo decided to abandon the search and get some rest. I, on the other hand, was too stubborn to give up… after all, how many times in your life do you get a chance to search for Long-whiskered Owlet?

So, I walked up and down on the steep, narrow, muddy trails, pausing to listen at promising spots - nothing, nothing, nothing! By around 4am the drizzle had stopped and sky was much clearer and a calling Lyre-tailed Nightjar gave hope that the night might come alive. Closer to 4:30, it happened – a moment i won’t soon forget – I heard a Long-whiskered Owlet call from a ridge above me. A few seconds to calm my beating heart and I whipped up the trail as quickly and quietly as I could and up a narrow side trail to get closer to where I had estimated the sounds came from. I paused on the mountainside; a few minutes of intense silence, then, yes, there was the call again and much closer this time. Dawn was approaching and I had to think fast. I worked the trail trying to assess options. Since the owlet was calling from up on the ridge, I concluded my best chance was to find a spot with an opening where I could see uphill. In the dense cloud forest that was no easy task, but there was one spot where I felt I might have a chance. The problem was my spot was on a very steep slope and rather precarious. Calming my emotions, I started a dialogue with the enigma… and the owlet called back! What followed was an agonizing 45 minutes with the owlet calling ever closer to where I was standing.

As always, when searching for owls, your eyes and ears are on “high alert”. After so much staring into the darkness, I caught the silhouette of movement – something small had flown in and landed above my head!! Shining my flashlight, I saw the bird almost immediately - an absolutely diminutive owl! And, as I watched, this tiny little owl pointed their head skyward and called… there was no doubt about it – I was looking at a LONG-WHISKERED OWLET!! I was in ecstasy as I watched the owlet simultaneously raise their head and lower their wings to call, the long whiskers visible with this action. A once-in-a-lifetime moment to see such a secretive bird that has been seen by so very few!

I then tried to take some photos but because the owlet was right above me and I was standing on a steep slope, I was having enormous difficulty holding the light and focusing the camera simultaneously. I certainly wish my companions had been there at that moment! I took a couple of very out-of-focus photos before deciding that the only way was to try to put the light on the ground pointing up. Ordinarily, that might have worked but on this occasion I nearly fell off the mountainside trying - no chance! Of course, with dawn approaching the owlet did not stay there much longer and all I could do was watch it fly off into the night without a good photo to show for it. My souvenir, for what it is worth, is this horribly out of focus photo but I still won’t forget the thrill of finding this mysterious creature! (hey, but it wasn’t an Ivory-billed Woodpecker)…


Well, that photo is not much to look at though at least you can make out the owlet. Even though I missed the photo, this remains one of the best birding moments of my life.

Anyway, I will soon post part 2 of the Owls of Peru but this story could wait no longer. And I promise the next post will have lots of pretty pictures!

Curve-billed Thrasher in Manitoba

Curve-billed Thrashers have an interesting history of wandering in fall/winter. The phenomenon of fall dispersal has made it difficult to understand the migration patterns of this species. Amazingly one showed up this weekend in Manitoba’s Whiteshell Provincial Park – a long way away from their breeding range in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma.

This bird was originally reported as Bendire’s Thrasher but, as we drove up to the dumpsters where the thrasher was feeding, we quickly realized that this was a Curve-billed Thrasher, the bright orange eye and the decurved all dark bill being the most salient features. You can see this in these two photos. You will also notice how worn the plumage is…

This bird was foraging right in front of our vehicle on the gravel pull-out. It was almost as though we were observing them in a tiny patch of their preferred desert habitat! We had ample opportunity to study the features although the amount of feather wear complicated the picture.

Curve-billed Thrasher subspecific taxonomy is a little complicated but two main groups are recognised - the eastern T. c. curvirostre group (breeds in areas like Texas) and the western T. c. palmeri group (breeds in areas like Arizona). If you study the photos below you can see that this bird had fairly extensive white tail corners (outermost rectrices tipped white), visible from above (first photo) and below (second photo), despite heavy wear, but most visible when the bird flew. This made me think that this birds might be of the eastern subspecies group.



The photo above also shows the spotting on the breast, which showed a fairly pale ground colour creating contrast between the breast spots and background. This also seems consistent with an eastern bird. The wing bars were hard to gauge, this bird being in such heavily worn plumage, but certainly, although they were buffy overall, there was white tips to the outermost greater coverts and outermost median coverts (as opposed to buffy tips as expected in western birds) as you can see in the first of the two photos above (although if you compare with the very first photo of this post you will notice that the white tips on the median coversts on the bird's other side have worn away). I did not manage a good look at the undertail coverts, another useful feature, as the bird was almost always on the ground.

If you are wondering why the bird is on one leg in both of the above photos, they appeared to have an injured right foot. This and the heavily worn plumage makes me think that this bird is not likely going anywhere soon and will stick near the food supply they have found. This bird also exhbited a curious sneezing behaviour - almost as though they were trying to cough up a pellet but repeated constantly.

It is also worth studying the interesting mix of dark and light flight feathers and tail feathers. Even at a glance the birds gives a somewhat striped appearance due to the mix of light brown and dark brown feather. This suggests multiple feather generations and thus an adult bird, although at first glance the buffy "wing bars" seemed to match Sibley's illustration of a juvenile.

On a bird this worn and this far out of range, it is hard to know how to interpret such features. The bird didn't seem all that happy either, though I guess the problem with a decurved bill is that you always wear a frown!

Amazing to see this bird so far out of range!

Some nocturnal eye-candy

As a photographer with a passion for owling (going out at night to look for nocturnal species of birds and mammals), I was very excited to learn of the publication of an extremely ambitious new book — Nightjars, Potoos, Frogmouths, Oilbird and Owlet-Nightjars of the World by Nigel Cleere. Nigel was planning to put together a photographic guide of some of the most difficult species to photograph, no easy task! Much as I find them fascinating, I have always found nightjars, potoos and frogmouths much more difficult to photograph than my favourite group, owls. Since many nightjars are so difficult to identify, a book devoted to this group seemed like an absolute must for a night birder like myself. I was therefore very keen to see what it would look like.

This book indeed features some spectacular photography — images that make me green with envy! Of course, there are some very low quality images too, in many cases these being the only images available of certain extremely rare and seldom seen species. There are also some images of birds in the hand, which I personally prefer to avoid at (nearly) all costs, but which again were probably the only images available to illustrate certain field marks. In some cases images of museum specimens are used, which make comparisons against photos of live birds difficult but again there is really no choice.

Nigel’s text is minimal to say the least. The idea is to offer the viewer the opportunity to view multiple photographs of each species side by side to compare ID features and relevant field marks. Personally, I think this is a mistake for two main reasons. Firstly, although I absolutely love looking at bird photography, when it comes to identifying birds, I prefer illustrations. The photographs in this book show too many different states (e.g. live versus dead birds), postures, and lighting effects to permit one to compare apples with apples. In other words, I believe the book’s use for identification of this extremely difficult group would be greatly enhanced with much more discussion on how to separate species X from other similar species (each species has a section on “main confusion species” but I have found this text to be too scant to be useful and not cross-referenced to the photographs). Secondly, since many of the features are so difficult to see well, one finds oneself flipping back and forward between photographs looking at a particular feature on species X and species Y. The chosen layout is just not well suited to an ID reference, or at least is far less useful as an ID reference than some succinct text and/or drawings with or without arrows pointing at the most salient ID features. In short, the choice to make this guide so photo heavy has resulted in a superbly aesthetically pleasing book, almost a coffee-table style of book, except that not all photos were selected on aesthetic grounds (they were selected to cover every species and photo quality therefore varies considerably) but has severely compromised its utility. I have therefore found my colour photocopies of the plates of Handbook of Birds of the World to be more useful than this publication.

The beauty of a newly printed edition like this is of course having a single up-to date reference on the taxonomy of a difficult group. I have always found this type of book to be an extremely useful supplement to regular field guides for trips abroad. For example, before any trip, I consult König’s Owls of the World and make notes on taxonomy, distribution, and salient ID features including song. I tried to use Nightjars, Potoos, Frogmouths, Oilbird and Owlet-Nightjars of the World for this purpose before my latest trip to Peru and found it to be woefully lacking for this purpose because the text was so scant that I did not find any information that I had not already found in other sources (I just got back from Peru so stay tuned for some exciting blog posts). Perhaps, this book would serve better for consultation after a trip when one could compares one’s field notes or photographs to the photos in the book.

I did find this book useful for its taxonomic treatment, though here again I would have liked more text, but other information criteria were so sparse as to severely limit the utility of this book. Most troubling though were the many inaccuracies that have crept into this publication. In particular, if one is going to use such a book as a reference, detailed information on distribution of species is critical. This book contains very scant text on distribution and the range maps are sadly so full of errors as to render them unusable. Here are just a few examples: The map of the Whip-poor-will misses huge chunks of the species range, for example in Manitoba where I live the range map for this species misses out hundreds of square kilometers of some of the portions of the range where Whip-poor-wills are very common. Many other species suffer similar woeful inadequacies, especially Asian species. Worst of all however are the glaring inconsistencies within the book itself, of which it only took me a quick perusal to spot several, e.g. the three images of Bonaparte’s Nightjar were all taken in Way Kambas National Park on the island of Sumatra but according to the range map Way Kambas is outside of the range of this sedentary species. Likewise the photograph of Blyth’s Frogmouth taken at Khao Noi Chuchi in Thailand falls outside of the range as drawn in this book and the photo of Blyth’s Frogmouth from the Genting Highlands was taken at a higher elevation than the altitudinal range given.

In summary, this book falls far short of the high expectations (admittedly, perhaps unfairly high expectations) placed on it. I will be using this book as a coffee-table book, to enjoy some of the delightful photography from time to time but I won’t be consulting it as a reference book – that niche still waits to be filled! I will say though that this book is extremely ambitious in scope and that the concept of a photographic guide to nocturnal species is well worth a dedicated effort. This book was years in the making and clearly a great deal of preparation has gone into it. Perhaps a revised edition with more emphasis on accuracy and a layout that permitted slightly more text would be all that is required.