If you want to catch up on previous posts about this trip, go to the following links:
Peru Trip Day 1
Peru Trip Day 2
Peru Trip Day 3
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We spent another morning on the hummingbird tower and in the gardens at Waqanki Lodge.
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| View from Waqanki Lodge |
Of course we spent more time with the hummingbirds at the tower, including the star of the area, the Rufous-crested Coquette.
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| Rufous-crested Coquette |
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| Rufous-crested Coquette |
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| Rufous-crested Coquette |
Today I concentrated on getting different angles of this species, including the flight shots below.
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| Rufous-crested Coquette |
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| Rufous-crested Coquette |
It was easy to overlook the more common species, until they landed on a branch right in front of you, like these White-necked Jacobins.
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| White-necked Jacobin (adult male) |
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| White-necked Jacobin (imm. male) |
And the Fork-tailed Woodnymphs continued to be hard to resist.
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| Fork-tailed Woodnymph |
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| Fork-tailed Woodnymph |
A couple of the large Gray-breasted Sabrewings were a little more cooperative today, perching fairly close and allowing good views of the strangely-modified outer primaries of the males.
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| Gray-breasted Sabrewing (female) |
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| Gray-breasted Sabrewing (male) |
I spent more time this morning trying to get better photos of the more difficult species. The Brown Violetear was coming in to the feeders only infrequently, and when it did it was always in the shade, and was always darting around in unpredictable directions. I did manage a couple of shots though.
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| Brown Violetear |
And they did actually perch today, but only for about 2 seconds at a time. These two photos are a bit "grainy" because I had to use a high ISO setting (8000) on the camera to get a decent exposure.
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| Brown Violetear |
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| Brown Violetear |
The Great-billed Hermit was another infrequent visitor, and it almost never perched, and was usually seen hovering at the feeders in the shade, so it was a challenge to get a more natural pose.
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| Great-billed Hermit |
I got really lucky today with the Long-billed Starthroat, which was only seen distantly and briefly yesterday a couple of times. Today one came in to the feeder, in the shade, once.
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| Long-billed Starthroat |
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| Long-billed Starthroat |
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| Long-billed Starthroat |
At one point, our guide Fernando managed to coax a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl into a place where we had an OK view of it.
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| Fermando (white hat) and 4 tour participants looking at owl |
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| Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl |
Once it was in view, and calling back to Fernando, it drew the attention of most of the hummingbirds in the area, including the Gray-breasted Sabrewing in the photo below. Note the size comparison of this largish hummingbird and this small owl.
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| Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl with Gray-breasted Sabrewing |
Other species that came around the tower this morning included a small flock of the Peruvian endemic Black-bellied Tanager, which were staying mostly hidden as they fed on nectar of the flowers of a nearby Inga tree.
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| Black-bellied Tanager (female) |
Turquoise Tanager, Thick-billed Euphonia, and Olivaceous Woodcreeper made brief appearances, and none of them particularly close by.
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| Turquoise Tanager |
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| Thick-billed Euphonia (female) |
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| Olivaceous Woodcreeper |
A Squirrel Cuckoo made a dramatic entrance, and gave us good views for several minutes.
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| Squirrel Cuckoo |
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| Squirrel Cuckoo |
On a short tail behind the hummingbird tower, a couple of us got views of a Yellow-crested Tanager.
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| Yellow-crested Tanager |
Some of us wandered half way back to the cabins and stopped briefly in the orchid gardens. The Moyobamba area is famous for the large variety of orchids that can be found there, but unfortunately almost none were to be seen in natural, wild conditions, so I had to be satisfied with these "tame" ones.
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| Orchid sp. (Oncidium?) |
This bright orange-red orchid is a species that we have seen several times before, and I believe is in the genus
Epidendropsis.
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| Orchid sp. (Epidendropsis) |
It was also the only species we saw growing wild anywhere. The one below was about 15 feet up in a tree near the dining room.
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| Orchid sp. (Epidendropsis) |
Another species in the garden looked familiar, but I can't recall what species it might be.
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| Orchid sp. |
The oddest species didn't look like an orchid at all, until you looked more closely.
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| Orchid sp. |
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| Orchid sp. |
This one was being visited by a large, iridescent green orchid bee.
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| Orchid bee. |
In the gardens around the cabins, I found an adult Ruddy Ground-Dove with two very recently fledged young.
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| Ruddy Ground-Dove (imm.) |
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| Ruddy Ground-Dove (imm.) |
A couple species of hummingbird favored the gardens and were almost never seen at the feeders, including this Violet-headed Hummingbird.
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| Violet-headed Hummingbird (imm?) |
There was also an interesting assortment of butterflies, some of them familiar like the Brown Peacock, White Peacock, and "88" Butterflly.
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| Brown Peacock (Anartia fatima) |
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| White Peacock (Anartia jatrophae) |
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| 88 Butterfly (Diathria clymena) |
Some other butterfly species I could only identify down to family, like this obvious relative of the Gray Hairstreak (family Lycaenidae) that we see in Michigan.
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| Hairstreak sp. (Lycaenidae) |
And this is some species of Long-tailed Skipper (genus
Urbanus?).
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| Long-tailed Skipper sp. (Hesperiidae) |
And there were a couple of very colorful species that were likely in the family Heliconiidae.
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| Heliconiidae sp. |
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| Heliconiidae sp. |
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| Heliconiidae sp. |
And this large assassin bug (family Hemiptera) caught our eye.
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| Hemiptera sp. |
After lunch, we drove a sort distance to Morro Calzada, which is basically a large isolated mountain (or a chunk of rock) sticking up from the surrounding farmland.
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| Morro Calzada |
Unfortunately, the main birding road was being paved, so there was no access! We had to be satisfied with birding along some other side roads in the area. The Swallow-wings (a species of puffbird) were strange to see in this hilly terrain, as I'd only seen them before from boats along tributaries of the Amazon in Ecuador. This was the best view I've ever had of this species.
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| Swallow-wing |
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| Swallow-wing |
They are very unusual for puffbirds in that they perch conspicuously in the open, and also in that they fly out from exposed perches to capture insects in mid-air, like chunky, short-tailed flycatchers.
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| Swallow-wing |
A very common member of the blackbird family that I have seen on nearly every South American trip to lowland areas, the Yellow-rumped Cacique, had somehow eluded my camera lens, until now. Note its blue eyes in the first photo below.
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| Yellow-rumped Cacique |
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| Yellow-rumped Cacique |
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| Yellow-rumped Cacique |
Fernando managed, with a lot of effort, to call in a couple of species of trogon. The first to respond was this male Blue-crowned Trogon.
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| Blue-crowned Trogon (male) |
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| Blue-crowned Trogon (male) |
The other species of trogon is a bit of a puzzle. They were most likely Green-backed Trogons (split a few years ago from White-tailed Trogon), but they also somewhat resembled Amazonian Trogon (split a few years ago from Violaceous Trogon). The tail patterns of both species are very similar. The individual below is probably a female Green-backed Trogon. Female Amazonian would have a broken whitish eye ring, while this one has a pale blue eye ring.
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| Green-backed Trogon (female) |
The male was also puzzling. It had the correct pale blue eye ring, yellow belly, and white outer tail feathers of Green-backed, but definitely did not have a green back! There is apparently a subspecies of Green-backed with a blue back that is described in the Handbook of Birds of the World, except that their illustration of that subspecies clearly shows a green back! And, that subspecies is not shown to range as far south as Peru. So, whatever it is, here's a photo...
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| Green-backed Trogon (male) |
Perhaps the most exciting bird at this area was a male Crimson-crested Woodpecker that Fernando called in with a tape. It is a large species, and in the same genus as the extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker. We got excellent views.
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| Crimson-crested Woodpecker (male) |
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| Crimson-crested Woodpecker (male) |
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| Crimson-crested Woodpecker (male) |
The only butterfly I managed to photograph here is a species that I'm pretty sure is Variegated Fritillary, which is fairly widespread throughout the tropics, and has wandered north to Michigan.
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| Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) |
We returned to Waqanki Lodge for dinner, and before turning in I checked the walls of the cabins again for moths, turning up a couple more interesting species.
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| Moth sp. (Apatelodidae) |
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| Moth sp. |
I will be working on the photos from day 5 of the trip in the coming days, and hopefully the next posting won't take me as long as this one did to get together. Keep checking back!
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