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
Peru Trip Day 4
Peru Trip Day 5
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We left Waqanki Lodge very early this morning for a 2-hour drive to our destination for the day, where we needed to arrive at 7 a.m. One last check of the walls of our cabins revealed some of the same moths I'd been seeing, as well as a new species, and a katydid that would have been well camouflaged if it was among the dying leaves that it resembled, instead of being on a plain white wall.
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| Moth sp. |
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| Katydid sp. |
Our destination this morning was Reserva Arena Blanca (sometimes called Arenas Blancas), just outside the small town of Aguas Verdes about 12 miles west of Naranjos at an elevation of 3750 feet. Our early arrival was necessary so that we could all get settled into a two-story blind, and quiet down, before the owner of the property put out seed to draw in some very secretive bird species.
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| Reserva Arena Blanca entrance sign |
Fairly soon, the first of these secretive species appeared, three Little Tinamous. In general, tinamous are very difficult to see anywhere, but I had seen them at a feeder before, in Costa Rica. Despite the dim conditions in the forest around the feeding area, I did manage some fairly decent photos.
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| Little Tinamou |
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| Little Tinamou |
Another species that came in early, which I had seen before but never so well, was a pair of Ruddy Quail-Doves.
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| Ruddy Quail-Dove |
And after a suspenseful wait, another of our hoped-for species came running into the feeding station, a group of at least 8 Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail, a lifer for me!
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| Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail |
They began vigorously gobbling up the seed, and it was difficult to be sure how many there were as individuals would go running off into the nearby forest, and back again.
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| Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail |
Zooming in to full magnification made photography more difficult as that made shutter speeds slower, but I did manage to get some fairly decent photos of individuals during the brief seconds when they did not have their heads down feeding, or chasing each other around.
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| Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail |
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| Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail |
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| Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail |
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| Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail |
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| Rufous-breasted Wood-Quail |
A Cinereous Tinamou made a brief appearance, but I did not get any photos, and after everyone else had left I re-positioned myself on the "ground floor" of the blind to see if I could get better photos. I waited for quite a while and it seemed that all the birds had left, but eventually I detected movement in the forest and soon got obscured views of a Gray-cowled (formerly Gray-necked) Wood-Rail. I waited and waited for it to come in to the clearing, staying completely still with my breathing very shallow. When it got to the edge of the clearing, I gently clicked the power switch on my camera, and the rail dashed off into the forest. So, I gave up and went down the path to the two-story structure where hummingbird feeders were placed on one side, and a good patch of Verbena was planted on the other side.
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| Reserva Arena Blanca, hummingbird feeding station |
There were more species of hermit here than we had encountered up to this point, with the small Reddish Hermit the most frequent at the feeders.
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| Reddish Hermit |
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| Reddish Hermit |
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| Reddish Hermit |
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| Reddish Hermit |
Another small hermit that spent a lot of time among the flowers, but not in the open, was the Black-throated Hermit that made only a few appearances during the day.
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| Black-throated Hermit |
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| Black-throated Hermit |
Two larger hermits made very brief and infrequent visits, the Great-billed Hermit that we'd seen well the last few days, and the Green Hermit.
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| Green Hermit |
The feeders attracted the larger species, and some of the medium-sized species, including some that we had been seeing almost daily up to this point. There were a few Golden-tailed Sapphires here, including a couple of females which had been strangely absent from other sites.
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| Golden-tailed Sapphire, male |
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| Golden-tailed Sapphire, male |
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| Golden-tailed Sapphire, female |
It was nice to have some cooperative Brown Violetears and to obtain good photos after the frustrations of the frantically moving individuals in the shade at Waqanki.
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| Brown Violetear |
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| Brown Violetear |
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| Brown Violetear |
It was interesting to see the colorful throat patch on them, which is not often illustrated in field guides.
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| Brown Violetear |
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| Brown Violetear |
Another species that was more cooperative here was the Blue-fronted Lancebill, which we had seen on the first day of the trip at the Koepcke's Hermit feeding station. We saw both males and females, and they seemed to frequent the feeders as often as the flowers.
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| Blue-fronted Lancebill, male |
Lancebill is a good name for them with their long, straight bill. There are two species in this genus.
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| Blue-fronted Lancebill, male |
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| Blue-fronted Lancebill, male |
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| Blue-fronted Lancebill, female |
A good field mark for this species, which is not often noted in field guides, is the blue-gray band at the base of the rump and fairly short tail, which was perhaps most helpful when they were in flight as the long bill was not easily seen at times.
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| Blue-fronted Lancebill, male |
A couple of Sapphire-spangled Emeralds were seen briefly at Waqanki but I did not get any photos. One made a couple of brief appearances here today, but I was better prepared and got a couple of shots.
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| Sapphire-spangled Emerald |
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| Sapphire-spangled Emerald |
Only one White-necked Jacobin was present at this site, but there was another species here that closely resembles a female Jacobin, the Many-spotted Hummingbird, which was a life bird for me. From behind, they also looked like the much larger Gray-breasted Sabrewing which was fairly common here also.
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| Many-spotted Hummingbird |
On the Many-spotted Hummingbird, the spots are round green dots that are on their throats and all down the flanks, which is different from the dark spots mainly on the throat of the female Jacobins.
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| Many-spotted Hummingbird |
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| Many-spotted Hummingbird |
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| Many-spotted Hummingbird |
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| Many-spotted Hummingbird |
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| Many-spotted Hummingbird |
Two large species, Black-throated Brilliant and Violet-fronted Brilliant, made occasional visits to the feeders and tended to perch in the shade. Both of them looked very similar under most conditions, appearing mainly all green. It took some patience to wait for them to turn their heads to reveal the diagnostic color patterns, and some luck to get photos of those colors!
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| Black-throated Brilliant |
The Black-throated Brilliant has a green crown, a blue and turquoise breast, and a velvety black throat.
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| Black-throated Brilliant |
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| Black-throated Brilliant |
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| Black-throated Brilliant |
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| Black-throated Brilliant |
The Violet-fronted Brilliant has a blue-violet crown that looks similar to that of the Gould's Jewelfront that we saw on the first day of the trip, a green throat, and a turquoise breast.
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| Violet-fronted Brilliant |
The individual in the photo above is likely an immature male molting into adult plumage, as young male brilliants of all species have a white or buffy whisker on the lower face.
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| Violet-fronted Brilliant |
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| Violet-fronted Brilliant |
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| Violet-fronted Brilliant |
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| Violet-fronted Brilliant |
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| Violet-fronted Brilliant |
I got many photos of hummingbirds flying away, with most of them now in the trash bin. This was one of the few keepers of that group.
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| Violet-fronted Brilliant |
On the other side of the hummingbird "tower", the flower garden was frequented mainly by smaller species of hummingbird, including an old friend from Waqanki, the Rufous-crested Coquette.
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| Rufous-crested Coquette |
A single Blue-tailed Emerald made a single appearance here, as one did at Waqanki, but this time I managed to get one shot of it, and luckily it was a good one.
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| Blue-tailed Emerald |
And the tiny Amethyst Woodstars here were more cooperative than in the gardens at Waqanki, sticking entirely to the Verbena as a nectar source, buzzing around them like bumblebees.
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| Amethyst Woodstar |
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| Amethyst Woodstar |
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| Amethyst Woodstar |
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| Amethyst Woodstar |
The hummingbird specialty of this area was another small species in the woodstar/coquette group, the wonderfully adorned Wire-crested Thorntail. I think the photos below show that this is a very good name.
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
It was interesting to see, from certain angles, the graceful crossing of the wiry crest feathers and the thorny tail feathers. The white band across the rump is a characteristic that it shares with the coquettes (check again the Rufous-crested Coquette photo above).
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
Most difficult to see on this species, and capture in an image, was its green crown, face, and throat. I only managed to capture it in one photo.
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| Wire-crested Thorntail |
Only a few other species were in evidence today as we spent all morning within 20 yards of the hummingbird feeders. This adult Bicolored Hawk made a brief appearance when lighting conditions were not very good, but I include the photo here because this is a rarely seen and photographed species.
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| Bicolored Hawk, adult |
A few species of butterfly worked the flowers in the garden, including this Julia, which is a common tropical species from Florida and Texas, south to the Amazon.
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| Julia (Dryas julia) |
Another butterfly in the Heliconia group was this Leucadia Longwing.
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| Leucadia Longwing (Heliconius leucadia) |
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| Leucadia Longwing (Heliconius leucadia) |
This Delinta Sister took a long rest on one of the tour participant's camera bag. There are more than 80 species in this genus in the tropics, so my identification here is tentative.
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| Delinta Sister (Adelpha delinta) |
A less colorful species that I am happy to be able to identify, with some confidence and a little uncertainty, is this Broken-banded Flat.
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| Broken-banded Flat (Celaenorrhinus eligius) |
This very strange fly, perhaps in the Robber Fly family, perched on one of the long camera lenses in our group. I'm not sure what is dangling below the fly, but it appears to have small claws like a Pseudoscorpion that might indicate that it is a prey item...or maybe it is a parasite.
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| Unknown fly sp. |
Very few birds came to the bananas that were put out on a feeder to attract tanagers and other birds. Instead, it attracted these (Andean) Saddleback Tamarins, which are endemic to this part of Peru and sometimes classified as a full species. One photo, below, shows monkey bookends!
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| (Andean) Saddleback Tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis leucogenys) |
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| (Andean) Saddleback Tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis leucogenys) |
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| (Andean) Saddleback Tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis leucogenys) |
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| (Andean) Saddleback Tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis leucogenys) |
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| (Andean) Saddleback Tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis leucogenys) |
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| (Andean) Saddleback Tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis leucogenys) |
After lunch two of us, with our guide Fernando, walked out to the entrance road and did some birding in what is a fairly rare an unique habitat, white sand forest. Many interesting species are found here, and it would have been nice to spend more time birding the scrubby woodlands along this road.
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| Reserva Arena Blanca, white sand forest |
Overhead, we saw a small flock of about a dozen Swallow-tailed Kites.
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| Swallow-tailed Kite |
At the end of the road, we came to an overgrown cemetery where we found this singing Rufous-winged Antwren.
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| Rufous-winged Antwren |
Most antbirds and antwrens are in vegetation much thicker than this, so it was nice to get any photos even though the only photos showing the rufous-edged wing feathers did not show the rest of the bird very well.
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| Rufous-winged Antwren |
Around 4:30 p.m., we left Arena Blanca for another hour of driving to our lodging for the next few nights, the Owlet Lodge at about 7600 feet elevation, where we arrived just before dinner so I only got a little birding in. Tomorrow we will go to some very interesting, and different locations.
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