Map of area showing location of Guayabo National Monument

A morning trip to the Guayabo National Monument, located very close to my home, proved extremely rewarding.  The Monument has been much renovated and improved during the last year and is now proving quite a tourist attraction.  There are two paths, but only the main one seems to attract the tourists.   It’s a forest experience in many parts; it’s a pity that it”s late opening time (8.00 am) means that the very best hours for birding are lost.   Adilio, Lisbeth and Tito were my kind hosts and helped immensely throughout.  Lisbeth was particularly impressed because it was her first visit.  Why have I not been birding here more frequently?  To see 5 totally new birds, consisting of a flycatcher, an antbird and 3 tanagers, in just a few hours and at so close a distance to home, is quite astonishing.

My new birds are:

1. Immaculate antbird (Myrmeciza immaculata)
2. Slaty-capped flycatcher (Leptopogon superciliaris)*
3. Dusky-faced tanager (Mitrospingus cassinii)
4. Emerald tanager ((Tangara florida)
5. Speckled tanager (Tangara guttata)

Only one of these (Immaculate antbird) was found on the trails inside the Monument itself.  The birding on the road, just above the Monument entrance, is excellent, and the picnic area opposite the entrance is also a good shady spot with many trees now fruiting that attract avian species.  The picnic area is where a small mixed flock contained the Speckled tanager (small flock) and the Emerald tanager.

We drove to the Monument via Guayabo Arriba and birded the road on the approach.  I have described this in a previous post.  On this occasion, however, we had some considerable identification problems, in particular with a small flycatcher with a pale yellow belly and a black ear-patch.  I defer to Adilio’s opinion that it was a Slaty-capped flycatcher, though in retrospect all kinds of doubts appear.  Illustrations in both Stiles & Skutch and in Garrigues & Dean show a bird with a much yellower belly.  On the same stretch we had a noisy pair of Dusky-faced tanagers.  They were down low and behaving more like ground-sparrows than tanagers, but their name fits their appearance entirely.  I knew that it was a life bird for me as soon as I saw them.

We could have spent lots more time birding the road, but Lisbeth was anxious to see the monument.  Inside was where we found what was probably the best bird, the Immaculate antbird.  I was surprised to see it because antbirds are hard to come by everywhere, it seems. The location was in thick undergrowth on the main trail.  A female was also present, though I saw only the male, and then only briefly.  However, the blue orbital skin on the black male makes it unmistakable, and my brief view of it was a most enjoyable moment.  A true knee-trembler, as a birding colleague once put it.

The park is well kept and quite beautiful, even though the archaeological exhibits cannot match the wonders of the Mayan civilisation found in Guatemala and Mexico, for example.  A signature bird here is the Collared araçari, which seems always to be present and highly visible.

Collared araçari, courtesy of Karel Straatman

Two other great birds for me, also on the main trail, were the Orange-billed sparrow and the Stripe-breasted wren, neither of which I had seen previously in our area.  The only bird of note on the secondary trail was the Boat-billed flycatcher, which I have also not been able to find in San Antonio, but the trail itself is in thick forest and is quite beautiful.  Note the bill on this Great kiskadee look-alike:

Boat-billed flycatcher, courtesy of Richard Garrigues

The day’s list (Guayabo National Monument area only) is as follows:

1. Gray-headed chachalaca
2. Black vulture
3. Turkey vulture
4. Roadside hawk
5. Red-billed pigeon
6. Ruddy ground-dove
7. Crimson-fronted parakeet
8. White-crowned parrot
9. Squirrel cuckoo
10. Groove-billed ani
11. White-collared swift
12. Green hermit
13. Stripe-throated hermit
14. Rufous-tailed hummingbird
15. Blue-crowned motmot
16. Keel-billed toucan
17. Collared araçari
18. Plain xenops
19. Olivaceous woodcreeper
20. Paltry tyrannulet
21. Yellow-bellied elaenia
22. Piratic flycatcher
23. Common tody-flycatcher
24. Dusky-capped flycatcher
25. Boat-billed flycatcher
26. Great kiskadee
27. Social flycatcher
28. Tropical kingbird
29. Cinnamon becard
30. Masked tityra
31. White-collared manakin
32. Brown jay
33. Blue-and-white swallow
34. Northern rough-winged swallow
35. Southern rough-winged swallow
36. Band-backed wren
37. Stripe-breasted wren
38. Bay wren
39. Plain wren
40. House wren
41. Orange-billed nightingale-thrush
42. Swainson’s thrush
43. Clay-colored thrush
44. Tennessee warbler
45. Yellow warbler
46. Chestnut-sided warbler
47. Dusky-faced tanager
48. Emerald tanager
49. Speckled tanager
50. Golden-hooded tanager
51. Bay-headed tanager
52. Silver-throated tanager
53. Blue-gray tanager
54. Palm tanager
55. Green honeycreeper
56. Yellow-faced grassquit
57. Orange-billed sparrow
58. Black-striped sparrow
59. Rufous-collared sparrow
60. Grayish saltator
61. Buff-throated saltator
62. Melodious blackbird
63. Great-tailed grackle
64. Montezuma oropendola

Photographs of key birds are still to be added.