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:
- Immaculate antbird (Myrmeciza immaculata)
- Slaty-capped flycatcher (Leptopogon superciliaris)*
- Dusky-faced tanager (Mitrospingus cassinii)
- Emerald tanager ((Tangara florida)
- 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.
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:
The day’s list (Guayabo National Monument area only) is as follows:
- Gray-headed chachalaca
- Black vulture
- Turkey vulture
- Roadside hawk
- Red-billed pigeon
- Ruddy ground-dove
- Crimson-fronted parakeet
- White-crowned parrot
- Squirrel cuckoo
- Groove-billed ani
- White-collared swift
- Green hermit
- Stripe-throated hermit
- Rufous-tailed hummingbird
- Blue-crowned motmot
- Keel-billed toucan
- Collared araçari
- Plain xenops
- Olivaceous woodcreeper
- Paltry tyrannulet
- Yellow-bellied elaenia
- Piratic flycatcher
- Common tody-flycatcher
- Dusky-capped flycatcher
- Boat-billed flycatcher
- Great kiskadee
- Social flycatcher
- Tropical kingbird
- Cinnamon becard
- Masked tityra
- White-collared manakin
- Brown jay
- Blue-and-white swallow
- Northern rough-winged swallow
- Southern rough-winged swallow
- Band-backed wren
- Stripe-breasted wren
- Bay wren
- Plain wren
- House wren
- Orange-billed nightingale-thrush
- Swainson’s thrush
- Clay-colored thrush
- Tennessee warbler
- Yellow warbler
- Chestnut-sided warbler
- Dusky-faced tanager
- Emerald tanager
- Speckled tanager
- Golden-hooded tanager
- Bay-headed tanager
- Silver-throated tanager
- Blue-gray tanager
- Palm tanager
- Green honeycreeper
- Yellow-faced grassquit
- Orange-billed sparrow
- Black-striped sparrow
- Rufous-collared sparrow
- Grayish saltator
- Buff-throated saltator
- Melodious blackbird
- Great-tailed grackle
- Montezuma oropendola
Photographs of key birds are still to be added.
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