The Pale-mandibled Araçari was my second favorite bird in Ecuador, after the tiny, charming and adorable Booted Racket-tail. The Araçaris were gregarious, raucous, and voracious eaters, consuming great chunks of banana when they arrived, often in twos and threes, dominating the feeders. Bananas were always on the menu. Their long, serrated tongues helped maneuver the huge chunks of fruit down their gullets, usually after they’d flipped it up in the air to reposition it.
Slaughter Beach in Delaware was a bit rocky and the peeps had lots of stones and crevasses to check out as they searched for Horseshoe Crab eggs, the seasonal delicacy. Most of the peeps I photographed the day we went beach panning there were Semipalmated Sandpipers, small shorebirds on their spring migration north. I was disappointed to see that, according to Cornel Labs All About Birds, Semipalmated Sandpipers have been added as an Orange Alert Tipping Point species, birds that are showing long-term population losses and accelerated recent declines within the past decade. I was glad to be able to photograph so many of these adorable little peeps while I have the chance.
This Ecuadorian owl butterfly didn’t stand a chance. The Plain Brown Woodcreeper snatched it off the tarp, where it had been attracted by a bright light, and flew with it clamped in its beak to a nearby tree trunk. Despite the butterfly’s wing markings that make it appear to be owl eyes, a camouflage that helps ward off predators, the Woodcreeper was not deterred and proceeded to beat the butterfly into submission.
Red Knots, Dunlins, Ruddy Turnstones, Sandpipers. The shorebirds were plentiful on the shores of the Mispillion River where it flows into Delaware Bay last week. The Horseshoe Crabs had arrived drawing thousands of birds seeking out the tiny crab eggs laid in the tens of thousands on the rocky shore. The massive flock would occasionally lift off, almost in unison, when a boat passed or a plane or predator flew over. The flock would fly a short distance, turn back, again in unison, and land back on the same shore.
This Semipalmated Sandpiper has discovered the perfect morsel— what looks like a Horseshoe Crab egg. The shorebirds are drawn to the shores around Delaware Bay when the Horseshoe Crabs spawn. There were lots of crabs on Slaughter Beach when we were there last week so it makes sense that there would be crab eggs scattered among the pebbles on the beach.
We went to Ecuador for the Hummingbirds because Ecuador has more than 130 species. I photographed 14 different Hummingbirds while I was there. But, the hummers had competition! The Tanagers took my breath away. And Ecuador has more than 160 species of Tanagers. I photographed 14 different species. They were real show shoppers. Here are just 3, the Golden Tanager, the Blue-necked Tanager, and the Flame-faced Tanager.
The birds in the Andean Cloud Forest are diverse and colorful. But, the clouds are unpredictable and from one minute to the next, you’re not quite sure what the visibility will be in that next moment. Most of the time we experienced excellent visibility in Ecuador but when the fog came, you could watch it roll toward you until you were enveloped in it. I took these two photographs of a Golden-naped Tanager on different days but at almost the same time, just before 8 AM, and at almost the same place on the same perch. The lush green background that normally served as the perfect backdrop for the birds at the fruit feeder at Sachatamia Lodge and is quite visible in the first image, has completely disappeared in the fog in the second image.
My three mile loop along the Ferrari Pond Trail was relatively uneventful yesterday morning. As I returned to my car, a Song Sparrow caught my eye as it hopped through branches near the water. In its beak, it had a large moth. It wasn’t until after I reviewed the images I took that it appears that there is more than one large bug in its beak, one fat and one skinny poking out of either side of the beak.
Due to the weather and other factors, we got to go beach panning on only one morning in Delaware. I love beach panning and the unique perspective it offers and I’d hoped to get some really great shots. But we were under attack at Slaughter Beach. No, not by the adorable shorebirds like this Semi-palmated Sandpiper heading in my direction, but by swarms of nasty black flies that not only bit, their bite sliced, drew blood, and was painful. It was, quite frankly, a miserable experience and followed the no-see-um attack we’d experienced on our first day. Apparently the direction of the wind that morning was the culprit bringing the flies to us instead of blowing them away from us. I found myself constantly swatting flies from my cheeks, eyes, and hands and flailing my arms and legs which caused the birds to leave. The flies even crawled into my shoes and up my pant leg. A passerby told us that the DEET repellent we’d applied did nothing to deter this menace and he was quite frankly astounded that we were actually laying on the sand and subjecting ourselves to the attack. In the end, I managed to get only a few shots I liked because I couldn’t concentrate on the task at hand. As a result, I didn’t do my best. I will say, though, that despite the flailing, I managed to keep my horizon straight most of the time, one of the things I usually find to be a challenge in beach panning so some good came of it. Getting slaughtered, in more ways than one, at Slaughter Beach is an experience I won’t soon forget.
Where the Mispillion River empties into Delaware Bay, the birds congregate because its favorable conditions draw horseshoe crabs to the area to lay eggs which are a favorite food of shorebirds. But at sunrise, the birds aren’t very active, and the crabs move at less than a snail’s pace. So, one morning earlier this week, as the sun began to rise in the east and its reflection colored the mud flats and the river flowing into the bay, I documented this lovely sunrise in Delaware.
Beach panning is a photography technique that brings the subject to life by isolating it using a unique perspective and a shallow depth of focus. This week I went back to the beach, Slaughter Beach in Delaware to be specific, to photograph shorebirds with my panning plate and Frisbee. When you attach a camera and telephoto lens to a panning plate that is attached to a Frisbee, then lay flat on the sand maneuvering the Frisbee, you get unique perspective, a bird’s eye view of the subject. Beaches are not always sandy which is the case with Slaughter Beach depicted in the image above of a Semi-palmated Sandpiper at slaughter Beach. Knee pads help. This was the first time I’d done beach panning on a completely rocky beach and the resulting images are quite different from those taken on a sandy beach and I like the resulting images. The rocks, most rounded from being pummeled in the tides, create a great backdrop and stage for shorebirds giving a sense of place.
A Seaside Sparrow sings his heart out proclaiming his territory to the other males in the area and seeking a female companion. There is at least one other male competing in the area but I haven’t seen a female yet. Photographing this bird has been a challenge because although it favors a specific cluster of reeds and lands in the same place over and over so I know where to look for him, he seems to perch where the surrounding reeds partially obscure him. After watching him yesterday morning and shooting only when the reeds blew temporarily aside, he did an about face, hopped down, and suddenly he was in plain sight. After capturing a few shots as he sang, a vehicle passed by and flushed him from his perch. We left shortly after. I’ll look for him tomorrow.
Yesterday was our first day back in Delaware to photograph shorebirds. I noticed a lone Willet, in breeding plumage, as it bathed in a pond near the DuPont Nature Center where the aptly named Mispillion River spills into Delaware Bay. The Willet was enjoying its bath so much that I photographed it off and on over a 30 minute period. It bathed and preened and fluffed its feathers, doing a partial wing stretch. In most of the images, the water rippled around the bird as it enthusiastically bathed. The water had calmed a bit when I took this just as it roused to fluff its feathers.
It’s all gone?? A Blue-winged Mountain Tanager stares incredulously at an empty banana peel in Ecuador recently. The bananas were put out at a feeding station at Sachatamia Lodge in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest and the colorful tanagers were used to finding bananas there whenever they arrived. This one couldn’t believe the peel had nothing left. It did poke its beak up into the peel to verify but came away empty-beaked.
When I arrived in Ecuador, I thought I was there to photograph some of the 132 species of Hummingbirds that live in that magical place. I did see and photograph about ten percent of the Hummingbird species that live there but I discovered that the Tanagers were every bit as colorful and fascinating as the hummingbirds. This is the Glistening Green Tanager, a small bird with coloration unlike anything I’d ever seen. Even the colorful Amazon parrots that are primarily green, could not compete with this standout. I quickly realized after I arrived that it wasn’t only the Hummingbirds that make Ecuador a special birding place, but the Tanagers, as well.
What a morning at the Ferrari Pond Trail yesterday! The Coyote family was out and on display, basking in the morning sun. Five pups, Mom, Dad, and two juveniles from last year——a Nine Dog day! Only three are easily visible in this image, but a fourth, a second pup, is partially visible in front of Dad on the left. While Dad’s eyes seem to be trained on me, the pup and Mom are watching at least two of the pups bounding across the meadow toward one of the juvenile helpers. Another juvenile was napping to the right of this group and one of the pups went to visit that Coyote. It was fun to watch the antics of the small pups, rolling around on top of their parents, gnawing at their siblings’ tails, and romping through the tall grass. The goats are scheduled to start eating in the open spaces here next week. I don’t know how it’s going to work out with the Coyotes who have claimed that entire space as theirs. Time will tell.
Sometimes a bird doesn’t have to go far to find a feast. I had been watching a striking Blue-Gray Tanager perched in a tree when suddenly it hopped down a few branches. At its new location, I could see that it had found a feast of berries clustered on a branch (I haven’t been able to identify the tree) and it began to pluck berries one by one and consume them. This branch appears to have been a popular feasting site, as evidenced by empty nubs where berries once grew.
One of the cutest and fiercest birds we encountered in the Cloud Forest of Ecuador was a small warbler called the Slate-throated Redstart. This feisty little bird was attracted to the moths that were drawn to the light near the hide. All the Cloud Forest regulars stopped by for breakfast. The Redstart would grab a moth that was perched on the large canvas, then it would fly to a log or other perch and proceed to literally beat the life out of the moth, whapping it against log as the microscopic particles that cover the moth’s wings clouded the surrounding air and the wings broke apart. When the moth was subdued and most of the wings had broken off, the Slate-throated Redstart would gulp it down, ready to search for another breakfast morsel.
It was an exciting experience photographing some of the incredible Hummingbird species native to Ecuador a couple of weeks ago. It was even more exciting to photograph a native Ecuadorian bird perched on a native Ecuadorian plant. In this case, a female Purple-bibbed Whitetip took a rest on a fuchsia plant. Fuchsias, the kind of plants with pendulous blossoms reminiscent of ballerina skirts, are native to Ecuador and attract hummingbirds in areas that are cooler and more humid than my current home. I can’t grow those successfully where I live so it was very satisfying to see a hummer perched on one, even if there were no blossoms on the plant.
The Red-headed Barbet (only the male has a red head) gets its name from the stiff bristles that surround its beak, the barbs, as well as the bright red feathers of the male’s head. In the above images, the barbs are more visible in the female than the male because of the lighting and how they are holding their heads. What fascinates me about the Red-headed Barbets is that both the male and females are quite colorful. Even though the female has no bright red feathers, she can hold her own when it comes to colorful plumage.