Trogons

If you pull out a North American field guide that covers the western United States, there are some, well, "different" looking birds in it. The United States and Canada have about 750 regular occurring bird species. Many non birders are familiar with the common birds. Woodpeckers, American Robins, cardinals, sparrows, chickadees, ducks. The two countries cover a lot of area. When you look at the field guide, go to the sections that include hummingbirds, swifts, and kingfishers.

Somewhere in that section, you will see two birds labeled trogons. Depending on the version/edition, one may be referrred to as a quetzal. These barely reach into the United States. One has to travel to one particular area, of one particular state, to have just a chance to see these birds. That area is in Arizona.

Why that area? As warm as Florida is, and southern California, and south Texas, only that little part of Arizona is connected to rainforest or montane forest habitat in Mexico that is suitable to trogons. And so, birders flock there (like that little pun?) to find this bird, among other specialty species, so that they can "count" the bird in North America. Yes, eventually, I will get there, too.

So, lets look into my past. In 2007, I had yet to really travel into what I consider Latin America: any area south of the United States and Mexico border. I had taken a brief winter trip, for work, to follow birds on the Mexican Plateau. Fun work, but all the work was in grasslands. So, the birds I was seeing were sparrows, pipits, and various raptors and some limited shorebirds. In short, no birds I would truly consider tropical. All the species we looked at (save one) could be found in the United States or Canada. And since that trip, I have seen most of them in the United States.

I was working in Hawaii when I was offered an opportunity to work as a volunteer for a conservation organization in Ecuador. I jumped at the chance: I did not consider myself a strong applicant, but apparently I was. My birding bug was just starting to take hold at this point, and after I got my field guide, I was very anxious to see many of the species (especially the hummingbirds) illustrated in the field guide.

So, in mid-August, I jumped on an early morning plane to Ecuador. After my arrival, I relaxed and slept. I had another full day of travel afterward. So, from Quito, I got on another plane, flew to Loja, got onto a taxi, then took a bus to the station. I did not get to the station until the late evening (around 6:30, 7 pm or so), so it was dark when I arrived (equatorial time: sunrise around 6 am every day, sunset around 6 pm every day). In other words, even though I had spent about 36 hours in the country at that point, I hadn't seen much except scenery. Our station was at around 2.400 meters elevation (about 7.900 feet).

This was my first time traveling in a foreign country, alone, not being able to speak the native language very well. Hence the lack of birding at that point. I really didn't know what to do (and I hadn't discovered travel guides yet).

I coordinated my first days schedule with my trainer/coworker Leigh. Then rested, and woke up the next morning. Had my breakfast, and headed to the field area.

I walked the road to the trail head, and just relished where I was. I turned onto the trail, and saw a bird run across/along the trail. I had NO IDEA what it was. I later learned it was an antpitta, a group of birds I would become familiar with over the next two months (and since). There is nothing like that in North America. A shorter distance down the trail, a bird flew over my head, and landed on an exposed branch about 10 meters away.

And when I looked at that bird, I recall thinking to myself, welcome to the tropics. I knew I was about to see lots of wonderful things. Though I could not identify the bird to species at the moment (silly me, I wasn't carrying a field guide), it was my first (of many) trogon and quetzal species, the Masked Trogon (picture above). And I got to stare at it until I was tired. So for me, the quintessential tropical bird will always be trogons. I was in awe enough that I didn't get my camera out.

And we come to 19 November, 2010, during my most recent field site trip here in Peru. I knew coming down here, that I would see many new birds. One goal was at least 100 new species, and if I could, 169 species (to get me to 1.400 for the world). We were at our banding station, and during a moment that I was there getting ready to target net down the trail, we heard a deep calling trogon over our heads. Jess called out, "found it," while looking straight over her head.

New bird species number 100 for Peru for me was the Black-tailed Trogon (Trogon melanurus). How nice for that. It was my second new species of trogon for my life list from this trip to Peru, the first being Trogon viridis, or Green-backed (or White-tailed) Trogon. I love these birds colors.

And that wasn't the last of the trogon adventures here. After banding for our 500 net hours at site one, we picked up the nets and station, and moved further away into another area of the same white sand patch. We set up, and prepared for day 1 the next day.

Bird. After bird. After bird. Was caught. At one point, we ran out of bird bags. It was a busy morning. Murphy's law: when the boss can't be there, we get lots of work! During a net run, my coworker Oona came back with bird bags, and told us which were priority birds (hummingbirds and small birds get processed first), and told us that one bag was a fun surprise. No one thought much on it, except that we were anxious to find out what it was (we had many birds to process first).

When we got to the bird: a TROGON! The project had never caught one to this point, since they are usually flying around too high to be caught in a mist net.
[Photo courtesy of Judit Ungvari-Martin's work camera]

The awkward pose is because the birds have very short legs.

So, those two days were definitely highlights of my trip to Peru.

I continue to add new species to my life list here in Peru. I got 13 new species on our last 15 day trip, so I have slowed down a little, but I think part of that was how busy this last location is. I have gotten some of the white sand specialists that I have hoped to see, but wasn't counting on. Birds here are hard to detect and find, after all. Those two were Allpahuayo Antbird, and the Gray Legged Tinamou. Both offered wonderful looks, and the only time have gotten a better look at ANY tinamou species, was in Costa Rica, when the Little Tinamou came to our bird feeder. I am spending more time wandering around to find birds to target net, which has allowed me to spend more time photographing things other than birds, and to search for birds when I hear them singing or calling.

I don't expect to get to 1.400 bird species. But if I do, I will be tremendously happy. I have some free time here in the Amazon after this last trip is done, and I will use it as wisely and effectively as possible.

And during our last river boat ride, I reflected upon how lucky I am. I have been in Peruvian Amazon rainforest for the past three months. I will have seen, on average, more than one new species a day. Since first learning about the rainforest way back to I don't know when, I have thought it would be an awesome place to visit. And I have not been disappointed. I am very lucky to have had all these opportunities, and I look forward to having more.

Carpe diem. Try not to have regrets. Our lives are short, take every opportunity to do things you want to do. Remember to have fun.