Three full days at Los Amigos Biological Station was something Susanne and I were both very much looking forward to, but at the same time we were already aware that this wasn't going to be enough time. I'd only been here once before, on a fam trip with Sam Woods of Tropical Birding, and it was partly from my blogging on that trip that Susanne suggested we come here. Without trying, Sam and I had seen just under 200 species of birds on one day, only walking down trails from the lodge and spending a lot of time trying to see sneaky anthrushes and tinamous.
This morning we had a hard time tearing ourselves away from the clearing, where bird activity was nearly nonstop. A huge fruiting melastome tree was right next to our cabins, and flocks of wintering Eastern Kingbirds and many tanagers, such as this Paradise Tanager came through.
This Straight-billed Woodcreeper preferred the edge habitat created by the lodge clearing.
Possibly a migrant or at least a lingering wintering bird, this Swainson's Flycatcher was also feeding from fruits in the clearing.
We were required to mark on a chalkboard which trails we would be taking and when we would be returning, but I had no idea how fast we would be walking and how much ground we might cover. I did know one thing – we were going to be heading towards trail 13. We had the great fortune of meeting Nito Paniagua when we arrived, a well-known guide from Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica who looks more Irish than Costa Rican. He is here volunteering as a consultant for the station, finding the best birding trails and thinking of ways to improve them for birding groups. He had been birding for several days already and told us about finding the nearly mythical Black-faced Cotingas recently. That was one of my most wanted birds! This was Nito's first trip to this part of Peru, so he was seeing lots of new birds himself. He is very enthusiastic about all other aspects of natural history as well, and his enthusiasm was contagious. So after breakfast, Susanne and I started down the old road towards trail 13. As you can see from this trail map, we didn't make it far – the red is our morning route, the blue is what we did in the afternoon.
It wasn't long before we encountered our first mushroom, a Polyporus species.
It had apparently rained plenty recently, and many mushrooms meant we weren't traveling very quickly. Here are two species of wood-ear for a convenient comparison: Auricularia fuscosuccinea with the smooth underside and Auricularia delicata with the web-like structure.
We encountered quite a bit of bird activity too, but this White-bellied Tody-Tyrant was the only one I managed to photograph.
This mushroom is in the huge genus Marasmius, more of which we'll see in the next days. They tend to have very durable, flexible, almost wiry stems, an equally durable and rubbery cap, and come in all sizes and colors. Most decompose small sticks and leaf litter.
Eventually we made it down to the area
where Nito had seen the cotingas, and when I heard a Smooth-billed
Ani calling from the distant canopy, I thought I might have it.
Indeed, it sounds surprisingly similar to that species, and one flew
in almost instantly to my playback. It also responded quite well to
my whistled imitation as well. I got one poor photo, as it tended to
stay quite high in the back-lit canopy. This species is the answer to
the trivia question, which bird is named after a hot sauce?
Conioptilon mcilhennyi.
Both us of very content with the Black-faced Cotinga, Susanne got back to work photographing mushrooms while I worked on butterflies and plants. This widespread hairstreak is the Common Stripe-streak, Arawacus separata.
A not-so-common hairstreak, and perhaps
unidentifiable to species is this Janthecla sp.
Skippers are sometimes gorgeous but
often brown and with only very subtle differences between species. I
don't even know the genus of this one yet.
This one is in the genus Pellicia.
And this is in Nisoniades, a
genus known as tufted-skippers.
Closely related to the Dimorphic White
of the previous blogs, this is the very widespread Painted White,
Pieriballia viardi.
Only
after getting these shots (out of dozens of useless ones) was I able
to identify this restless swallowtail as an Emerald-patched
Cattleheart, Parides sesostris.
This
tiny gem is a Gyas Jewelmark, Sarota gyas.
This species seems to be quite variable, but at least in males the
second blue line in on the forewing seems to always be only three
cells high, followed by a big gap.
The almost inflated bracts in the
inflorescence makes me think that this prayer plant is in the genus
Hylaeanthe rather than Calathea.
We played around bit with this bess
beetle, in the small family Passalidae. I'm pretty sure that “bess”
comes from the word meaning “kiss” (still used in English as
“buss” and in the Spanish “beso”), for the kissing sound the
beetle makes.
We took a short break for lunch back at
the cafeteria, where I photographed this jumping spider, always
photogenic, seeming to show a real sense of purpose, if you can get
them to sit still long enough.
We were out again at 1:30, determined
to go a bit more quickly to cover some more ground. It was hard. We
first spent a fair amount of time trying to see this Fiery-capped
Manakin, and we eventually had amazing views.
Another prayer plant in bloom, and this
one I think is a Calathea species.
This appears to be the very widespread
Cayenne Forest Tiger Beetle, Odontocheila cayennensis, one of
the few species of tiger beetles one can find in the forest
understory.
I'm pretty sure I've narrowed down this
grasshopper to the genus Episomacris, in the subfamily
Ommatolampidinae. There are two species known from this area,
according to orthoptera.speciesfile.org.
The two sombermarks Euselasia pelor
and E. pellonia are so similar, I don't know if this one can
be identified to species.
For some reason the satyrs in the genus
Magneuptychia don't seem to be well known. According to
http://butterfliesofamerica.com/,
Gerardo Lamas is in the process of naming 11 new species; this could
easily be one of them, or perhaps yet another undescribed species.
I got a bit caught up in the fabulous
mushroom diversity here as well. Thanks to Susanne and the book The
Kingdom of Fungi by Jens H. Petersen, I could name this oddball
one as Camillea leprieurii. It's one of many flask fungi, to
which group the parasitic Cordyceps also belongs (more on that
in upcoming posts). I'm not sure what the little white filaments are
on some – maybe another mushroom growing on it?
This unknown tiny mushroom looks very
similar but appears to be growing straight out of the wood.
This Xylaria species is also a
flask fungus.
This more typical mushroom is probably
in the genus Xeromphalina.
Another Marasmius sp., and a
very pretty one at that.
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