Story 1
It is August already..where is July? , my gosh! still there are birds active with nesting and feeding fresh fledged immatures... "our" stripe throated Hermit is sitting on a new nest. The old nest is still there...I have the impression she was rebuilding it , but I think she did stop with that and build a new nest on another spot half a meter away from the other nest. That is what I think...maybe there are two different stripe throated Hermits...
Anyway, she is now on the nest, amazing because it is next to the entrance of the great Tinamou cottage and there were all the time guest in this cottage. The hormones did win!
It's hard to take a picture, it's a very private place...
A week ago I was with two birders in a more meadow area, watching birds and what I don't see often and for sure not taking a picture from was an eastern Meadowlark with a baby, they were getting food in the high grasses...and yes I have pictures to proof....cuteness!!
Another day I was birding with a Dutch couple and they did not know before...but we figured it out they are birdwatchers, super! And he takes great pictures! I am allow to use his picture of the pair of scarlet thighed Dacnis that we did see that morning, female above the male ...what a great shot!
And he did make a picture of a great Butterfly in El Valle (Panama), did ask me to ID...but well.... Butterflies I like them , but when I know all the birds, then I go into Butterflies... 😊😉 But our friend Dan , he is in birds and big time Butterflies and he did ID it! It's a Dusky-blue Groundstreak (Calycopis isobeon) Great story I like to share about this butterfly...
Here is Dan's story... This sp is in the Lycaenidae family......... common name-- Hairstreaks. Almost all of the many 100's of hairstreak species have those tiny 'tails' on the trailing edge of the hindwings---- like this one has. When perched, they rub the 2 hindwings together, and the tails move & wave back-&-forth.
Both the 'tails' -- the anatomical feature-- and the 'tails' being rubbed together-- a behavioral feature-- are thought to have evolved as a way of attracting the attention of a potential predator to a non-vital part of the bug-- the wings & not the body.
If the individual is not able to escape predation by movement, by flying away, the predator will very often be visually attracted to the movement, to the 'tails' moving/waving.
The tail can be 1/2 gone and the butterfly can often still fly, thus mate (the adult stage- the flying butterfly stage - is strictly the sexual or reproduction stage, and just a small part of the entire life cycle.). Should a predator hit the body, the predation effort is usually successful-- the butterfly gets eaten. If the predator hits the wing, often the butterfly escapes. Thus........ it's not uncommon to see hairstreaks that no longer have the portion of the wings where those 'tails' are located.
There are a good # of hairstreak sp's that live on/ near the ground... like this one. That's why the photo shows it perching on grass. While the great majority of hairstreak species are found in forests-- with most of the 'rarest' (least known) living high in the forest canopy, rarely coming near the ground--- the one in the photo is in a sub-family called Groundstreaks.
Common name of this one-- Dusky-blue Groundstreak (Calycopis isobeon), one of the most widespread--- from the tropics of S America to the semi-tropics of south Texas. [Hairstreaks are almost entirely found in the tropics--- with a worldwide distribution.]
My guess...... you've seen this butterfly sub-family, Groundstreaks, 100's of times--- very likely this same species, as it is one of the more common ones. As forests get replaced with grasslands/ pasture, the groundstreaks experience habitat increase--- rather than habitat loss.
It's just like with birds........ and so many life forms. If we take the time, there is often beauty there. If we don't look, we don't see.
Story 5
Hans and I crossed fingers for the nest and immatures in it from the rufous and white Wren pair. They were busy with building (took them 2 weeks) a nest in our spiny Palm tree in front of our balcony...but they did it in a dead palm leaf that was ready to fall down the tree. (I did see in my head already the disaster of sad babybirds on the ground)...But they made it...2 baby birds fledged and 4 days later the palm leaf did fell down!! Yess! Good timing!
Story 6
we did have some great mornings and afternoons weather wise and I did go a couple of times to different areas cloud forest... and of course did see the birds on our farm...
I took this video of the cloud forest on 1850 meters altitude... beautiful, I will never get use to that and yes we live here already 20 years! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgZpLTprwrM
Yesterday afternoon I did go to the wettest cloud forest in Boquete... you can see , this tree is so amazing .. lot of clouds there...lot of epiphytes
and immatures:
And so that was it...this morning a guest ask me if I could come and listen to the birds and tell him what we hear...he knows the birds big time in his country (USA), but here it's of course hard.
And so we had a short time , but I love that kind of things. Here is the list of this morning and I greet you all! Terry
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Tinamou Cottage Boquete, Chiriquí, PA Aug 5, 2018 6:00 AM - 7:00 AM Protocol: Historical 0.1 kilometer(s) Comments: just to hear and when light enough to see some from Highland Tinamou cottage to garden, not really "birdwatching" Little Tinamou 1 HO Spotted Wood-Quail 1 HO White-tipped Dove 1 + song Rufous-tailed Hummingbird 3 heard more Lesson's Motmot 2 + call and song Red-crowned Woodpecker 2 also heard call and song Golden-olive Woodpecker 1 HO Yellow-headed Caracara 1 Blue-headed Parrot 1 HO Streak-headed Woodcreeper 2 HO Yellow-bellied Elaenia 2 Ochre-bellied Flycatcher 1 Paltry Tyrannulet 1 HO Boat-billed Flycatcher 1 + call and song Social Flycatcher 1 HO Yellow-green Vireo 2 + song Rufous-breasted Wren 1 HO Rufous-and-white Wren 1 HO Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush 2 heard more Clay-colored Thrush 1 White-throated Thrush 2 heard also call (frog like) Rosy Thrush-Tanager 2 HO prob. more then 2 Rufous-capped Warbler 1 Buff-rumped Warbler 1 HO Blue-gray Tanager 1 Scarlet-thighed Dacnis 2 Red-legged Honeycreeper 3 + call Buff-throated Saltator 2 + call and song Black-striped Sparrow 3 + song ( bouncing ball) Yellow-crowned Euphonia 1 Thick-billed Euphonia 7 Lesser Goldfinch 2 HO
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