That was June 2025

 

Time flies by and June 2025 has slipped through my fingers. Almost every day I went out with my binoculars, often on the farm, but also outside the farm. No big day trips, because we are busy on the farm with  doing chores. June is the month of the immatures. Everywhere you hear the squeaking of newly fledged young. The parents are busy looking for food, often with young noisy baby birds flying behind and around them. Every year I notice that the busiest times for fledging are late afternoons around 4pm. In June it often rains heavily that time. Don't always see the logic in it. You often see such a small baby bird squeaking in the rain asking for food. How many birds survive that.? Why not fly out early in the morning, then the sun often shines and more food can be found. Maybe the reason is that there are few active enemies in the rain?

Yes, after all these years of birdwatching I am still full of questions without really satisfying answers...

Two days I was birdwatching the whole day. One Day was with my friend Ann, we went to a "new"city park in the town David. It was very nice. The park is not finished yet and that makes it that some areas are pretty wild and so good for birds. This nest of a rufous and white Wren was made in a brush of very big spines..with in the spines ants who can bite bad..when you disturb them . A very safe place  for the birds...apparently it is a great symbiosis. The name of the brush is Bullhorn acacia. The spines are home  to ants that protect the plant also from herbivory.

Another day I did go to a big farm high up in the mountains, the owners of the farm are big coffee growers, but the biggest part of the farm is protected area and even a part of it is nacional park.

It is so great of the owners that I can go there and see the birds and wild life. When I see something special I always let them know that. Did see good birds including juvenile Quetzales. Did hike from1850m altitude to 2750m altitude. My highlight was this cute immature buffy Tuftedcheek...

Super cute! I was sitting for 1,5 hour just there on the level of 2750 m in the clouds..cold and happy!

On the way back I did see 4 resplendent Quetzales , one of them was a juvenile Male. 

and I felt on a certain  moment that somebody was staring at me...love this picture:

SO cloud forest!

On another morning trip did see on the Quetzal trail a lot of immatures prong billed Barbets. One was just fledged...

and a whole family...

a cute immature white throated Mountain Gem

Last June week I took these pictures that I do like to share with you...one from our balcony a juvenile white-naped Brush-Finch :

And a nice very young female collared Trogon (orange bellied) on 1850 meters altitude ...

Well July is already arrived and that means that still birds...like Seedeaters /  Grassquits / Sparrows / Tinamous / Woodrails are nesting and here on the farm a lot of singing orange-billed Nightingale Thrushes . No songs any more from clay colored Thrushes and white throated Thrushes.

I do see a lot of juvenile clay colored Thrushes and white Throated Thrushes, they look messy with their not really adult plumage.

And last but not least...the highlight of the month was a Sunbittern in our  stream on the farm. Not a new bird for me but yes new for the farm and a nice thing was also that I heard his call...that was new for me!

This was my story of the month June 2025...up to new bird stories!

Greetings from Terry

Trip to the Netherlands May 2025 and Global Big Day 2025

Hello all, well we did go to the Netherlands. 

We booked last minute, this because we did not know what was going to happen in the world.

(still not....)(politics, wars)

 But we took the chance and did see most of our family and friends and the Dutch birds of course.

We decided to stay nearby our family (nearby Amsterdam), so we could save time and did not loose too much time with travel.

This time earlier in the spring time, so that's why I start this story with the Eurasian Linnet. She was my champion in singing this year in the Netherlands.

I did have a few highlights of course..did see for the first time in my life a huge group of common Sandpipers. They breed in much of northern Europe and Siberia, and pass through the Netherlands in large numbers during migration.

You need to enlarge the photos a bit, but wanted to post them anyway. Had to zoom in quite a bit. These photos were taken in the "Waterleidingduinen" ..dunes... in North of Netherlands.

The goose is a Canada Goose, they are common...more and more.

 

We witnessed a fight between two Buzzards in a creek. I was filming it...but while filming I had had enough. It got ugly, stopped filming and we walked away...on the way back we saw one of the birds lying dead in the water. I had never heard of it and looked it up to see if it ever happened...this was the answer... Buzzards are territorial and protect their territory, which sometimes leads to fights with other buzzards or other birds of prey, but deadly fights are rare.

On a happier note.. it was quite a while ago that I saw a gray Wagtail, this was in Denekamp on the German border. At the same spot we  saw two  different Flycatchers.  Both are migrants and had probably just arrived. They were singing at the top of their lungs!

a gray Wagtail male

spotted Flycatcher

European pied Flycatcher

In the middle of Amsterdam suddenly in a tree an Eurasian Goshawk:

What struck me is that I saw very few black-tailed Godwits (Grutto). Spoke to a gentleman who fixed my binoculars👌 He told me that he often goes out with his boat...and that he had only seen one black-tailed Godwit in the area so far, where normally many more can be seen. It was also super dry in the Netherlands, almost no rain fell and to this day still not enough rain.

Anyway... for sure there were also a lot of nice birds to see... my best pictures:

gray Heron (blauwe Reiger)

                                                                     Mute Swans (Knobbelzwanen)

                                                                                      

eurasian collared Dove (Tortelduif)

Egyptian Goose (Nijlgans)

European Robin (Roodborst)

white Stork (Ooievaar)

graylag Goose (grauwe Ganzen)

Barn Swallow (Boerenzwaluw)

common Moorhen (Waterhoen)

I did notice also that more and more people in the Netherlands are interested in Birds👍

Did see more Dutch people  with binoculars. I notice that also in Panama... more Dutch people are 

interested in birdwatching :)

The nice part of the Netherlands ..it is flat... no mountains, so easy😊😊

my sis with her binoculars

Me watching birds on  'Landje van Gruijters"

Me watching birds in "Buitenplaats Leyduin"

Me in heaven.. "in het Wormer- en Jisperveld"

early morning (6.30am) in Heemstede

I have the idea that the people who live in this house

are bird lovers 😍😍

And then ...the 9th of May 2025 we did arrive at home in Boquete Panama...and the next day it was 

 Global Big Day and so at 6am I was counting birds, starting on our farm and did go to two other areas and counted until 7pm. 

Totally different world and of course a jetlag. But that was no problem..

I was SO awake, thanks to the many birds and the whole day great weather!!!

 

The highlights of this day were an immature emerald Toucanet..just fletched.

 And a group of three wattled Bellbirds Juveniles were displaying.

I do have videos of both highlights, will post them on my Youtube channel.

Here some pictures of the GBD 2025, Panama is by the way nr. 7 on the GBD world list, everywhere

in Panama.. birdwatchers were counting birds..a lot of new birdwatchers, mostly very young people!

immature emerald Toucanet just fletched

not birds but I love this kind of encounters

a Bat Falcon in front of her nest

Okay not the best Picture of a resplendent Quetzal

tufted Flycatcher

almost 7pm and 161 birds further and ready for a cup of coffee 😉

So this was the month of May..up to the next month!

That is the month  with a lot of  immature birds... 

So more stories to tell

Greetings from Terry

https://coffeeadventures.net/tinamou.html

https://www.youtube.com/@terryvanniekerktinamoucott7548

 

                                                                    

the Vermillion Flycatcher female update

 Hello, the vermillion Flycatcher  female is still here in the park. While I was in the Netherlands(update later this week)  she was feeding the immatures of the fork tailed Flycatcher family . The family is gone now, but the female vermillion decided to stay? 

We will keep an eye on her...curious what she is going to do!

Greetings Terry

baby Great Fruit-eating Bat fell to the ground

 Hello...another story in exciting April!

A day ago I walked to our laundry. When I walked down the stairs I saw a bat lying on the floor.

I honestly thought it was dead. But when I put on my gloves, I saw that the ears were moving and when I wanted to pick it up, it stretched out. A baby fruit bat.. so cute.

 Above the bat was the colony and so she had fallen out. I thought maybe I should hang it somewhere nearby..then the mother will find her. At that moment I thought, just show that I am her to the rest.

So I raised my arm and suddenly 1 bat from the group flies to my hand... the mother!!! Flies on my hand on the little one and made a trembling movement and a trembling sweet soft movement. I tried to take a picture...but I was one hand short..that was "occupied" with 2 bats. After about 30 seconds, the mother and child flew into the forest. What an experience again!!

Greetings from Terry

By the way I thought it was a Jamaican fruit eating Bat, but it is the great fruit eating Bat

I did post a short video  from the colony on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAwwmrv2qpE

https://coffeeadventures.net/tinamou.html

A vermilion Flycatcher in a nest of pair of fork tailed Flycatchers.......

 

This morning I was with Ann in the park in Boquete ... for Ann it was the first time that she would see a female Vermilion Flycatcher (that was the goal), she had just like me only seen the male abroad. So for her a new bird just like I did last Saturday, for Panama. On Sunday another group had seen the female vermilion flycatcher female (still there) and strangely enough she was at one point in a nest of a fork tailed Flycatcher? As far as I know she does not breed here in Panama and is a rare migrant. And then sharing the nest with another kind of Flycatcher? We saw quite a few special things this morning. The first thing we saw was that she was flycatching ... a normal thing huh? Then she sat on the ground and took a twig in her beak (luckily Ann had her camera at that moment, see down below :)) and flew with it into the tree. She was attacked by a pair of fork tailed Flycatchers that have a nest there. Then she went back to catch flies for a while and after about an hour she flew back into the tree, this time with a white feather. Towards the nest. The male fork tailed Flycatcher was sitting on the nest breeding, the female fork tailed Flycatcher was trying to get the Vermilion Flycatcher away.. the Vermilion Flycatcher did join the fork tailed Flycatcher male on the nest.. (see video and of course Ann and I were talking about this phenomenon... are her hormones at a peak? She is totally out of sorts? Will she leave at some point? We are going to study this bird a bit more and read about it.

Greetings from Terry

to the right you see the female Fork tailed Flycatcher 

try to chase away the Vermilion Flycatcher from her

"husband" and nest and the Vermilion Flycatcher is 

already almost on the nest:)

                                            This picture shows the bird with the twig that she

                                             took with her in the tree

We had a great morning: