Gracias Ecuador Part 3

02 October 2014

Rio Canande to Las Penas

Today we are due to leave Rio Canande mid morning but whilst waiting for Rolando to arrive Dusan and myself took to the canopy tower after breakfast to try and rustle up some more new bird species and get further acquainted with those we had already seen.

It was a warm but dull, grey day with rain in the air but this is good for looking for birds as with hot sunny weather the birds seek cover and like the rest of us become less active. The usual crop of tanagers were still actively feeding in the flowering Cecropia Trees.The ubiquitous Lemon Rumped Tanagers seemed to be everywhere and a Guayaquil Woodpecker put in sporadic appearances on various trees spread out before us.

Guayaquil Woodpecker c Dusan Brinkhuizen

A Bananaquit with an attractive yellow and black facial combination flicked in and out of the tree top leaves and a Masked Tityra was a good find in yet another tree. 

Masked Tityra c Dusan Brinkhuizen

Flycatchers were to the fore today, not the ones we are used to,that are small and demure but big, bold and brash in sulphur yellows and browns, Rusty-margined, Boat-billed and Piratic Flycatchers were all on the wires along with Snowy-throated and Tropical Kingbirds. All well and good but we were looking for new species to add to the list.

Dusan alerted me to a song I had not heard before. It was a Bright-rumped Attila. Don't Ecuador birds have brilliant names? He played a tape of its song. Now some birds react to a tape and come almost instantly to investigate whilst others ignore the tape completely. This bird not only reacted positively but virtually perched beside us singing for all its worth and at one point was only a foot or so above my head in a branch just above the top of the tower. It refused to move even after we stopped playing the tape and just sang on and on, even giving Dusan time to go back and get his camera from the camp and return for some point blank images.

A somewhat drab bird apart from possessing a bright lemon yellow back, rump and uppertail coverts. It is a fairly large member of the Tyrant Flycatcher group and its broad based bill gives an indication of its flycatcher credentials.It also has a beautiful melodic song

Bright rumped Attila - green morph

The other minor triumph we had was tempting a Bay Wren almost out into the open.This species is a notorious skulker, the Ecuadorian version of our Cetti's Warbler if you like and just like the Cetti's it has a similar short explosive song invariably belted out at maximum volume from within the stygian depths of the undergrowth. There however the resemblance ends as unlike the drab overall brown of our Cetti's Warbler the Bay Wren is a marvellous combination of black and white on its head with russet brown upperparts, copious tiger stripe barring across the wings and tail and barred white underparts. A really beautiful bird if you can see it, and quite big too.

Dusan played  the tape and the wren responded. That was the easy part. However, by chance the wren positioned itself right below the tower and unaware of our presence up top allowed us to look down on it although it was still ensuring it was partially obscured. This was as good as it ever gets with a Bay Wren so we made the most of it. It really was a cracker to see it so well and singing.

Bay Wren 

Rolando duly arrived to collect us and it was time to say our farewells and head for our next destination, Las Penas which is on the Pacific coast. We set off back the way we had come to Rio Canande, stopping every so often when we encountered a passing flock of birds moving through the trees. On one of these stops I saw a flash of metallic, shimmering blue passing through the green leaves and when it emerged on the road saw it was a butterfly and what an incredible butterfly. It was huge, easily the size of a large saucer and moving with a combination of grace and speed as it flapped its enormous wings and deftly manoeuvered through the trees. Dusan and some subsequent research told me it was a Morpho butterfly of which there are 29 species, all to be found in the Neotropical Zone and much prized by collectors.

Morpho Butterfly

We made another stop off at a site which Dusan had been given for Slaty-colored Seedeater and frustratingly we could hear one singing nearby but it just would not come to a tape and eventually it stopped singing and although we had a pretty good idea where it was we just could not locate it. In the end we gave up and returned to the ferry we had originally come across, and having crossed back over the river we set off in the direction of Las Penas. A close Rusty-margined Flycatcher gave some great photo opportunities just after leaving the ferry but it was now getting very hot and I retreated to the pickup for yet more water and some shade. 

Rusty-margined Flycatcher.The rusty margins are on the edges of the flight feathers

Although still travelling on dirt roads we were now out of the tropical rain forest and mile upon mile of depressing, virtually bird free palm oil plantations spread out on either side of us. It was so disheartening as the people who work in these plantations are cruelly exploited and get paid a pittance whilst the owners get very rich. Sadly there is no minimum wage here. Minimum in Ecuador palm oil plantations means exactly that - pay as little as possible. Also it was a sobering thought to realise that these miles of arid palm oil plantations were once tropical rain forest but will never be so again.

Unnamed ferry

After crossing yet another river on another rudimentary ferry powered by no less than three outboard engines we drove for a while through yet more palm oil plantations before stopping for our boxed lunch in the shade of some trees and opposite a small house whose dogs provided a noisy welcome on their side of the road - well not so welcome but more threatening if you ask me but they soon settled down after a few sharp words while a couple of Ecuadorian Ground Doves provided a welcome new species for me.

Ecuadorian Ground Dove

We set off again after our lunch with the dogs now having plucked up enough courage to chase the pickup down the road, snarling and barking a farewell.

We had some curious directions to head for a town called Ronca Tigrillo which translated means The Ocelotte that Roars. Very strange and quite amusing but we followed the directions and inevitably got slightly lost. We came to a dusty village and stopped at the police station which was no more than a wooden shack complete with a policeman asleep in a hammock underneath the awning. He was helpful enough once awake and we set off following his directions and after a very long and boring drive reached a tarmac road albeit with plenty of potholes. The journey was only enlivened by children in the small villages we passed through, trying to sell bags of limes to us each time we slowed down at the road humps that guard every village as a substitute to speed cameras. As we got nearer the sea the limes were replaced by kids proffering plates of langoustines no less and very delicious and tempting they looked too. Soon after I could see the blue of the Pacific Ocean over to my left and we stopped to look down on the sea with Magnificent Frigatebirds floating majestically and with hardly a wing flicker over our heads. This was more like it. Strange, black, iridescent crow like birds that perched on telephone wires with huge paddle shaped tails turned out to be Great-tailed Grackles. Another one for the list.

Magnificent Frigatebird - female

Following the main road we came to a shrimp farm with two wooded islands looking suspiciously like mangroves and absolutely festooned with Magnificent Frigatebirds and Brown Pelicans - there must have been hundreds of each species, preening as they perched on the branches overhanging the water or flying around looking for a perching site. It was a truly incredible spectacle and we parked for an all too brief time here on a road we should not really have stopped on. Rolando found a smart male Red legged Honeycreeper on the other side of the road, yet another new species for me and in the company of a couple of Blue-gray Tanagers.

Magnificent Frigatebirds

Brown Pelican adult and juvenile

Brown Pelicans

I got some images of the frigatebirds and pelicans, not as many as I wanted but we really had to move on as there was still some way to go to Las Penas and Dusan placated me with the tempting offer of some interesting wetlands to look over at Las Penas before we sought out our hotel for the night.

So we pressed on to Las Penas and Dusan was as good as his word as we drove slightly past the town and came to a vast swampy wetland by the side of the road called Laguna de Cuidad on the La Tola Road.

La Tola Road in the rush hour

Rolando and his trusty pickup while Dusan scopes the wetlands

This was more like it and something I felt more at ease and familiar with as a result of all the wetland bird surveys I had conducted in the UK. The numbers of birds were incredible. There must have been over a thousand Great White Egrets, together with lesser numbers of Snowy and  Cattle Egrets on the first lagoon we came to plus many Blue winged Teal and Ecuador's version of our Grey Heron called Cocoi Heron, that looks similar to our heron but with minor differences! Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Least and Spotted Sandpipers wandered the shore. It was heaven! Brilliant red, male, Vermilion Flycatchers sat on bushes hunting insects as did the more drab, grey looking females.

We drove further down the road which thankfully only had light traffic passing along it to a flooded area that Dusan said was particularly good and he was right. Our main aim was to see a Pinnated Bittern, described as rare, and much desired by birders visiting Ecuador. This apparently was the place to see one but we could not locate it. So we concentrated on identifying the wealth of waders and wildfowl that were frequenting this favoured spot. There were flocks of Fulvous and Black bellied Whistling Ducks, Wattled Jacana's, both adult and immature, Semipalmated Plovers, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Southern Lapwings and singles of American Golden Plover, Hudsonian Whimbrel and Pectoral Sandpiper.

We continued looking and as usually happens in such situations we began to find more and more good birds, Tricolored Heron, Black crowned Night Heron and Striated Heron all revealed themselves but the best find was three properly wild Muscovy Ducks. Not a trace of the ugly swollen red skin on their faces thank you but ducks sporting a beautiful, iridescent bottle green plumage with a prominent white wing flash and only the hint of a knob of bare skin on their bill. These were a really good find as they are becoming scarce in Ecuador now. Some Wood Storks flew across and a Purple Gallinule emerged from a ditch. Dusan found a Peruvian Meadowlark, slightly smaller than a blackbird with brown upperparts but with a crimson red throat and breast, its bright underparts competing with the vivid red of the Vermilion Flycatchers. Two Harris Hawks flew over creating the expected panic on the marsh as everything took off but they passed on and the birds settled once again. Dusan took one final look and at last found a Pinnated Bittern, not too dis-similar to our bittern being the same overall brown but with numerous horizontal black bars of increasing width across its plumage from head to tail. It did what bitterns do best, just stood motionless in the wet grass with its head uptilted but we had seen it and that is all that mattered at the moment.

The light was slowly fading so we left, with more familiar Barn Swallows and Sand Martins steadily heading south on migration low over the marsh, to find our hotel for the night, planning to spend the next morning back here at the Laguna and possibly if time permitted at a nearby shrimp farm. Las Penas is a ramshackle town of  rickety wooden houses contrasting with a few modern brick constructed hotels built amongst them. It has the seedy charm that only very close proximity to the sea can bring. Put all this inland and you would not even consider stopping. The main street is a dusty, sandy road fringed with a line of tiny restaurants, well, that is a bit of an exaggeration, they are basically wooden shacks open at each end with one end open onto the road and the other opening directly onto the white sand beach. We drove past these without stopping but planned to come and eat at one of them later after checking into our hotel.

Our visit to Las Penas was definitely out of season but that was good as I would imagine the town would be far busier and consequently less attractive during the holiday season. We decided to stay further out of the town as it would be quieter and found a large, modern, slightly run down hotel imaginatively called Hotel Las Penas.  It had two floors and looked directly out onto the beach, and after rousing the person in charge we booked three rooms on the second floor. I think we were the only three people staying there as it was quite spooky and silent in the dark but the joy of a proper bed, a shower and all facilities after the privations of the days before was not to be underestimated. We dropped off our stuff, each of us had a cold shower and then Rolando, Dusan and myself drove into town and cruised the restaurant/shacks until we settled on one we fancied - Bar Manibita.

The whole road was now, at night, a blaze of gaudy coloured lights from the restaurants and shops selling the usual seaside tat Ecuadorian style. Vibrant with life, music with a Latin beat and televisions on full volume blared out from some of the establishments and each shack had someone 'front of house' to beseech us to favour them with our custom as we cruised past.

The smell and sound of the ocean just yards from our table in Bar Manibita and the promise of extravagant seafood dishes was a heady mix  and for the first time on the trip we had a beer, to celebrate Dusan's lifer - the Speckled Mourner. In Las Penas incidentally many of the people were of African origin rather than South American. According to Dusan they are all descended from a slave ship that was wrecked on the coast here centuries ago.

The girl that served us was certainly African and what a meal we had. Delicious soup and seafood from a kitchen that would never make it through an official food inspection in the UK but who cared as they served up a concoction to die for followed by a type of almost creamy white milkshake called I think Guanabana. It was a white, sweet and utterly irresistible concoction.

Bar Manabita - myself and Rolando

Yours truly and Rolando getting down to eating. The entire meal was $8.00 each
  Note the obligatory fried plantains on the blue plate.They are served with virtually
every meal

Replete we completed the bird log and the meal was so good we arranged to come back to have a special Ecuadorian seafood breakfast here at 8.30 the next morning after a few of hours birding back at Laguna de Cuidad

Leaving the bright lights we retired to our hotel, driving back through the side streets, passing whole families sitting outside their homes just chatting or eating in the cloying warmth of the evening whilst some kids played a game of football, utilising the entire street as a pitch, illuminated  by the streetlights and cheerily ushering us to drive between their makeshift goalposts as they carried on kicking the ball around.

A Hedge - Ecuadorian style

Birds seen and heard today

h = heard only
ec =Choco Endemic

Little Tinamou (h); Magnificent Frigatebird; Neotrpic Cormorant; Brown Pelican; Fulvous Whistling Duck; Black bellied Whistling Duck; Muscovy Duck; Blue winged Teal; Pinnated Bittern; Cocoi Heron; Great White Egret; Snowy Egret; Tricolored Heron; Cattle Egret; Striated Heron; Black crowned Night Heron; Wood Stork; Black Vulture; Turkey Vulture; Hook billed Kite; Swallow tailed Kite; Harris's Hawk; White throated Crake (h); Purple Gallinule; Common Gallinule; Wattled Jacana; Greater Yellowlegs; Lesser Yellowlegs; Willet; Spotted Sandpiper; Hudsonian Whimbrel; Semipalmated Sandpiper; Least Sandpiper; Pectoral Sandpiper; Stilt Sandpiper; Short billed Dowitcher; Black necked Stilt; Southern Lapwing; American Golden Plover; Semipalmated Plover; Pale vented Pigeon; Ruddy Pigeon; Dusky Pigeon (ec) (h); Equadorian Ground Dove; White tipped Dove; Rose faced Parrot (ec); Bronze winged Parrot; Little Cuckoo; White collared Swift; Violet bellied Hummingbird; Purple crowned Fairy; Western white tailed Trogon(h); Ringed Kingfisher; Green Kingfisher; Broad billed Motmot(h); Choco Toucan (ec); Chestnut mandibled Toucan; Lineated Woodpecker; Black cheeked Woodpecker; Pacific Hornero; Slaty Spinetail (h); Streak headed Woodcreeper; Sooty headed Tyrannulet; Yellow crowned Tyrannulet; Yellow bellied Elaenia; Common Tody Flycatcher; Bran colored Flycatcher; Western Wood Peewee; Vermilion Flycatcher; Masked Water Tyrant; Bright rumped Attila; Boat billed Flycatcher; Rusty margined Flycatcher; Streaked Flycatcher; Piratic Flycatcher; Tropical Kingbird; Snowy throated Kingbird; Cinnamon Becard; Masked Tityra; White bearded Manakin; Red-eyed Vireo; Lesser Greenlet; White thighed Swallow; Southern Rough winged Swallow; Sand Martin; Barn Swallow; Bay Wren; House Wren(h); Southern Nightingale Wren(h); Bananaquit; Red legged Honeycreeper; Yellow tufted Dacnis; Gray and Gold Tanager; Blue gray Tanager; Palm Tanager; Lemon rumped Tanager; Summer Tanager; Dusky faced Tanager; White lined Tanager; Tawny crested Tanager; Buff throated Saltator; Slate colored Grosbeak(h); Lesser Seed Finch; Slate colored Seedeater(h); Variable Seedeater; Yellow bellied Seedeater; Scarlet rumped Cacique; Great tailed Grackle; Red breasted Blackbird;

108 species(49 new)


03 0ctober 2014

Las Penas


After a good night's sleep we were up at the comparatively late hour of 6am to make our way back to Laguna de Cuidad. Whilst waiting for Dusan and Ronaldo to appear I used the deserted hotel balcony to do a bit of birding. A Grey Plover flew north over the beach calling in its usual mournful way. A Yellow crowned Night Heron was a good find on a bush by the hotel fence and a couple of Vermilion Flycatchers were chasing insects around the hotel buildings. Along the adjacent beach, lines of Brown Pelicans stoically flew along looking for a suitable fishing spot and a Great tailed Grackle sat at the top of a television aerial. Blue gray and Lemon rumped Tanagers bounced around in the bushes.

Las Penas was coming awake at the same time as we slowly made our way back down the sandy track to the La Tola Road on a sunny, already warm, early morning. Another Yellow crowned Night Heron wandered around on some waste ground and a very bedraggled Smooth billed Ani sat on some wires above the road. These birds are a bit like our magpies, often found in groups and with a similar mischievous demeanour about them.

Smooth billed Ani

We dodged the careering, brightly coloured buses coming into town and set off along La Tola Road. If anything there were even more Great White Egrets than yesterday and they scattered as we stopped to admire them. A couple of Wood Storks also eyed us warily and further on a group of them were fishing with some Great White Egrets. one eventually catching a huge fish which it carried off to the bank to consume. 

Great White Egrets

Wood Storks

Wood Storks and Great White Egrets

We pressed on heading back to our favourite bit of the wetland to have another look for Pinnate Bitterns. One was already standing there, maybe it was the same one from last night, basking in the early morning sun. I looked again and there were now two as another stuck its head and neck above the long grass. We kept checking and eventually no less than four were standing like sentinels absolutely motionless in the grass.Such strange birds.

Pinnate Bittern

On the other side of the road a pair of Olivaceous Piculets were quietly preening in a tree. Tiny miniscule woodpeckers, no bigger than a Great Tit, drab in overall colour but with black and white spotted crowns. 

Olivaceous Piculet

Vermilion Flycatchers were perched at regular intervals on the fence along the road, impossibly exotic and quite a common resident around here

Vermilion Flycatcher - male

We re- checked the Muscovy Ducks and now found nine on these wetlands that stretch for miles alongside the road and thankfully are fully protected. We slowly worked our way down the road checking each area of wetland. A Roadside Hawk was perched in a tree by the road and for once did not fly off when we stopped to admire it. 

Roadside Hawk

We came to almost the end of the wetland and checked one final marshy area that was full of waders but with very different species to the ones on our side of the Atlantic. Dusan asked my opinion on the identification of one small wader he was looking at. Its wings extended well beyond the tail and gave it a streamlined look. About the size of a Dunlin but slimmer. It was a White-rumped Sandpiper, a real rarity in Ecuador. We spent quite some time with it, looking, checking and taking numerous photos. Then another flew in! The original individual was feeding in the close company of a Least Sandpiper and a Stilt Sandpiper and as is often the way with juvenile waders they were confiding and allowed a close approach.

Stilt Sandpipers

Least Sandpiper

White rumped Sandpiper

The White-rumped Sandpiper eventually stopped feeding and started preening when its all white rump was revealed to fully confirm its identity. Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs were also feeding here as were a Semipalmated Sandpiper and Semipalmated Plover and walking back to the pickup a Common Tody Flycatcher got very excited about our presence and loudly scolded us from a bush. 

Greater Yellowlegs

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Semipalmated Plover

Common Tody Flycatcher

Time was passing fast and we were up against the clock. I could easily have spent another day here but the schedule unfortunately did not allow for it. We did not realise just how good this area was and we had also spent a lot more time than planned checking the identity of the White-rumped Sandpiper.
A brief look over the other side of the road revealed some more pools and a nice North American wader trio consisting of a Short billed Dowitcher, Stilt Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs were wading about accompanied by Wattled Jacanas and Least Sandpipers.

Short billed Dowitcher

Short billed Dowitcher, Stilt Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs

We had one more destination planned before returning to Las Penas for breakfast. It was an area of mangroves where Dusan hoped we could find a Mangrove Warbler. We duly turned off the road and drove a short distance down a dirt track to the edge of yet another village of wooden shacks and parked beside the mangroves. Despite the early hour music was already blasting at full volume from one of the shacks which is not an unusual occurence in such villages. 

Mangroves

The track back to La Tola Road from the village

Disco shack on the left!

The music sounded like a combination of hip hop and reggae and Dusan told me it was very popular with the locals and went under the name of Reggaeton. Ecuadorians love to party at any time and on any day and the music goes on non stop. All well and good in this case but you could not hear yourself think let alone play a tape in the hope of attracting a Mangrove Warbler. It would never hear it! Retreating from the erstwhile in house entertainment we regained the La Tola Road and stopped on a nearby bridge and tried our luck from there. Instant success came as a beautiful yellow warbler with an orange cap and streaks down its breast responded and flew in to check us out.

Mangrove Warbler

Nearby was an enormous shrimp farm stretching for miles. Sadly its existence was only possible at the expense of what were formerly extensive mangrove swamps. Although sorely pressed for time we could not resist the chance of more waders so agreed we would check the lagoons, our only problem being the lagoons were private and fenced off and we had to gain permission from the owner or manager to access them with the pickup. Dusan took charge and promptly banged on the gate to the main office and it was opened by a somewhat surprised individual who was probably even more taken aback on hearing what we wanted to do. Dusan was told to wait while a higher authority was consulted and after a little while he duly appeared and in no time at all acceded to our request and even came over to chat to us and tell us where the best places were for waders. What a nice man. 

Drained lagoons on the Shrimp Farm. Waders bottom left

Full lagoons on the Shrimp Farm

We needed to locate the lagoons that had been drained as this was where the waders were feeding so we drove alongside huge lagoons full of shrimps and mussels and finally came to a drained one. Glutinous black mud and mussel shells abounded but so did waders and really close to the bank. This time the small waders were mainly Western Sandpipers but in amongst them was a winter plumaged Wilson's Phalarope, a few Black necked Stilts and a Willet. Strangest of all we found another White rumped Sandpiper - I thought they were rare? We watched the waders for a while finding a lone Sanderling and a handful of Least Sandpipers but now we were really up against the clock and had to get back to Las Penas for our breakfast. Rolando put his foot down and we were off after giving the local workers $5.00 for 'looking after' us

Black-necked Stilt

Western Sandpipers

Willet

Wilson's Phalarope with Western Sandpipers

Wilson's Phalarope

Semipalmated Plover

We returned to a sunny and now very warm Las Penas and the Bar Manabita and took a table at the beach end of the shack. 

The beach was literally at our door and sitting at the table we seawatched from our seats whilst waiting for breakfast. Two shacks down they were already partying, couples dancing to that Latin beat at 9am! Magnificent Frigatebirds soared supreme in the azure sky, ponderous lines of Brown Pelicans flew in line past us or settled around small fishing canoes out on the sea awaiting the chance of scraps. A couple of Royal Terns cruised past and then best of all a Blue Footed Booby crash dived gannet fashion into the green sea. Absolute bliss. I could imagine sitting here all day shaded from the warm sun,  seawatching and eating seafood till I burst. As if it could not get any better the food arrived at the same time as a Peruvian Booby, the latter well out of its normal range presumably storm blown and wandering from Peru. The food was on hold for the brief time the booby was in view but then down to business and we tucked into enconcado a traditional fish dish consisting of a concoction of seafood in a coconut sauce and the inevitable side plate of fried plantains and rice.

I accompanied this with some more Guanabana juice, that gorgeous, sweet, white viscous drink  I had last night and is made from the Guanabana fruit which is native to South America.

We sat and chatted and then sadly we had to be on our way. We had a long way to go and our next stop was to be very, very different. Playa de Oro and back to tropical rain forest birding

Birds seen and heard today

h   = heard only
ec = Choco Endemic

Great Tinamou (h); Little Tinamou (h);Least Grebe; Pied billed Grebe;Magnificent Frigatebird; Blue footed Booby; Peruvian Booby; Neotropic Cormorant; Brown Pelican; Fulvous Whistling Duck; Black bellied Whistling Duck; Muscovy Duck; White cheeked Pintail; Blue winged Teal;Pinnated Bittern; Fasciated Tiger Heron; Cocoi Heron;Great White Egret; Snowy Egret; Little Blue Heron; Tricolored Heron; Cattle Egret; Striated Heron; Black crowned Night Heron; Yellow crowned Night Heron; Wood Stork; Black Vulture; Turkey Vulture;Osprey; Swallow tailed Kite; Harris's Hawk; Roadside Hawk; Rufous headed Chachalaca; Gray breasted Crake(h); White throated Crake (h); Purple Gallinule; Common Gallinule; Wattled Jacana; Greater Yelowlegs; Lesser Yellowlegs; Willet; Spotted Sandpiper; Hudsonian Whimbrel; Sanderling; Semipalmated Sandpiper; Western Sandpiper; Least Sandpiper; White rumped Sandpiper; Pectoral Sandpiper;Stilt Sandpiper; Short billed Dowitcher; Wilson's Phalarope; Black necked Stilt; Southern Lapwing; Gray Plover; Semipalmated Plover;Gull billed Tern; Royal Tern;Pale vented Pigeon; Ecuadorian Ground Dove; White tipped Dove; Pacific Parrotlet; Red lored Amazon; Smooth billed Ani;Striped Cuckoo (h); Rufous tailed Hummingbird; Ringed Kingfisher; Green Kingfisher;Olivaceous Piculet; Black cheeked Woodpecker; Pacific Hornero; Streak headed Woodpecker; Great Antshrike (h); Pacific Antwren (h); Yellow bellied Elaenia; Common Tody Flycatcher;Black Phoebe; Vermilion Flycatcher; Masked Water Tyrant; Rusty margined Flycatcher;Gray capped Flycatcher (h); White ringed Flycatcher; Tropical Kingbird; White bearded Manakin; Gray breasted Martin; Blue and White  Swallow; Southern Rough winged Swallow; Barn Swallow; House Wren; Southern Nightingale Wren(h);Tropical Gnatcatcher; Mangrove Warbler; Bananaquit; Red legged Honeycreeper; Blue gray Tanager; Palm Tanager; Lemon rumped Tanager; Tawny crested Tanager;
Variable Seedeater; Chestnut throated Seedeater; Scrub Blackbird; Great tailed Grackle;House Sparrow;

104 species (30 new)

to be continued