Puerto Rico - Cubuy Falls

Few words are needed for this image. The Cubuy River and its spectacular falls lie a short walk down the hill from Casa Cubuy, our lodge for two nights.

Along with these incredible views, Casa Cubuy is also the most reliable place to find the endemic Puerto Rican Screech Owl.

photo and text © Kevin Loughlin

Puerto Rico - Endangered Species

Yellow-shouldered Blackbirds and female Shiny Cowbird

Notice the band on the Yellow-shouldered Blackbird in the foreground? Heavily studied and watched, this Puerto Rican endemic is critically endangered due to habitat loss, nest predation by cats and other introduced mammals, and by nest parasitism from Shiny Cowbirds which arrived on the island within the last century. La Paguera offers the best opportunity to find this gregarious species as they seem to prefer mangroves and coastal scrub.

photos and text © Kevin Loughlin

Puerto Rico - Caribbean Gem

Elfin-woods Warbler, a Puerto Rican endemic.

We are now on day 3 of our Puerto Rico: Caribbean Gem 8-day itinerary. And first thing this morning, at the Maricao State Forest, we got the target for the region... the Elfin-woods Warbler. This was my only shot, just as it decided to fly off and disappear.

This quiet warbler had been passed by for decades, until 1972 when it was discovered by science! It is only found regularly in the mountains of Maricao and El Yunque. It never sings, and only offers fine, plaintiff chips which one must listen for quite intently, especially on windy days like we had today.

text and photo © Kevin Loughlin

Puerto Rico - Dash is Done...

Puerto Rican Tody

The 'Dash' is done. Our Puerto Rico Endemic Dash tour consisted of 5 days and 4 nights of birding all around the island looking for the endemics and specialties.

Of the 16 (current number) of endemics -- those birds found only on Puerto Rico -- we saw 13 and heard two others. The Puerto Rican Tody, although common, is typically one of the most desired of the endemics... its diminutive size and bright colors make it a quick favorite.

What did we miss this trip? The Puerto Rican Parrot. With only 30-40 wild birds left, it is never expected to be seen... though we visit a couple of their known haunts. We heard the Puerto Rican Screech Owl on several occasions, but it was never accessible to our spotlight as it perched behind a building on a steep hillside in one location, and refused to come out into the wind and rain in another location.

The Puerto Rican Nightjars were seemingly inactive in the evening, not offering any sign that they were there... maybe due to the bright full moon? However, in the early morning twilight we heard a few of them (along with a third uncooperative screech owl) but only one nightjar offered a brief silhouette to one person's peripheral vision, not enough to count.

The Todies, however, cooperated on numerous occasions, offering their easily recognized "bint" call in the open forests throughout Puerto Rico.

photos and text © Kevin Loughlin

Puerto Rico - Day 3 -- a great bird!

Antillean Euphonia

A splash of color entered the nearly naked tree this morning, after a frustratingly long wait for the cook to arrive to make breakfast. However, had we left any early we would have missed this wonderful addition to our list!

Although the Antillean Euphonia is not a Puerto Rico endemic, it is still a prized bird on any trip. Vibrant and active, it seems to leave a tracer of color as it flits from bromeliad to bromeliad.

text and photo © Kevin Loughlin

Puerto Rico - Day 2's best photo!

Puerto Rican Woodpecker

We added quite a few more endemics to our list today, including this very cooperative Puerto Rican Woodpecker who was excavating a nest in a power line pole at Cambalache Forest near the northwest coast.

From Cambalache we drove southwest to Maricao and saw the Elfin-woods Warbler, our target for the area. They were not as cooperative for photos, however, and all I got was a wing in one shot and an eye and tail in another. Oh well, I'll be back again next week to try again!

text and photo © Kevin Loughlin

Greetings from Puerto Rico!

Puerto Rican Spindalis, Puerto Rico's National Bird

Our group arrived in Puerto Rico today for our 5-day Endemic Dash tour and started off with this beautiful splash of color in the waning daylight hours. We spent an hour at Laguna Tortuguero and already have 3 of our 16 target endemic birds and a bunch of the Caribbean specialties. We should get 6 or 7 more endemics by mid-day tomorrow!

Our blog has been quite silent lately as both Adrian and I have been so active in not only trip preparation (Adrian is off to Africa again on Friday!) but also the creation of a brand new Wildside Nature Tours brochure. Our biggest ever -- 24 pages of trip info and photos from around the globe!

It is late here and we need to get up at 5:00AM... so I hope to blog a few more times while here, then post more images upon my return!

text and photo © Kevin Loughlin

KENYA: Did that Bird really say that?

The distinctive high pitched yelps of African Fish Eagles echoing across lakes are often deemed the ‘Voice of Africa.” However, I find that Ring-necked Doves (below) are a far better candidate for this distinction. The call of this widespread species found throughout the dry savanna is a common background sound when on safari. Indeed, just about every television program about East African wildlife features the constant “work haar-der, work haar-der” calls of this dove as a background soundtrack.

Is the Ring-necked Dove really encouraging us to be more productive?! Of course we’ll never know, but we’ve developed such phrases as “work harder, work harder” to help us remember the bird’s call. This process of developing phrases to interpret sounds is called mnemonics, and can be useful in remembering and identifying species.

Doves and cuckoos seem to top the mnemonic list in this part of the world, with the Emerald Spotted Wood-Dove (above) saying the rather long, drawn-out, mournful phrase, “my mother, my father, my brother, my sister are all dead, what am I going to do, do, do, do.....” And the Red-eyed Dove proudly exclaims over and over, “I am a Red-eyed Dove, I am a Red-eyed Dove.” Yes, we heard you the first time!

While mnemonics may be helpful in learning calls, context is just as important. Inflections, accents and syllables are important in understanding the correct bird sound, and these things are difficult to convey in writing. Often there are several different mnemonic phrases that apply to the same bird call, underscoring the fact that we each hear something different, even when listening to the same bird! Location, habitat and season also play a role in assigning the right bird to the right call. But that’s subject for another story.

Hearing the four-noted “Hel-lo Ju-dy!”, whistled from the high canopy, draws attention to the African Emerald Cuckoo. This may be the only clue to this stunning but elusive species. It pays to learn the phrases, particularly for forest birds, which are more easily heard than seen. Maybe “you can’t find me” would be more appropriate for this cuckoo!

One of my favorites is the Red-chested Cuckoo (above), ever optimistic in his emphatic, three-note call “it will rain,” proclaimed loudly to anyone within earshot, day and night. Eventually I’m sure his prediction will come true!

all photos © adrian binns

KENYA: Singing Ants

More dudu for you. In case you were wondering what this is about, dudu is the Swahili word for insect.

As we walked the main sandy track that leads through the Brachystegia woodlands of Arabuko-Sokoke we were mindful of ants. In particular the Safari Ants that can be seen in large groups crossing the sand on well-defined paths (above). Luckily we would not see many of these dudus that inflict a painful bite!

However, we did come across a group of about 200 large black ants walking in a column down the track. This small party was likely on a mission to find termites, which they not only consume, but also ‘capture’ to bring back to their colony to work for them! These ants exhibit a rather unique behavior when agitated. This was best demonstrated to us by our guide, Willy, when he blew on them. The line of marching ants loosely dispersed (above) in all directions and to our amazement began to hum.

They get their local name, the Singing Ant, from this sound, which does not come from singing, but from vibrating parts of their body. The sound is a means of communicating amongst themselves.

Within a minute the performance was over, and we watched the group restore itself back into their original column.

all photos © adrian binns

KENYA: The Mombassa Train

African Giant Millipedes are known locally as Mombassa Trains, after their locomotion movement, as opposed to their speed. Though not having had the experience of traveling by train in East Africa, I can not vouch for that for certainty.

These millipedes are very common along the coast and we would come across many, either on the grounds of our lodgings, mainly at night, or while out birding in the Arabuko-Sokoke forest. There are two kinds, red-legged and brown-legged, and both spend a great deal of time in moist shaded areas amongst the leaf litter feeding on decaying plant matter - nature composters.

Millipede means ‘a thousand legs’ but in reality they have far fewer - two pairs of legs on each of their 60 body segments. Believed to be the world's largest millipede, they can reach a length of 12 inches, and though harmless, they do have several self defense mechanisms. When touched they will curl themselves up into a tight spiral, and if they still feel threatened they secrete a noxious liquid, which most creatures find unpalatable - with the exception of the African Civet.

A confiding seven-inch red-legged millipede takes on the look of a colorful bracelet

By contrast, the carnivorous Centipede, meaning ‘a hundred legs‘, has only a pair of legs on each of their segments. In spite of their name they can have several hundred legs - more than the ‘thousand-legged’ variety!

photo © adrian binns

KENYA: Crab Plovers at Mida Creek

There are few places in the world where you can watch the tide come in at an extraordinary rate, advancing before your eyes. The mangrove-lined Mida Creek (above) is one of them, linked to the Indian Ocean just south of Malindi on coastal Kenya. The incoming tide appeared deceptively far away, but our guide, Willie, hurries Todd and I along the vast expanse of exposed mudflats to maximize our time with the feeding shorebirds.

Excitedly we set up our scopes and scanned the shallow waters along the tidal mudflats. We admire godwits, sand-plovers, stints, greenshanks, egrets, terns and a distant grouping of pink flamingos, but we are really after one of the world’s most unique shorebirds, the Crab Plover. They are not hard to spot, and soon we have half a dozen in our sights.

Crab Plovers (above) are about the size of an avocet but bulkier, white-and-black birds with long, blue-grey legs. While they may resemble a large plover, it is likely that they are more closely related to pratincoles and coursers.

Their heavy, black, pointed bill, similar to that of a tern, is specialized for eating crabs. Judging by the holes in the mud and the amount of crabs visible, there is ample supply of food here for them. Males sport a longer, heavier bill than females. We watch one bird walking towards us, patiently stalking, just taking its time, pausing every so often as it sees a crab make a quick get away.

Crab Plovers are unique among shorebirds in that they nest underground in sandbanks, in burrows about five feet in length and at least a foot deep. Unlike other shorebirds who produce a clutch of well camouflaged eggs, Crab Plovers lay only one white egg. While most wader chicks are precocial, Crab Plover chicks are born unable to walk, and stay in their burrows until they are able to do so, totally dependent upon their parents to care for them even after fledging.

Crab Plovers are one of only two shorebirds (pratincoles being the other) that breeds in colonies. Only about a dozen breeding sites are known in the Middle East around the Red Sea. They spend their winters, August through April, along the East African coast, and Mida Creek is one of the best and easiest locations to see them.

With a population of about 50,000 individuals dependent upon relatively few breeding areas and fragile coastal habitat, Crab Plovers are considered a globally endangered species.

The tide rises rapidly before our eyes, flooding the mudflats and forcing the birds to fly further up the creek to higher ground. We watch the last of them fly away, and then turn to the elevated boardwalk to make our way back.

all photos © adrian binns

KENYA: The Nimble Klipspringer

We were following a twisting circuit along the Chaimu lava flow when we sighted a lone Klipspringer poised in the open. It stood like a statuesque sentinel against the blue sky. For a moment I thought it was sculpted right out of the gray and brown folds of rock upon which it stood, as its coat matched so perfectly. Could its cryptic coloration be an adaptation to the color of the lava flow? Though there is considerable regional variation in color amongst Klipspringers, we discussed this evolutionary possibility.

Klipspringers are often seen in pairs though it can be difficult to identify their gender. We assumed that this was a male since it had two short spiked horns, but females of this particular East African race can also have horns. When it moved from its exposed post, dropping down behind a ridge of lava and joining its mate, we realized that it was probably a female, as its mate had longer spiked horns.

Amongst antelopes, the small Klipspringer has several unique adaptations that enable it to live on rocky outcroppings, though they will occasionally leave the rocks to feed on freshly sprouted grasses. They do not need to drink, getting enough moisture from evergreen shrubs, euphorbias, aloe, sanservieria, fruits and berries upon which they feed.

As one can see from the upper photograph, their front legs form an almost straight line leading to very small, stiletto-like truncated hooves. These are rubbery underneath ensuring that they do not slip as they jump from rock to rock.

Unlike other antelopes, Klipspringers have forward-facing eyes, as opposed to eyes on the sides of their head. This allows them to have binocular vision, much like we do, in order to better judge distances. Their coat is very thick, containing brittle hairs that are hollow and loose. This anti-predator adaptation means that predators can easily lose their grip on the loose hairs. The thick coat and hollow hairs have the added function of insulating the animal against extreme heat and cold, as harsh climates are common on hilly terrains. We watched this pair gazing at us until they jumped nimbly out of sight.

all photos © adrian binns