REGUA photos on Flickr

REGUA, Brazil, a set on Flickr.

Many of the photos that I've taken at REGUA over the last few years I've posted on my blog, but I've never had a gallery of my REGUA images online. Therefore I've set up a REGUA photo set on my Flickr account where all my best REGUA photos, and those taken before I started this blog, can be viewed. If you would like to take a look then please click on the link above.

An excellent winter's day at the patch

A few inches of snow overnight produced a good haul of birds displaced by the hard weather at Staines Moor today. Frustratingly I only had a compact digital camera on me and not my SLR and so I missed out on some decent photographic opportunities.

The narrow muddy edges of the River Colne are proving very attractive for birds looking for unfrozen ground on which to feed, and a walk along the whole stretch of the river at the moor produced 1 male and 1 female Pintail briefly before flying off east, 2 Dunlin, 1 Green Sandpiper, 2+ Common Snipe, 3 Water Pipit, 1 Water Rail, 1 Little Egret, 3 Gadwall, 2 Common Teal, 3 Little Grebe, 1 Pied Wagtail, 1 Common Gull and 60+ Black-headed Gull (a good count here). Overhead there was a little movement with 59+ Northern Lapwing NE, 1 Common Buzzard N, 30 Lesser Black-backed Gull E and small numbers of Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Linnet.

Adjacent Stanwell Moor produced 1 Woodcock (flushed along the footpath between Stanwell Moor and King George VI Reservoir), c.180 Linnet feeding on the seeds of London Plane trees with smaller numbers of Goldfinch and Chaffinch, 17 Fieldfare, 8 Redwing, lots of Robin and Blackbird, a single Skylark over S, 1 Meadow Pipit, 1 Eurasian Sparrowhawk, 4 more Gadwall, 1 more Eurasian Teal and a Red Fox. Back by the car, a Little Egret on a tiny stream in Stanwell Moor Village looked very out of place.

Male Pintail on the bank of the River Colne briefly before flying off east with a female

A frozen Staines Moor, looking south from The Butts. It's hard to imagine that
in 4-5 weeks time the first Northern Wheatears could be passing through here.

Looking north along Bonehead Ditch

Out of range Cinereous Ground-tyrant

It's always nice to find a surprise while sorting through old photos. I've been looking through hundreds of photos from a year travelling around South America in 2006, and came across a whole bunch of images of ground-tyrants (terrestrial tyrant-flycatchers - think of flycatchers that look and behave like wheatears) taken during a memorable day watching Andean Condors up at 1950 metres in the Argentine Andes, at the ski resort of Cerro Catedral in Nahuel Huapi National Park. The most common species here was White-browed Ground-Tyrant Muscisaxicola albilora followed by Ochre-naped Ground-Tyrant Muscisaxicola flavinucha, but I also found several images taken of a very different looking bird that I couldn't put a name to at the time and intended to identify at a later date. Well, better late than never!

The most striking thing about this bird is how plain it looks, being uniform grey above with brownish black wings and tail and plain whitish grey below. The lack of either a rufous or ochre crown patch (found in the other species found in this area), very faint pale grey supercilium, plain grey forehead and fine bill suggest Cinereous Ground-tyrant Muscisaxicola cinereus, but Cerro Catedral is well outside the range of this species. Juvenile Ochre-naped Ground-Tyrant usually have no ochre occipital patch and would therefore look similar, but this species can be ruled out by its larger size, white forehead, lores and supercilium, and much longer primaries that almost reach the tip of the tail. This bird was also sticking to the rocky boulders near the top of the ridge rather than grassy areas slightly lower down preferred by the other species.

Cinereous Ground-tyrant Muscisaxicola cinereus, Cerro Catedral, Nahuel Huapi
National Park, Argentina, November 2006. This bird was about 470 km south of
the most southerly limit of it's range. Is this simply an overshooting spring
migrant or are they extending their range southwards?

White-browed Ground-tyrant Muscisaxicola albilora, Cerro Catedral, Nahuel
Huapi National Park, Argentina, November 2006. The most common species here.
Note the diffuse rufous crown, which is brown in juveniles, the bold white
supercilium and the longer heavier looking bill.

Ochre-naped Ground-Tyrant Muscisaxicola flavinucha, Cerro Catedral, Nahuel
Huapi National Park, Argentina, November 2006. The ochre occipital patch is often
absent in juveniles. Note the heavy build, white forehead, lores and supercilum,
and the length of the primaries.

There are 13 species of ground-tyrant, all restricted to the Andes and Tierra del Fuego (mostly at high altitudes) and some are highly migratory. Four species breed in this part of the Andes, but Cinereous Ground-tyrant breeds from southern Peru to central Argentina, as far as 37° S, and so this bird was roughly 470 km south of it's known range. They are migratory at the southern end of their range and so this is probably an overshooting spring migrant. However, Ridgely and Tudor (1994) show this species' range lying another 500 km further north than more recent texts, so either the distribution of this species is now better known, or they are spreading southwards as the Andes becomes warmer. Perhaps this record represents a range extension? It's such a shame I didn't look for any other birds at the time.

My photos now on Flickr

Lee Dingain's photostream on Flickr.

Several of my friends have mentioned that they've never seen the photos I take on my travels, so in response I've decided to set up a Flickr account. So far I've only created a few photo sets (all of South America), with the Galapagos being the most complete set, but I'll be adding many more photos over the next few days and weeks.

Click on the link above to view.

Focus on Azure-shouldered Tanager

Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera is a scarce and often elusive Atlantic Forest endemic that birders sometimes struggle to distinguish from the much more abundant Sayaca Tanager Thraupis sayaca. However, given reasonable views they can be told apart fairly easily.

Azure-shouldered is slightly but noticeably larger and bulkier than Sayaca Tanager, but the size is not always apparent unless the two species are seen side by side. Much more obvious is the general colouration - Azure-shouldered Tanager is turquoise above with brighter turquoise outer edges to the flight feathers, tertials and greater coverts, and a contrasting duller turquoise grey below (this contrast is sharply defined even on the head and neck). Sayaca Tanager is a very variable grey-blue and generally concolorous above and below, with turquoise tones restricted to outer edges of the wing feathers. On Azure-shouldered Tanager the electric blue lesser coverts are diagnostic but not always visible (especially on 1st winter birds), and the blackish lores and black extending very slightly behind the eye forming a very short faint eye-stripe (visible at very close range) are another key feature. Azure-shouldered also shows a slightly heavier bill (that is often blackish on the upper mandible and greyish on the lower mandible, but not always), but both species show very dark (blackish) inner webs to the tertials, upper wing coverts and flight features on the closed wing.

Sayaca Tanager is abundant in forest edge and semi-open habitats and very conspicuous, even in cities, whereas Azure-shouldered Tanager is a scarce forest interior species that tends to stick to the canopy and is therefore much harder to find. Last July I spent some time at Andy and Cristina Foster's superb photo hide at their Serra dos Tucanos lodge in Rio de Janeiro state, and was able to study this Near-threatened species in some detail. These photos illustrate the features nicely.

Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera, Serra dos Tucanos, July 2011.
Note the contrast between the turquoise nape and crown and the grey blue face,
ear coverts and underparts. The electric blue lesser coverts are not always
visible.

Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera, Serra dos Tucanos, July 2011.
The blackish lores are a key identification feature when distinguishing from Sayaca
Tanager, but are not often mentioned or illustrated in field guides.

Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera, Serra dos Tucanos, July 2011.
The blackish lores create a rather aggressive facial expression (cf. Sayaca
Tanager below).

Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera, Serra dos Tucanos, July 2011.
The faint dark eye-stripe is easier to see in this shot of the same bird in the shade.
Note the dark upper mandible.

Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera, Serra dos Tucanos, July 2011.
Note the turquoise forehead, crown and nape contrasting sharply with the greyer
ear coverts and neck. The black inner webs to the tertials, coverts and primaries
and black primaries contrast vividly with the turquoise outer webs.

Sayaca Tanager Thraupis sayaca, REGUA, RJ state, July 2011. Note the grey blue
plumage, with turquoise tones restricted to the outer edges of the wing feathers.
The lores are concolorous with the rest of the face, isolating the dark eye. The
race found in south-eastern Brazil, T. s. sayaca, has no white in the wing.

The main contact call of Azure-shouldered Tanager is a simple, sharp, high-pitched downslurred seep (reminiscent of Redwing Turdus iliacus), whereas Sayaca Tanager has a shorter and rather almost squeaky call which has upwards deflection in the middle. The sonograms below clearly show the difference.





The songs are quite similar, both being a high-pitched, squeaky notes, but Azure-shouldered is faster, more repetitive and more continuous. Compare below.





The taxonomy of tanagers (Thraupidae), as with many Neotropical bird families, is currently in a state of flux. Azure-shouldered Tanager and Sayaca Tanager are traditionally both placed in the Thraupis genus along with 7 other species. But molecular studies have revealed that the Thraupis is actually paraphyletic (have more than one common ancestor) and consists of 2 clades. Azure-shoudered Tanager, despite having a similar morphology, is actually part of a different clade to Sayaca Tanager, and so will probably be moved to a different or new genus at some point. In the meantime, the Brazilian Committee of Ornithological Records (CBRO), rather confusingly, has moved all species currently in Thraupis into the Tangara genus, effectively removing the Thraupis genus altogether. However, other authorities (including the AOU) have yet to adopt this taxonomy and so I've remained faithful to the traditional classification here.