Weeks 4 and 5: Birds of the Amazon

We are just coming out of a friaje (a cold front that causes severe temperature drops). We don't have hot water or heating, so lately my default spot at camp has been in the kitchen, wrapped in a blanket while clutching a mug of warm tea. The temperatures aren't much below 60 degrees fahrenheit, but the humidity really does make it feel much colder. I have started to dream about warm showers. Anyways, on to today’s topic: birds! Whether you view them as living dinosaurs, feathered friends, government drones, or chicken nuggets, the prevalent and frequent use of avian jargon points to the importance that birds hold in society. Birds play an integral role in maintaining the health of ecosystems and the world as a whole. They disperse seeds, pollinate plants, manage pest populations, and serve as clean-up crews. Birds inhabit nearly every niche on the planet, making them ideal study subjects. Information gathered from bird populations can be used to determine the ecological well-being of many different habitats.

This Green-and-rufous kingfisher was caught in one of our nets located near a stream. As the name suggests, kindfishers are fish-eating birds that tend to perch near bodies of water in search of prey. These guys have such large bills and beautiful coloration!

With almost 2,000 species recorded in the country, Peru is one of the most biodiverse places in the world when it comes to birds. In the areas surrounding our field sites alone, upwards of 600 species can be observed. It's incredible and honestly, a bit overwhelming. Between trying to learn names, calls, and life strategies, I sometimes feel like my brain might overheat and shut off. The bird team utilizes a couple of different techniques to keep track of the numerous species in the area. The first is a less formal approach to data collection but is one that is used throughout the world. eBird, a citizen science project, allows anyone to record the species they have identified in any given area to keep track of their distributions and abundances. Observed species are added to a list and submitted to an online database. eBird will give guidelines as to what birds are most common in the area and flag anything that seems out of place.

This bird was actually caught in one of our bat nets! Common Pauraque are nocturnal birds, actively hunting for insects at night. 

It sounds like a fairly simple concept but man, can it get intense. You've got your casual eBird users (I would say I fall into this category) and you have your avid users (referred to as listers). Listers are individuals who make it their life goal to see as many bird species as humanly possible. Think really committed Pokemon GO users that will walk miles for a Mewtwo and times that intensity by ten. These birders will often go to extreme lengths to add a species that they haven't seen before to their life list. I'm talking skipping class and driving 5 hours for some atypical sparrow on a Wednesday morning type of crazy. You've got to admire their passion. While this reporting of species can vary in extremity, ebird is very helpful to keeping track of species distribution on a local and global scale. Our team tends to use eBird when we are out in the forest on transects or are at the banding station. Some people will also use it during their free time around camp. Most mornings that we have a day off, you will find birders roaming the area equipped with binoculars or a camera. Just this morning, I woke to the excited shouts of two birders spotting a species that they had not seen before (in bird lingo terms, we call this seeing a lifer).

This is a Blue-capped Manakin. The males of this species are all black with a blue crown in most regions of South America but here in Tambopata they are green!

Another technique that Fauna Forever uses to monitor bird species is conducting point counts. Point counts are used to gauge the diversity and presence of bird species from a fixed point. An observer will stand at a given coordinate and record all of the birds that they detect by sight and sound within a specific time period. Only the most knowledgeable and experienced birders can perform this task. Point counts basically require an individual to have a digital library of sounds and species stored in their brain. It is not something I am remotely qualified to do but I have enjoyed attempting to learn some of the bird calls in the area. 

One of the most iconic bird calls out in the field comes from the Screaming Piha. Appropriately named, the Piha can be heard loud and clear from the top of the canopy. It sounds almost robotic, like an off-brand R2D2. I tried to insert a video of their song in here and couldn't get it to work. I highly suggest looking up a recording!

As I briefly touched on in my last post, another technique that Fauna Forever uses to monitor birds is referred to as bird banding. Banding starts bright and early every day, our nets are up just before sunrise each morning. Our current rotation consists of 4 stations of 36 meter nets. We rotate locations every three days so we are frequently setting up and taking down nets. 

This week as I was putting up nets, I managed to tie a pole to a tangarana tree. These trees, often called ant trees, have a mutualistic relationship with colonies of fire ants. The trees act as hosts to the ants, providing them with food and shelter. In return, the fire ants protect the trees against foreign invaders. They will aggressively attack and sting anything that attempts to touch the tree. As you can imagine, a person attempting to tie a rope to a tangarana certainly classifies as an invader. I was stung 7 or 8 times and my body BURNED for almost an hour afterwards. I later learned that this tree is also referred to as a "novice" tree because you have to be pretty unaware of the species to touch it. There's usually a "ring of death" surrounding the tree that points to the presence of ants. I got a fair amount of jabs from my field crew for this "novice" mistake.

You can see the "ring of death" around the tangarana tree in this photo. This destruction is a result of the defensive nature of the fire ants. 

After nets are set, they are checked every 30-50 minutes and birds are carefully extracted and brought back to the station. Perhaps the most complicated part of the banding process is aging the bird. This can be done by noting a variety of different characteristics and piecing them together as evidence to determine an age. One such characteristic that we look at is the ossification of a bird’s skull. Birds, similarly to human babies, take a few months to fully develop their skulls. We can look for windows of incomplete skull ossification to point to a bird being younger.

This is a Tropical Royal Flycatcher. The species is quite a common capture here in Secret Forest but I never get tired of seeing their beautiful feather displays. While in the hand, they rotate their necks in a snake-like manner while flashing their feather crowns. 

Another characteristic that is used to determine age is feather quality. Juvenile birds tend to have much lower quality feathers than adult birds. We can look for the presence of younger, juvenile feathers to say that a bird is within its first year. A bander once described juvenile feathers to me as the attire a person would put on when abruptly exiting a building after a fire alarm goes off. You grab your sweats or bathrobe and rush out of the building to avoid any potential danger. For birds, the nest is like a burning building: it is not a safe place for nestlings. They need to leave as quickly as possible. They prioritize growing feathers in the most efficient manner which means that they are usually not very high quality. We can usually pick out younger feathers when newer feathers are present because they tend to be more worn and sun-bleached. I won’t dive much deeper into aging because I don't want to bore you, or to write a book. Aging is a fairly complicated process that varies on a species to species basis. Knowing the age of a bird can help scientists to understand the health of a population, certain aspects of avian ecology, the quality of a habitat, and the impacts of climate change.

When I saw this bird from a distance in a mist net, it was barely tangled and was getting close to escaping. I don't know if I've ever run so fast in my life haha. This Little Cuckoo is the second recorded capture in this station’s banding history in 20 years! Super cool bird and absolutely worth the sprint! 

Through conducting all of these different forms of research and through birding around camp during my stay, I have been lucky enough to see/hear over 250 bird species! The diversity of birds here is truly amazing. I will try to touch on some of the other wildlife encounters I have had in later posts. As always, thanks for reading!

***All of the birds I have included in this post are individuals we have caught in mist nets. They are processed safely under permits.

We often hear White-fronted Nunbirds as we walk through the forest. I am not quite sure what the origin of the name is but I suppose it has something to do with their nun-like coloration. They have not yet attempted to convert me to catholicism but I am in love with their cute, fluffy appearance.