Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Bird of the Day: Roadside Hawk
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Author: Seth Inman
Blue Mountain Peak
John walking down the mossy forest path
Last week, we hiked up to Blue Mountain Peak, the highest point in Jamaica. To reach the summit, you have to go through Portland Gap, a saddle between Mossman’s and Blue Mountain Peaks and a good point for camping out if you want to do the hike in the morning. Starting with all our camping gear on our backs at the trailhead around 4,185ft, we took a brisk hour’s hike to Portland Gap, gaining 1,356ft of elevation in the process. We set up our tents at Portland Gap, an area with the most Rufous-throated Solitaires we’ve seen so far – they’re very shy birds and are most often only heard, their haunting whistles echoing eerily over valleys and through the forest.
An elusive Rufous-throated Solitaire at Portland Gap
The Gap also ended up being a great spot to see Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Black-throated Blue Warbler
male – Corn Puss Gap, Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park, Jamaica
Bird of the Day: Piratic Flycatcher
Cinchona Botanical Gardens
a view of the valleys and Westphalia in the shadows of Portland Gap and some Blue Mountain peaks above
Since my last post, we’ve been several places and seen lots of things, but none of the areas we’ve visited have been so naturally “post-worthy” as the Cinchona Botanical Gardens above Westphalia, in the mountains of St. Andrew Parish. Somehow we had gathered from several people’s hearsay that we should practically expect ancient ruins, with perhaps some scattered floral gems growing feral among old dilapidated structures and a few exotic trees towering over the grounds. As you can see from the photo below, these vague rumors were partially true.
the old Garden Commissioner’s house/office, in need of some minor remodeling
Bird of the Day: Purple Gallinule
Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Bird of the Day: Black-throated Trogon
male – Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Jamaican Golden Swallow Expedition Part Two: Into the Blue Mountains
We’re back in Jamaica and now in the second portion of our trip, where we explore the Blue Mountains and John Crow Mountains National Park looking for any signs of the Jamaican Golden Swallow. We arrived at the main visitor center for the park in Holywell yesterday, where we met with park rangers as well as representatives of the Jamaican Conservation and Development Trust, the organization that runs the park. We introduced everyone to our project using an adaptation of the standard slideshow that Justin uses to explain his masters research in Hispaniola to people, and then opened the table for a discussion of the best possible areas to hike and survey.
Map exploration with representatives of the Jamaican Conservation and Development Trust
The park rangers had many helpful suggestions for certain regions that they thought best matched the type of habitat and un-birded nature that we’re looking for, and thanks to their help while poring over our maps we have a much better idea of where to go from here. The national park is simply so massive that any head start we can get on the right places to survey is a great help.
Today, we enjoyed some beautiful weather – blue skies and quite refreshing temperatures comfortably between the wind-chilled -10°F of Ithaca and the muggy 90°F of Cockpit Country. From our short hikes around the park so far we all agree that it’s an amazing area with stunning views and lots of potential for the Golden Swallow.
Bird of the Day: Gray-capped Flycatcher (Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica)
Bird of the Day: Golden-naped Woodpecker
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Libraries of Life
Elsie, a former teaching assistant for Cornell’s ornithology course, holds up an Impeyan Pheasant skin specimen. Photo by Rebecca Snow.
At Raxa Collective we’ve always been big admirers of museums, whether focussed on art, culture, or nature. In today’s op-ed section of the New York Times, two biologists write about the importance of natural history museums. The authors, Larry M. Page and Nathan K. Lujan, argue that funding shouldn’t be cut from these types of institutions and that the active collection of specimens from the wild should not be curtailed:
These specimen collections serve as the bedrock of our system of taxonomy — the rules by which we classify life — and are integral to our understanding of the threats, origins and interrelationships of biodiversity. And yet, thanks to budget cutbacks, misplaced ethical critiques, public misconceptions and government regulations that restrict scientists while failing to restrict environmental exploitation, the continued maintenance and growth of these libraries is in danger.
Though most visitors never know they are there, natural history collections are as critical to modern biologists as libraries are to journalists and historians. Indeed, like good literature, each museum specimen allows reinterpretation by every person who examines it.
A couple of our contributors–myself included–are currently working for the Smithsonian Institution, and our supervisor is the curator of birds Continue reading
A Sneak Peek at Jamaican Bird Videos
We have several full hours of raw bird behavior footage from our first trip, so it’ll be a while before we have much processed to the point of sharing here, but I thought it’d be nice to have a quick preview of some things to come once we’re back from our second trip to the Blue Mountains.
In the video above, you can see four relatively common bird species in Jamaica: the American Kestrel, Northern Mockingbird, Merlin, and Orangequit. The first three species can be found in the United States but have resident populations in Jamaica, while the last is endemic to the island. The behavior exhibited in the video is typical of all the species. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Gray-necked Wood-Rail (Cordillera de Talamanca, Costa Rica)
Preparing for the Blue Mountains
A friendly caterpillar I found crawling around my tent’s rainfly on one of the last days in Jamaica.
We just finished our first week back in Ithaca, where temperatures have stayed below 0ºF most of the time and therefore we have stayed indoors most of the time. Mostly we’ve been writing up all our observations from the first expedition, digitizing our paper field notes and organizing our photos and videos; playing around with bird data in Excel, eBird, and ArcGIS (a mapping-data program); and looking at maps of the Blue and John Crow mountain ranges.
A Successful Part One
View of a foggy Barbecue Bottom valley in Cockpit Country
This past weekend, the first stage of the Smithsonian’s Jamaican Golden Swallow Expedition came to a close. After a full month of exploring Cockpit Country for whatever aerial insectivores we could find, we flew back to Ithaca on the 14th. Now we will process our data and imagery for two weeks while restocking for the second trip.
The bulk of our gear laid out for washing, drying, and sorting on the Windsor Research Centre’s lawn during our last day in Cockpit Country.
Bird of the Day: Roadside Hawk (Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica)
Bird of the Day: Black-throated Trogon
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Bird of the Day: Lineated Woodpecker
female – Tacacori, Costa Rica
Bird of the Day: Black-hooded Antshrike
male – Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Jamaican Columbids
Cockpit Country from “the Alps”
In rural Jamaica there appears to be a traditional pastime of hunting pigeons and doves (scientifically known as the family Columbidae). There are a total of twelve species on the island, of which seven or eight can be expected in Cockpit Country.
So far we’ve seen six of those species, and although we’d like a closer look at some like the Crested Quail-dove, we’re pretty satisfied with our luck so far. Continue reading
