Xenornis

Rafael Luck sent in his photos of the Long-winged Harrier his group (which included Venicio Wilson, Osvaldo Quintero and Jan Axel Cubilla) found in Juan Hombrón yesterday. Comparing the photos with the poor illustrations of the species in South American field guides, and having never seen the species ever, I'd say this is a young dark morph adult (fide the few pale streaks in the underparts). They also had this American Golden-Plover at the same location and later encountered a Northern Harrier in El Coco, for comparison.

This Long-winged Harrier , apparently a dark-phase adult, was photographed yesterday at Juan Hombrón, Coclé: about 100 km west of the westernmost previous records from Tocumen Marsh.  En estos momentos estamos recibiendo reportes de que en la carretera que va a Juan Hombrón, en el área de arrozales, se está observando un Long-winged Harrier. Otras aves vistas incluyen varios Pectoral Sandpipers y un American Golden-Plover . Observadores: Beny Wilson Altamiranda, Rafael Luck, Osvaldo Quintero y Jan Axel Cubilla Rodríguez. More details to come.

Laura Reyes, Euclides Campos, and Juan Pablo Ríos found an American Golden-Plover in Veracruz Beach last week.

It sometimes pays to rummage through the trash. Carlos Bethancourt photographed this American Golden-Plover at Costa del Este on August 28.

Sólo para reportar que el American Golden-Plover sigue en Veracruz, Osvaldo Quintero y yo lo encontramos junto a los Black-bellied Plovers cerca de río. También observamos un Blue-footed Booby solitario justo en la playa, aliméntandose y sobrevolando incluso sobre los bañistas y, en el extremo de la playa cercano al poblado, un Lesser Yellow-headed Vultur e el cual reporto porque no lo habia visto antes ahí. Por otro lado, esa misma mañana, en el PNM escuchamos el Slate-colored Seedeater en varios lugares (siempre cerca del bambú) y de hecho vimos y fotografiamos uno en el sendero La Cieneguita (de tal forma que persisten en el parque). En la tarde, esta vez junto a Gloriela, en Costa del Este, me llamó la atención la gran cantidad de Franklin's Gulls en el área y también vimos al menos 4 Black Skimmers que me parecen de la raza suramericana (colas grises).

This morning, Rafael Luck and Venicio Wilson found the American (?) Golden-Plover at Veracruz. Also photographed was a Shiny Cowbird.

Jan Axel Cubilla posted an account of our golden-plover sighting of last Saturday on his blog . Included are a lot of photos of the bird, both digiscoped and DSLRd, and an analyzed close-up of the rectrice-primary situation, reprinted below for documentation purposes. The most important field mark was the primary projection. I can see the tip of the longest tertial barely reaching the tail tip, and 3 primary tips projecting from it (maybe 4, confusing because American Golden-Plover is supposed to have at least 4 projecting primary tips, although quite often primaries 9 and 10 are the same size). Also note the tail tip far behind the wing tips (unfortunately, I did not obtain better photos. Both photos were cropped; the edited one was brightened and sharpened). But CAUTION, all these differences can be influenced by molt. Note that this particular bird was molting the tertials and the rectrices, which might affect the perception of the relative relations between the wings and the tail. ...

As promised yesterday, a group of fearless birders (Rosabel Miró, Gloriela Archbold, Jan Axel Cubilla, Venicio Wilson and Darién Montañez) headed to Veracruz this morning to hunt for the Hudsonian Godwit seen yesterday. At press time the godwit had not been relocated, but the morning did produce an American Golden-Plover in a small flock of Black-bellied Plovers. Unlike every other bird in the group, this plover had a lot of black in the chest, and we're calling it an adult molting to alternate plumage (or from it; more on that later. We have digiscoped photos coming in from Rosabel and Jan Axel, plus real photos from Jan Axel, that may allow us to better age it). Besides the striking difference in plumage, this plover was noticeably smaller, and had a shorter, thinner bill that looked more conical than the more cylindrical Black-bellied Plover bills. Its head also looked smaller and rounder, with the forehead meeting the bill almost vertically. Its stance was more vertical, too, ...

José Tejada photographed this American Golden-Plover at Costa del Este. He has also been seeing a Long-billed Curlew there regularly since August 29. Both birds have been seen both in the exposed mudflats at low tide, and in the grass fields.