Put eggs all in one basket, or spread them around? Birds know best

Date:  February 27, 2019

Source:  Princeton University

In the tropical jungle of Central America where predators abound, a species of cuckoo has found safety in numbers by building communal nests guarded by two or three breeding pairs.

Why then do these agreeable avians sometimes ditch the collaborative lifestyle and instead deposit eggs into nests outside the communal group, acting like social parasites, in the hopes that other females will raise the chicks as their own?

In a paper published online in the journal Nature, Princeton researchers show that the cuckoos, known as greater anis (Crotophaga major), act collectively for the most part but can become social parasites after their communal nest is destroyed. They start the breeding season placing all their eggs in one basket, but if predators intervene, the birds switch to a strategy of spreading the eggs around in other nests.

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Old world bird in a new world rainforest

Date: April 27, 2016

Source:  Central Ornithology Publication Office

The Sapayoa, a rainforest bird from Central and South America, is an evolutionary enigma--genetic analysis shows that its closest relatives are bird species living across the ocean in Asia and Africa. Now, new research in The Auk: Ornithological Advances demonstrates for the first time that its natural history links it to its evolutionary relatives thousands of miles away.

How the Sapayoa ended up so far from other members of its lineage remains a mystery, and little is known about its reproductive biology or social behavior. However, new field work in Panama by Sarah Dzielski and Benjamin Van Doren of Cornell University and their colleagues reveals that Sapayoas consistently build nests that hang over the water along ravine-bottom streams. One of the active nests they observed was attended by a family group comprised of an adult male and female and two immature males, all four of which brought food to the two chicks. The researchers were surprised by the social behavior they observed, which included mounting between individuals of the same sex, possibly to establish dominance and maintain social cohesion.

These are the first extended observations of Sapayoa breeding behavior, and they provide hints at how this unusual bird is connected with its roots. Many of the Sapayoa's Old World relatives are cooperative breeders, getting help from family groups, and the pear-shaped hanging nest also is consistent with Old World "suboscines," the group of birds to which Sapayoas belong.

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Why One Idaho Woman Is Trying To Save A Rare Bird In Central America

An Idaho woman is studying the migration patterns of a rare bird in Central America. The three-wattled bellbird makes bell-like calls, and those sounds can travel half a mile. Some experts believe it’s the loudest bird in the world.

Robin Bjork has a day job at Trout Unlimited in Boise, but she’s also a research scientist and her passion is birds. She’s studying the bellbird because its numbers are falling thanks to deforestation and habitat degradation. Her goal is to find ways to preserve the bird's high cloud forest habitat; she says this bird shows how important habitat is to the survival of a species.

“They’re showing us that one protected area alone is not necessarily enough to save certain species because some species require a lot of different regions and these regions aren’t even necessarily in close proximity to each other,” says Bjork.

Read on ...

Flower's bellows organ blasts pollen at bird pollinators

Date:

July 3, 2014

Source:

Cell Press

Summary:

A small tree or shrub found in mountainous Central and South American rainforests has a most unusual relationship with the birds that pollinate its flowers, according to a new study. The plant known as Axinaea offers up its male reproductive organs as a tempting and nutritious food source for the birds. As the birds seize those bulbous stamens with their beaks, they are blasted with pollen by the flowers' complex 'bellows' organs.

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First nest of Red-throated Caracara in Central America for 50 years

Conservation group supported by The Peregrine Fund discovers nest of rare bird of prey in Central America

June 2013. For the first time in more than 50 years, researchers have found a nest of one of Central America's rarest birds of prey, raising hope that there is still time to prevent its extinction in this region.

Populations crashed

For unknown reasons, populations of the once-common Red-throated Caracara (Ibycter americanus) have crashed in Mexico and Central America, according to the Honduran Conservation Coalition, which made the discovery.

Honduras

The nest was found in Honduras, deep in the pine forests of the north-eastern province of Olancho. In February and March, local conservationist Isidro Zuniga located and tracked three small groups of caracaras across some of the most remote terrain in Honduras, according to Mark Bonta, a geographer at Penn State-Altoona and leader of the research team. Every day for six weeks, Zuniga sat in a blind and recorded the daily activities of a caracara family that raised a single chick.

Common in parts of South America

The Red-throated Caracara is still common in parts of South America, but until recently was believed to be gone from its former range north of Panama.

"The challenge for scientists and conservationists is figuring out what has caused the species' precipitous decline and how to save it," Bonta said. "If a pathogen is at fault, then even the South American birds may not be safe."

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A Second Rare Bird Arrives from Central America

The ovenbird attracts gawkers in Northeast Portland.

John McAfee isn’t the only one hiding out in Portland after a long trip from Central America. Another guest from the tropics—this time of the avian variety—has taken up temporary residence in the Pacific Northwest. The Audubon Society of Portland confirmed the sighting of an ovenbird, a species rarely seen outside Central America and the Caribbean during winter months. 

Longtime-birder Suzanne Hannam, 84, spotted the warbler treading around the backyard of her Laurelhurst home. The sighting was so unusual the Audubon Society initially didn’t believe Hannam. It was later verified after an official identified the spotted, orange-crowned bird. 

And while the little songbird hasn’t attracted the same media attention as McAfee, the other spotted, orange-crowned runaway from Central America, birders have taken notice. Hannam says she’s had about 200 guests over the weekend and into Monday. 

“We got so tired of the doorbell ringing we just posted a big sign out front telling birders to head to the backyard and to please not park in my front yard,” says Hannam. 

No word yet if the bird can confirm rumors of Hezbollah training camps in Belize. You’ll just have to take McAfee’s word for it.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-29651-a_second_rare_bird_arrives_from_central_america.html

Vital Central American wetland under threat from developers

Panama's Upper Bay a vital stop over for 2 million birds

December 2012. One of the most important coastal wetlands in the Americas is under threat. The Upper Bay of Panama, an Important Bird Area, is a vital stopover site for migrating shorebirds. Up to two million individuals of 30 species use it on their way south after breeding.

Ramsar site but protected status has been withdrawn
The bay was declared a Ramsar site (Wetland of International Importance) in 2003, and included in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network in 2005. In 2009, over 80,000 ha of the Panama Bay Wetland became a National Protected Area. However, in May this year, legal protected status was withdrawn because of pressure for urban and resort development, including hotels and golf courses. At the same time, regulations on mangrove cutting have been relaxed. Developers are reported to be at work within the Ramsar site boundary.

The bay provides essential ecosystem services to the people of Panama. It acts as a "nursery" for fish and shellfish, contributing $86 million a year to the country's economy in commercial fishing revenues. The wetlands and mangroves also filter and purify sewage and industrial effluent, preventing them entering the marine food chain, and act as a buffer protecting the city from flooding and extreme weather.

ACT TODAY AND WRITE YOUR CONCERNS TO THE PANAMANIAN GOVERNMENT.

BirdLife Partner the Panama Audubon Society and a coalition of local and international environmental groups including National Audubon (BirdLife Partner in the USA) are taking legal action for protected status to be restored, and working with local communities to make sure their voices are heard.

"If these wetlands are lost, you break the chain of wetlands shorebirds need for successful migrations", says Rosabel Miro, Panama Audubon's executive director.

"This sets a dangerous precedent, not just for Panama but for the entire region", warned Matt Jeffery, senior manager of National Audubon's International Alliance's Program.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/panama-wetlands.html