Number 100 !!!

No, not blog 100, but on 5 April we registered bird species number 100 on our plot. A hundred species is not bad for a plot of 8 hectares. Compared to Holland, where birders have registered about 450 species during the last century in the whole country (admittedly not a very large country) it is quite a lot.

Number 100 was the streaked tyrant flycatcher. Actually, there were two, possibly a pair migrating north to breed. Streaked tyrant flycatchers can be found from Northern Mexico to Northern Argentina. The birds breeding in the extreme northern and southern parts of this range, winter in the area from Costa Rica to Bolivia. Streaked tyrant flycatchers eat large insects (wasps, cicadas), small lizards, berries and arillate seeds.

During the first three months of this year, I have already seen more species on our land than during the whole previous year. And not just more species, but different species. There is a slight shift noticeable to species associated with bushy vegetation and open woods, while species associated with pastures and grass lands, such as the Eastern meadow lark, are disappearing. (Mostly to the farm of the neighbours).

Currently we have three species of wrens, a pair of black-headed sparrows, a pair of banded ant shrikes, orange-chinned parakeets, brown-headed parakeets, pale-breasted spinetails, garden emeralds and slate-headed tody flycatchers residing on our plot. And we get visits from keel-billed toucans, crested oropendola’s, yellow-tailed orioles and longbilled star-throats (a hummingbird). Overhead, we regularly see black and turkey vultures, the great black hawk, the road-side hawk, yellow-fronted and red-lored amazons, and bat falcons. Sometimes we see Magnificent Frigate birds, American wood-storks and once an American fork-tailed Kite.

There are also many more other animals around. Lizards are common as muck, especially the green iguana’s and the `jezus basilisks’ (these lizards can run over water). Snakes are either not present or very shy. The only one we (rarely) see, is the cat-eyed snake. That is a back-fanged snake about 50 cm long and no thicker than your little finger that hunts frogs. Not quite in the same league as the anaconda or the black mamba. We are also quite certain we still have armadillo’s on our land, but since they are very nocturnal and shy we never see them. The only mammals we see are the odd squirrel and the dog from the neighbours who comes to dig around in the pile of sand we have reserved for construction.