Thursday 2 May 2013

Presentation Day!


APRIL 30th
Monday morning I set out on an Atlantic Forest walk which produced many regular species. I headed off to the corn field to see the Yellowish Pipit when a bird which was smaller than a Gallinule walked across the road approximately thirty metres in front of me. I chose the binocular option above the camera and saw a Slaty backed Wood Rail which disappeared as quickly as it homed into view. This species is a lot smaller than the Giant Wood Rail. I used playback but the bird was not seen again. This species was a life bird and is also shown as near threatened on the Paraguay list.

Tuesday was presentation day where Interns and volunteers that are due to leaving Laguna Blanca talk about the projects they have been engaged in. Sean and I had had a game of spoof to decide who was going first. I guess the right amount of coins so I stepped into poll position and delivered my talk with the aid of slides.
(Presentation lecture)
To date I have recorded 161 species at Laguna Blanca of which 28 were life birds for me. My trip total stands at 209 species of which 46 are life birds. I have created over 1500 data entries in relation to daily species counts. Since the beginning of my project eight new species for Laguna Blanca have been recorded. One species the Grey Capped Tyrannulet was found on the 19th March and had only recently been identified as new to science and was considered endemic to Brazil. I found this species on the Arroyito trail at the back of the house and photographed it. I was then able to send it to Paul Smith (Fauna Paraguay) for identification.
(Grey Capped Tyrannulet)
On March 26th a Grey headed Gull was seen by Sjouke who was in the Cerrado and then Sean who was on the lagoon checking his gil nets. Sadly I missed this bird and no photographs were taken of this rare visitor to Laguna Blanca

On April 11th a third record for Paraguay was recorded in the form of a Black Faced Tanager was also found by Sjouke by the lagoon just behind where we sit to use the internet.
(Black Faced Tanager)

No comments:

Post a Comment