Green violet-ear (Colibri thalassinus)
Species 158 for my yard list is this common hummingbird of higher elevations. I say 158 after a close recount of my list. I seem to have underestimated a little bit, since I posted a blog for species 152 just a short while ago.
Despite some guidebook descriptions, the bill of this hummingbird is distinctly curved, especially when seen next to our resident Rufous-taileds. It seems marginally smaller but it is all green, with a rounded tail that has a blueish band on it. The clincher is the violet ear-patch, seen here so well in Richard Garrigues‘ photo.
The Green violet-ear has now spent three days in the same bottle-brush tree as the visiting Cape May warbler. While the Cape May wards off Tennessee warblers, the Green violet-ear defends its food-source against several threatening Rufous-taileds.
It’s a good time of year for hummingbirds, as a brief trip down to don Martín’s cabin above Quebrada La Loca brought good views not only of Rufous-taileds but also of Green hermit and Violet sabrewing. White-necked jacobin is also in the churchyard at the moment. At Quebrada La Loca, I missed both the Fasciated tiger-heron, which is back again in its old locale, and a huge boa constrictor (béquer) that don Martín found on the far slope of the river among blackberry bushes. The boa is supposedly restricted to lower altitudes.
Dusky-capped flycatchers and Keel-billed toucans are nesting at and behind his cabin, but he misses the Golden-hooded tanagers that nested in his hedgerow last year. Today brought a flurry of birds that included number 159 for my list, the Philadelphia vireo (Vireo philadelphicus). To me, this one is not easy to identify, and I have almost certainly seen it here previously without being sure of it. This time my task was made easier because it was accompanied by several Tennessee warblers, some of which were very yellow juveniles. The vireo’s eye-line, however, seems much more pronounced, and the bird also moves much more slowly than a warbler.
Philadelphia vireo
Here’s the list from a day’s sporadic birding, with several very common birds missing:
- Gray-headed chachalaca
- Cattle egret
- Black vulture
- Turkey vulture
- Roadside hawk
- Red-billed pigeon
- White-tipped dove
- Groove-billed ani
- Green hermit
- Violet sabrewing
- Rufous-tailed hummingbird
- Green violet-ear
- Keel-billed toucan
- Yellow-bellied elaenia
- Piratic flycatcher
- Common tody-flycatcher
- Black phoebe
- Dusky-capped flycatcher
- Great kiskadee
- Social flycatcher
- Tropical kingbird
- Philadelphia vireo
- Brown jay
- Blue-and-white swallow
- Tropical gnatcatcher
- Plain wren
- House wren
- Swainson’s thrush
- Clay-colored robin
- Tennessee warbler
- Yellow warbler
- Cape May warbler
- Chestnut-sided warbler
- Bananaquit
- Common bush-tanager
- White-lined tanager
- Passerini’s tanager
- Golden-hooded tanager
- Silver-throated tanager
- Blue-gray tanager
- Yellow-faced grassquit
- Black-striped sparrow
- Rufous-collared sparrow
- Buff-throated saltator
- Black-headed saltator
- Melodious blackbird
- Great-tailed grackle
- Baltimore oriole
- Montezuma oropendola
Birds for Beer 