Comments on: Quiz: Is There a Bird in This Photo?

By: Top 7 Photos: Birding in South Texas « Round Robin

Top 7 Photos: Birding in South Texas « Round Robin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:48:59 +0000

[...] 6. And this is what the crowd looks like when you’ve got a Common Pauraque sleeping just off the trail. Yes, believe it or not, you can focus a high-powered telescope on a spot 10 feet away. And yes, it’s worth it. (For pictures of the actual bird, see this post.) [...]

By: sitta

sitta — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:53:13 +0000

Hey Hugh-
Definitely possible. ID’ing caprimulgids from a moving car in the midday glare is not one of my strong suits! I think I called them Pauraques due to their sheer commonness in that region of CR, and not having seen many nighthawks thanks to the early (and complete) darkness.

By: Hugh

Hugh — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:25:36 +0000

Glad you all liked these photos – hard to go wrong when the bird is sitting motionless less than 10 feet from the trail! Also see Bill of the Birds for more shots of the same bird: http://billofthebirds.blogspot.com/2008/11/pauraque.html

@sitta – these photos and a couple more are up in Birdshare, thanks for the prompt. There’s no way those Costa Rican birds on the wires could have been nighthawks, is there?

@misangela – my camera’s nothing too special, but it’s a nice point and shoot with a 10x zoom that some friends and family recently gave me. definitely not one of those arm-length lenses you see the real photographers carrying!

By: misangela

misangela — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:21:23 +0000

WOW. What an amazing bird! The photo is really great, too. What type of camera do you use?

Angela

By: Grant McCreary

Grant McCreary — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:08:39 +0000

I had the exact same reaction to this bird, Hugh. Words cannot express, nor photographs convey, just how gorgeous this bird was. The markings on the feathers were just exquisite. And when you looked closer through a scope, the surprises continued. You could see the rictal bristles around the mouth, and even more surprisingly the nostrils on top of the teeny bill. It looked like a miniature tubenose. I would have to say that it was one of my best birding experiences while in the RGV.

By: sitta

sitta — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:17:39 +0000

Come to think of it, one of my weirdest Pauraque sightings was at the Liberia Airport in Costa Rica. I had arrived at roughly midday,and as we sped along the airport access road headed back to the highway, a ribbon of 8′ high chainlink fence paralleled the road. In the intense midday glare I noticed a smudge on the otherwise shining silver, and upon closer look realized it was a roosting pauraque. Once I calibrated my eyes, I realized there were an easy half-dozen spread along the half-mile of fence leading back to the highway. Go figure.

By: Robinsegg

Robinsegg — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:10:16 +0000

Nice shots and commentary. I had a similar experience when I first sighted a Common Nighthawk just last year. It was much easier to spot however, than your sighting. It was perched in one of the half-dozen trees found at Fish Springs NWR.

By: msc

msc — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:32:51 +0000

Wow, awesome pictures. How did you spot it?

By: Debi

Debi — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:50:35 +0000

Stunningly beautiful bird. Thanks for sharing this.

By: sitta

sitta — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:41:42 +0000

Great pix! Hope we see some of those in BirdShare!