The Early Bird
For those
of us who don’t mind early mornings, getting up at 5:00 am, with the
possibility of coming close to some birds of the forest, isn’t a hardship. A
group of us walked up onto the ‘Ridge’, nearby GVI Amazon base camp, as the sky lightened and we saw the mist
rising over the Rio Napo and swirling through the forest.
We unfurled
the mist nets and retreated to our temporary base and waited about 30 minutes
before checking the nets – but no birds. This was repeated at regular intervals
over the next few hours but we caught only one Blue Crowned Manakin –
interestingly it had a band put on previously by GVI.
But by
using a recorded call of a white-tailed Trogon (sounds a bit like a gull) we
became focused on the responding call of a real White-tailed Trogon which came
closer to us to investigate the source of the calling. We watched as it got
closer to the net area, and although it didn’t get into the net, we were really
thrilled to catch sight of both a male and a female above us in the canopy – we
had a good view of the orangey underparts and the distinctive white tail with
some bars.
As the sun
got stronger and evaporated the mist the bird activity increased and we saw a
Roadside Hawk soaring on a thermal. Even more exciting was a beautiful Swallow
Tailed Kite, with its long forked tail. So even though our netting was not as
successful as we had hoped, we were certainly happy with the sightings we had.
Well worth getting up early!
Pam Lloyd, GVI Amazon volunteer
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