Lucy Hughes – We Are crea

21/03/202221/03/2022

The Holy Grail of Birds

Every country has them, no matter where you go, those rare or elusive birds that are like searching for the Holy Grail. For some birders they will spend a life time and never get to see that one special bird. They are the stuff of dinner table legends and can be the making of local bird guides.

Here in Panama, with a current list of over 1000 species, there are a lot of birds to choose from. For many birders the Rufous-vented Ground-cuckoo is Panama’s holy grail bird. As Whitehawk Birding put it “searching for ground-cuckoo’s brings us to a whole other level of birding in the Neotropics, that relies very much on luck and good birding karma”. They are not exactly uncommon it’s just that they are unpredictable and like to stick to the forest floor where they are rather shy making them very hard to see.

So, I had no real expectations of ticking this bird from my life list whilst at Cocobolo Nature Reserve. Hopes, sure, but expectations no. It has been recorded here, on camera trap and by sound but never spotted in the flesh.

To find a ground-cuckoo you really need to find an ant swarm. Surprisingly these are not too hard to find at Cocobolo if you spend any time in the forest. Luckily there are other antbirds that are far less shy at ant swarms. Ocellated Antbird, a beauty in its own right and Bi-coloured are a treat to watch and are, most helpfully, very vocal alerting you to the swarm. Unfortunately not every ant swarm has a ground-cuckoo.

On one particular day in February Trev and I were out setting camera traps. We had found a little used trail in the old growth forest that was somewhat over grown and undisturbed and thought it a likely place for mammal activity. We spent some time, as is the norm with camera traps, faffing around with the set up. I had Trev walking up and down the trail, simulating various critters to check I had the right angle on the trap. We weren’t exactly quiet and weren’t exactly trying to disguise our presence. So it was a bit of a surprise when we finally gathered up our bags and set off down the trail to hear, not 3 meters on, a few Occelated Antbirds starting to get excited. We stopped and tried to pin point them, finally seeing them 4 meters into the tangled undergrowth at the base of a large tree. Then there came a sound of clacking.

There are certain sounds that flow through you, filling you with a rising excitement tinged with anxiety that is almost akin to fear. You know the sound signifies something special; you now have to hold yourself back from doing something stupid like moving or making a sound until you have located the sound and confirmed your suspicions. The fear part is that you just won’t find whatever triggered your excitement, as too frequently happens in tropical forests. A terrible feeling of “I am 99% sure there was a *enter your dream wildlife sighting* but I couldn’t find it”.

We both knew that the clacking was in all probability a Rufous-vented Ground-cuckoo. It’s like being a child again, you so desperately want to see it, your emotions are high and most probably I would cry like a baby if I came this close to a ground-cuckoo and didn’t get a glimpse. At the same moment we both saw an unmistakable long tail; it was glimpsed through the foliage and had a disorientating feel about it. Later analysis was that we were seeing the bird’s underbelly, tail up, head down as it plucked a flushed prey item from the ant swarm. And then it was gone….

Obviously we couldn’t give up that easily and so we stayed put watching the rest of the mob squabbling over treats for around 30 minutes. In the back ground we started to hear, faintly a mournful kind of call that was fairly drowned out by the racket the other ant birds were making. Blood started to pump again, would we be that lucky, to see it again? We crept ever so slowly and quietly towards the general area the call was coming from trying to see through logs and vines and jumping Ocellated Antbirds. After another painful 15 minutes I finally honed in on a movement and was rewarded with a ground-cuckoo looking right back at me…..for about another 3 seconds before it faded back in to the forest never to be seen again.

Holy Grail, you bet your life! A day to remember.

28/02/202221/03/2022

Purple Haze

Plants in the tropics have evolved in many ways to combat being eaten by herbivores. In the Americas, where mega fauna found across Africa and Asia are absent, it’s the invertebrates that exert the most herbivorous pressure on plants.

Don’t underestimate their effect, an ant may be degrees smaller than an elephant but their sheer numbers mean they are most certainly as big ecosystem engineers. Leafcutter ant species alone cut an estimated 12 – 17% of all leaf production in tropical forests and can strip a tree in less than a day.

So how do plants cope with this kind of onslaught? In Africa and Asia trees develop hefty, nasty spikes that work really well against large and small mammals alike but these pose no problem to insects. To deter insects a plant has to resort to chemical warfare.

One such example of this chemical solution is very evident across Cocobolo’s many different plant species. If you take a walk in the forest you will notice that a few leaves on certain plants are a purple colour (or sometimes white, cream or red) whilst the rest of their leaves are the usual green. Closer inspection shows that these odd purple leaves are the newest growth on the plant and constitute the immature leaves. The phenomenon, known as delayed greening, is a clever adaptation to herbivory.

Delayed greening occurs across distantly related species. From dicot flowering plants to …

As you probably know if you have ever grown veg, fresh young leaves are always more tender than older ones. Herbivores will target new growth for this very reason, eating the soft palatable new growth first before turning to the older leaves. In order to protect new leaves, many plants in the tropics will delay production of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll not only gives a plant its green colour but also enables the absorption of light to provide energy for photosynthesis. Effectively the lack of green pigment renders the purple young leaves invisible to herbivores that are on the lookout for tasty green things.

The life force of the plant, chlorophyll is costly to produce as is a leaf structure itself. So to lose all that effort to herbivores is a real problem for a plant. Better to delay the greening process until the young leaves have had a chance to toughen up and mature; becoming more resilient to browsing insects. Once fully formed it’s worth the plants investment to fill them with chlorophyll so they can pull their weight in the photosynthesis department.

A possible secondary advantage of delayed greening is that many herbivorous insects are green to camouflage themselves from their predators. If they do alight onto a fresh new purple leaf they stand out and are far more vulnerable to passing lizards, frogs and birds making it logical for them to avoid purple leaves.

It is not a perfect system, a leaf with no chlorophyll cannot do the job it was designed for but research has shown that the temporary delay in photosynthetic ability is outweighed by the heavy cost of having to keep re-growing new leaves that are lost to herbivory.

This is a very simple explanation and the evolutionary race between plants and herbivores is complex but it is all the more fascinating for being a phenomenon that is so obvious when you wander around Cocobolo.

25/01/202221/03/2022

Road Repairs!

It is the start of the dry season here in Cocobolo Nature Reserve which means the team can get back and do some much needed work. The local staff have been holding the fort, so to speak, since last July but now Michael, Kurt and volunteers, Trev and Lucy are on the ground raring to go.

Obviously we just want to get out into the forest and start collecting observations of the millions of species that call Cocobolo home, start setting out camera traps, and generally just marvel at all that grows in this special piece of rainforest. Unfortunately there are some jobs that do really need doing around camp that just can’t be left. One of the most important is the access road. Those of you who have been to Cocobolo will know that there are actually two ways in to Cocobolo, one short route; we know is passable as we drove it getting here. However if it rains a lot it becomes impassable and the long route has to be taken. This route crosses and re-crosses the Mamoni River multiple times which can be very problematic but it really is the only choice if rain has left the steep short route dangerously muddy.

So one of our first tasks was to grab pick axe and shovels, don rubber boots and walk the 3 or so kilometres towards La Zahina village to see how the crossings have fared over the wet season. Now, on the surface, this task seems like it would be really unwelcomed by a group of naturalists who just want to get into the forest but as you never know what’s round the next corner all four of us grabbed not only tools but binoculars too.

Off we set wading across the first river crossing, a quick stop to watch a kingfisher and a couple of kiskadee before walking a nice dirt road with cow pasture one side and the river on the other and trees forming a canopy overhead. It really was more of a stroll, no one was in a hurry and there were plenty of pauses to take in the birds using the cow pastures like smooth billed ani, savannah hawk and swooping swallows.

We did eventually make it to the main steep river crossing where we put in a good couple of hours hard graft digging sand and laying rocks to give the tyres some kind of purchase up the steep exit. We set up a chain gang strung across the river to move the rocks throwing from person to person which really worked well until someone’s attention drifted off towards a distant raptor or a heron flying past and was rewarded by a rock in the chest!

After fixing this the most important crossing we continued our walk along the dirt road, in this section there were pastures interspersed with forest that contained some good sized trees lining the sides of the road. The team were spread out and as the lead pair turned a corner under a big tree I saw something big flush from the tree landing soon after on another big tree. To my utter delight when I untangled my binocular straps from my shovel handle and got a focus on what it was I discovered a beautiful juvenile spectacled owl balefully staring down at me. I managed to get the attention of the rest of the team and everyone gathered round for some really astounding views of the this stunning tropical owl in broad day light. Generally spectacled owls are nocturnal so to spend time with this youngster in the good light was really special.

Of course none of us actually had a camera with us so no pictures but it will remain in my memory at least as one of those great spots. What started out seeming like a day of work turned out to be full of surprises thanks to nature.