Yard Birds - Nov. 16, 2022 - Boquete, Panama

MaryBea Gallagher

16 Nov 2022 • 9 min read

Hello from Panama! We are between patriotic holidays this week but deep into the rainy season. Yesterday we had a hint of the coming Rainbow Season, which usually colors December and carries over into January - rainy in drizzly patches throughout the valley with enough sun to produce rainbows that traverse the hills. Often, the rainbows are not against the sky but against the mountain's green trees or coffee plants, and they change as fast as the rains and the breezes move. The rainbows fondly remind me of Hawai'i.

Previews of coming attractions as Rainbow Season approaches!

The Yardbirds in my title are not of the Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, or Jeff Beck type that rocked the world between 1963 and 1968.

Now that I have a yard, my yard birds affect my world. We have a wide variety of bird species and colors, and after a month, they are starting to recognize me as the cafe owner. You may remember our fortuitous first morning in this house, awakened by a greater kiskadee on our bedroom's Julieta balcony - apparently asking for papaya for breakfast!

The greater kiskadee that Miguel was confident had followed me from the hotel to this house about a mile away, wanting to share my breakfast. There are kiskadees in this new neighborhood; I hear them call, but they don't often visit. Kiskadees usually eat bugs, and there are lots of bugs around. The hotel has been putting out fruit for years, so they look for fruit in its neighborhood, but not in this new locale.

Since we moved into this house on October 16, I started to feed the birds breakfast in the yard. In the first week, I put out a bit of papaya and Miguel's mango peels while I ate my papaya breakfast to see if the neighbor birds wanted to share. I set out the buffet on a flat brick section of the planters along the babbling brook, where I could enjoy my papaya in the hammock pavilion and watch the birds come to investigate the offerings.

This is the bit of brick where I started putting out the bird buffet, and I ate my breakfast in the hammock pavilion in the background. This past weekend we added the bamboo feeder along the fence. Even with its exposure to the road, the new bamboo feeder is heavily frequented, often with 5 or 6 birds at a time and others waiting in line along the pavilion roof, in the planters, in the gaps of the cyclone fence, or in some trees just off to the right. The birds usually empty the feeders and the brick buffet by 2:00 daily.

The birds were slow to come, curious but wary and very conscious that I was watching. They would line up on the fence or the power lines and stare at me, stare at the food, cock their heads to either side, stare at both options again, and if I moved at all, retreat to the trees on the other side of the road. When I returned to the house, they would wait a while, then when I checked later, the fruit would be gone, and only the rinds remained.

Two little blue-grey tanagers dropped by to have papaya and banana for breakfast and to sing with the babbling brook. They travel in pairs, one eating while the other stands watch. I took this photo from between the balcony rails above to avoid being too noticeable.

The smaller birds like to hide in the bushes and approach the food warily, so I put food onto a dirty concrete pad by some hibiscus bushes at the back fence.

Putting fruit under bushes attracted a wider variety of birds, some tiny birds like honeycreepers and bug eaters, and some hummingbirds who like to vary their diets. The small birds are more willing to share food and take turns so long as there are leaves from which to watch for their opportunity.

A tody flycatcher - likes both bananas and bugs that like bananas.

These red-legged honeycreepers are tiny - only about 3.5 inches. The gorgeous blues indicate the males, and the females are green - females totally blend into the leaves except for those bright red legs. And these honeycreepers are fearless. They will come within a few feet of me if I have food!

The female red-legged honeycreeper must stay undercover to raise the young while the bright blue male distracts the bad guys from the nest.

This bird is a slaty flowerpiercer, and it uses that oddly shaped bill to pierce the base of flowers to get to the nectar. She also likes to stab at papaya and banana, and occasionally, she will stab at an orange slice if she needs some vitamin C. These tiny birds that come to visit are barely the size of my little finger. This photo is from the internet - these birds are photophobic!

As time has passed - almost four weeks, I have learned some things about what the different birds like and added bananas or slightly over-ripe plantains and a few orange slices to their buffet. Slightly heating the ripe plantains makes them sweeter, as though they have been sitting in the sun all day - the birds were not eating the plantains until the end of the day - I suspect because of the unheated starchiness or because the heated sweetness attracted more tasty bugs. No watermelon/sandia, thank you!

This is another internet photo for which I am grateful. Tropical mockingbirds are the neighborhood bullies - they chase off the other birds and try to keep all the food for themselves. I don't mind if they hang around, but they may not drive the other birds away to keep everything for themselves - MaryBea says. I have developed a warning when I see them show aggression - one they acknowledge - I say, "Mockingbirds, be nice!" and clap three times while taking an aggressive step forward. The little birds don't mind, and the mockingbirds take flight. I have no idea why my bossy voice and clapping step don't faze the smaller birds. Meanwhile, it doesn't keep the mockingbirds away, but they are starting to hop away from the little birds when they see me in the doorway.

I have some fruit out in open spots like that original brick seat along the brook for larger birds like grackles and tropical mockingbirds, and some fruit in bushes or trees for the tiny birds like the honeycreepers and anteaters. I have found that the big birds cannot guard everything at once, so they will leave the leafy-branchy places to the small birds if there are easier pickings in the open spaces. It does mean that I have to re-load the open spaces until the leafy small-bird places are empty for the day.

Grackles are the birds with whom I converse most easily and frequently. They are urban birds, apparently, and make a wide variety of sounds. They are bug eaters mostly, and I see them after the rain in the field across the street, gathering bugs and small reptiles to enjoy in the trees and rooftops. If I step out onto the balcony and whistle any variety of things, they will pick up the conversation, and we can go back and forth for 20 minutes. The female is brown, and the male is brilliant black with yellow eyes. You may remember I posted a photo of my friend and frequent conversant and said I didn't know yet what species of bird he was - he is a grackle, and we still meet - I on the balcony and he on the power post - to whistle and cackle about the happenings of the day. Thank you, unlabeled internet photographer.

Even the hummingbirds vary their diets and drop by for fruit or fruity bugs so long as they can hide in the leaves while waiting their turn.

There are a lot of different hummingbirds in the yard, but they move so fast that I don't have much time to identify them before they zip away between the flowers and leaves. This one I can identify because the striped tail is so distinctive - this is a Striped-Tail Hummingbird. We also have an all-black hummingbird, and rumor has it, it is a juvenile that will be another color when it matures. More to come as I learn details. Thank you to an internet photographer!

This past weekend, our landlord, Jorge, and the maintenance man, Ameth, put up two bamboo feeding troughs with rain screens to keep the food from floating away before the birds get to eat.

You cannot see all the birds in line for the feeder, but a wide and colorful variety is waiting their turn, even though the food is almost gone. Because the little ones don't like having their photos taken, I cannot get very close for easier identification, but there are some honeycreepers in there - note the turquoise-capped head to the right of the feeder trough.

This little bird is a Bananaquit, not a kiskadee but a look-alike - the bananaquit is smaller, more a peeper than a cheaper (lesser kiskadee) or a squawker (greater kiskadee), and eats tiny ants and bugs. Bananaquits like the bugs that like bananas and sweet plantains. I took this photo off our balcony, not 5 feet from the bananaquit - she's a small one! The tree is across the street - it is a big one!

A yellow-faced grassquit comes to feed - he likes the bananas and plantains and also likes that I occasionally put out some cooked rice. That's not my arm - I got this photo from the internet.

The blue-black grassquit is quite distinctive and cute! He dresses in my colors - all in black, so glossy it looks blue, with a white beak (not as clearly white here as in person). He is smaller than the length of my little finger; she is slightly longer and brown-beige like a house wren. This photo was taken by Volatinia Jacarina of Brazil.

It is bird migration season here, and we have many birds of prey, like falcons and eagles, going through in the high wind trails, along with the local vultures and harpy eagles flying high overhead. We also have birds that winter in the south, like Baltimore Orioles - and they stop in our yard for breakfast. The Orioles are snowbirding like many NorteAmericanos who arrive this time of year - they will be back north for baseball season.

Baltimore Orioles have arrived in Panama for the winter. They like any breakfast offering but don't like arguing with the mockingbirds. I am surprised when they wait their turn along with the tiny birds that are probably an eighth their size. They certainly brighten up the feeders!

I am concerned that I won't get this post to land in your email boxes with the number of photos I included, so I will save the Tanager family for a later post. The Tanagers are very varied, and I am surprised to have a good variety visiting our yard.

More Yardbirds to come. Thank you for reading along!

MaryBea y Miguel

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MaryBea y Miguel

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