Olaf Danielson's Blog, page 2

Happy New Year

 

Happy New Year from Tenerife in the Canary Islands.  All of us, including Leroy the "Redneck" Penguin were out celebrating last night.  I am not sure how he can put away so much booze but he always does.  We are not sure he ever stopped drinking yet.
We were out for a 8 course New Year's dinner and then we watched the fireworks at 0000 hour.
The food was great, the wine glass was never empty and the hangover lasts until January 2nd.
We have been learning to walk stairs here.  The beaches are down cliffs
It is a tough island to have acrophobia on, the fear of heights where roads and sidewalks are perched on cliffs by steel plates or carved into rocks has left me with some quivering legs and intestines.  Especially when we will be going to the volcano in the search of birds and views.
The trip has so far not involved being stuck on a rock, food poisoning, sudden cold snaps, nor finding out or room has been sublet to others.  The streets are narrow, and parking is by dumb luck.  Our friends from Sweden, Peter, Kajsa, and Camilla had their car towed within ten minutes of coming to the island.  I always say a few mishaps lead to better blogs but just the same, new stories is also a good trip. 
Bird wise, we have been slowly working on the island endemic (and near endemic) list, so far I have seen about half of the goal species
The African blue tit, not an endemic but a lifer bird.  Sort of a great tit looking like a blue tit in size
A bit harder to find than anticipated, but the Canary Island Chaffinch (male)
Canary Island chiffchaff, seen easily and everywhere
Island Canary, here and the Azores

  I have seen the elusive Laurel Pigeon and barbary partridge but they have remained elusive to my camera but we still have four more days until we go back to Iceland and hopefully get to see the volcano.  Just six lifers but heck, some of these are just here.
Will give a complete trip update, but just would like everyone to be wished a very Happy New Year from our temporary island retreat.
Olaf 

Three for Texas!

In 1962, Dean Martin and Anita Ekburg (my favorite actress of the Sixties) signed on for the movie Two for Texas. Later on, Frank Sinatra signed on and the title was changed to Three for Texas. After Sofia Loren turned down a cool million bucks to do the film, Ursula Andres agreed to do it and the movie title was changed a fourth time to Four for Texas. The movie is famous for just one anecdote, originally given a bit part, Peter Lawford was edited out after he was expelled from the Rat Pack in 1963 and does not appear in the movie despite having movie credits for it. 
Much like the movie, my recent trip to Texas had its title changed a few times. and to be honest, this did NOT start out as a birding trip.  I am building a garage/ shed in South Dakota and my gravel pad was screwed up and the project needed my immediate attention. On Monday morning I flew off into the tundra where on most years, I would not even be able to get to my cabin but snowfall has been absent generally and although the lake is long since frozen, it wasn't that bad out side.  I signed a work order and mysteriously the problem abated and the new gravel showed up, apparently they did not like the way it had been done.

The hoar frost was neat to see,  By the end of the day on Tuesday, the pad was done, and Dino, the Dinosaur and me watched the sunset on a productive day  Do I wait for the builders to come back?  The last of the locals pulled out for the winter on Tuesday, and I did not want to get stuck out there, so I checked rare birds and there was not one but astonishingly six birds I needed in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, so I booked a ticket for San Antonio and at two in the morning I rewinterized the cabin and zipped off to Sioux Falls to fly south.
I made it to Corpus Christi at two PM and went right for the first bird, a Cattle tyrant, a bird from quite a bit south of Texas.  I saw one on a cow in Uruguay.  How did a bird like this, a never before seen bird, get here?  Not only that, it has been handing out in front of a sushi bar in some palms.  The belief is it caught a ride on a ship.  The main shipping channel goes right in front and I saw a tanker heading to South America for crude and then a container ship coming in from the Panama Canal the edge of this bird's range.  So who knows how it got there, but there is an avenue for one to hitch a ride.
a cattle tyrant

  I walked across the street and was getting settled to look when a guy came running up to me worried that I would not see it.  It was right over my head, ten feet away.  The whole process took longer to get across the street than to find the bird.  But there it was, bird to be lifer 826 (it is not on the list yet, I assume it will be).  I do not know about this tyrant.  It is hanging around in an odd area in downtown Corpus living in palms. I guess there is enough to eat but if a Cooper's hawk is in the area, he is going to be dinner I fear.  It has been here for a while and I am lucky it is still here and the house sparrows survive.  
I went to the marina to walk around and I needed a new hat, I had left a favorite on the plane.  Downtown Corpus is non-existent for shopping.  I hit paydirt in a tourist shop for a cool Bahama style hat.  Then I walked to pay homage to Selena Quintilla-Perez, the local singing sensation who was killed in 1995 by her former manager.  She was 24.

The statue is a bit slutty (sexy?), with her shirt open.  I took her
 memorial from a more appropriate angle

but then I looked how she dressed and that is what she performed in
 While I was taking a nap at the pier, a long billed curlew flew in and looked me over. A favorite bird and then  I had a beer with Craig Casper and old frat brother who works in the local government and then drove south for more birds (hopefully).
The drive to Resaca de la Palma State Park north of Brownsville was an odd one.  The clerk at the flea bitten motel in Riviera was taking a shower, so I had to wait to get in my room.  I watched a BMW pull off the road towing two cars bound for Mexico, one of which was hardly worth the gas to pull it.  The three way towing looked unsafe and would never fly in almost every state but here.
The lady finally came out in a towel and gave me a room.  That ordeal was worn off when I saw my room.  I think the bedbugs had moved out already and the A/C heater had broke, so it smelled of stale motel room.  Dead, tired, I left everything in the car and just crashed at 730.  I woke up at 430, washed the grime off me and then changed in the parking lot as the clerk had on less than me.  It was just me and the garbage truck anyhow.  I was heading south at 0500.  Sunrise set for 0703.  
All driving south, I was having deja vu, like I was doing something over again.  At Olmito, exit 10 north of Brownsville, I hit a favorite Stripes/ Laredo Taco for my birding  breakfast, to breakfast tacos for 3 bucks and a large coffee.  I was in line with 40 Hispanic workers of all sorts doing the same thing and buying the same things.  The trouble with Resaca is that it is only three miles down there so I have to woof down the tacos and so I was in the parking lot before the coffee was cool enough and the second taco down.  All the other birders were looking at me weirdly, like what was I eating as I was putting on my fine new hat and getting camera stuff on.  I ate the second taco as I was hustling to where my intel said the bird was last seen.  The intel on the really good Becard the local crowd there had was stale and despite there being thirty birders eventually, these guys did not know how a stakeout worked.  This was sort of a deja vu moment from Portland ME when myself and another birder had to take it upon ourselves to go dig out the bird as everyone was standing around talking and no one was really birding.  Oh they said well it was in the parking lot the last night but that was not what I read, and okay, they need to space out and look for it.
It ended  up just two of us were by the feeding station where it seems to always be reported in the morning.
Advice on stakeouts, and I have some experience in this.I have gleaned pointers form birding aces Larry Manfredi, Chris Feeney, Thor Monson and others1) do your homework before you get there, 2) get there early.  Yes, Texas state park birder spots open at 0800 BUT all of them have gates open before dawn.  Tropical birds are active in first hour of light and then sporadically and a little towards evening.  It had been hot the day before so sunrise in 0703 and I cruised into the parking lot at 0701.  You got to be on stake out when you can see.  Don't wait until eight!  Sometimes I'll come to a place like this in the afternoon to scout for the morning attack, and that is okay, sometimes you get lucky and find the bird3) look around and see a keen eyed and most persistent birder or a known alpha-birder (of course in Florida if you spot Larry Manfredi, I am never going to be too far away even if he is guiding someone. Usually pick a young guy if you do not know anyone, and if you think where he is looking makes sense, go with him.  Be the next guy on his left or right as if you don't find it usually he will.  During the course of the morning, you may need to swap guys.  Looks do not always pan out.  I saw the kid and we covered a corner4) do not bunch up and stay away from the conversation circles.5) really work at it, for the first hour, and do NOT assume the others know more than you do.  
The crowd at here was not a good one and it ended up 20 were bunched in the parking lot, and two of us were working the trees and then I spotted it.  I called to the young guy, he zipped over and we both were on it.  An old guy without a pair of bins and just a camera on a tripod was within visual range so I got him to come over.  
This was no tripod bird.  It was feeding a bouncing all over a think tree.  I am not sure he ever got on the bird.  We worked on photos for five maybe ten minutes, it came in and out and a couple came but by then it was deep in the trees and then gone.
Gray collared becard, lifer 827 a really really rare bird.  I have never seen one in Mexico either. two of 35 got great looks at it and photos the others...?
By the time the hoard arrived it was gone.  fifteen minutes late it came out for a brief cameo for maybe 20 seconds.  There was no way any one would get a photo and then...that was it.  One guy seemed happy as he had been there for three days.  I'm thinking missing it for three days means you need to change your plan of attack.  He was the guy looking at me funny when I was eating on the walk and drinking coffee.  
"I can eat with my eyes open watching" did not seem to change his odd look at me.  Like I said the key is watching.
I always say I am a lucky birder.  I can find this stuff pretty easily, not always but usually.  Many give up and never get it when it does come by.  Maybe I have some skill in this and I make my luck, 
I then walked out for the next bird, a roadside hawk, a bird seen every few years down here, but one I had never gotten in the USA, although I had seen a few in Brazil last month.  It was a two hundred yard walk and then in the Resaca, there it was a hundred yards away and feeding, I then came back after a couple of birders left and waited for a better photo.  It then decided to come closer and closer and finally right next to us, maybe 15 feet away.

The roadside hawk is ABA continental bird 828, a double 20 minutes apart, astonishing.
Then I went for lifer butterflies American snout
A really cool Mexican bluewing a lifer for me
northern sicklewing another lifer
A common mestra, seen one of these before
a really sharp Queen
a fiery skipper, seen these guys everywhere
a clouded skipper another lifer

Then I called a friend and went to lunch, and then we toured SpaceX.  Wow, what a crazy deal...Blowfeldt meets Edison.  Tesla meets Ford.  Gilligan meets the Professor.  You cannot imagine what is going on down there on the US border.  Right in the middle of a wildlife refuge

rocket factory under construction

Standing on a public beach and this is the view
they get 1000 a day for an RV spot to view a ricket blast from here, crazy.  Yea Don't panic....Another guy I met was selling scrapped stainless rocket parts for big bucks or that was the plan, somewhere he stumbled upon the stuff in Mexico.
Billions spent and this is just the beginning.  Rockets to Mars!  Is the goal, but is it a boondoggle, well it is, but will it become something?
It reminds me of another movie, Contact  They are also building million dollar cabins on the Rio Grande for SpaceX shareholders con watch 4 miles away.  Huge rockets can sometime go boom!  Will all of the employee houses a mile away survive?  All of this down 30 miles on a little road that is taking a beating and absolutely NO services, no gas stations, stores, just a company mess hall.  Guess it is mostly his money.....We will see if it happens or maybe Elon will find a new passion.
The deja vu was answered when i noticed a dent on the rear quarter panel of the rental car, wait a minute.  This is the very same car I rented in Tampa in September.  The dent was exact. Back then I had to argue about the dent, and apparently someone had driven it one way to San Antonio.  It still got crappy gas mileage. I decided to not go to the other side of the valley to see three more potential lifer birds, I needed to see my wife.  Those others can wait, so we stopped at three in Texas.  After yet another argument with Avis with photos, they let me go.  "Like I just knew I'd get a similar car so I made a dent in the same spot on the same shape to sneak out of this.  Look me up, to see if I did not rent this exact car three months ago."  I flew to Florida today, crazy flights, wing issues, a plane swap, a one minute connection, but safely home....it is good to be home
There is always another bird, and this time three of them, three for Texas!
Olaf 

Flying COPA Cabana Airlines

                             

Part 5/5, The Pilot's name was Rico (really!) but he didn't wear a diamond and there was no Lola, she never came over...

The story of COPA and how exactly Olaf got lifer 1896, the pretty good Olive-spotted hummingbird shown above.  This was my last Brazilian bird, and it came in overtime on this trip and will come later.

The ends of trips are melancholy at best but sometimes just getting home is an adventure

An epic trip has four parts:

1) A noble purpose.  Say my bucket list zero event of going to Trisdan da Cuhna, a Big year, a wedding in paradise, or something.

2) A beginning of course, the buildup, and as they say half the fun is getting there

3) the actual event, of destination, going to Trisdan and not landing a boat would have been "tragic" and not "epic" 

4) Getting home

We have had EPic trips, South America-South Africa, Boating Lake Powell thirty years ago, RV camping in Sweden, a Glacier trip on our honeymoon, and Attu, nude birding are five of many that come to mind.

We have had some real Tragic trips, too, a Bermuda trip including near frost bite and a plane crash and milking a wounded new RV around California and back are two classic ones, but most trips are somewhere in the middle.  A trip between shifts in Spearfish to Minnesota playoff baseball with the Yankees and back also comes to mind as the Twins got obliterated by Roger Clemens and I arrived to a disaster of the previous ER doctor's making upon my arrival at 7am when the cop tracked me down at the motel.  The extra hour they refused to authorize payment for and this was the last time I ever worked there. There are also the boring trips that nothing really happens, which for us are few and far between as something ALWAYS happens.

This trip was in the middle but more on the tragic side of things.  It will ALWAYS be remembered as that trip the boat ran aground and that terrible trip home, and not for all the nice people we met nor the 50 lifer birds I saw.  Much like Thailand-Bhutan last year is remembered for the food poisoning I had and the awful end to our flight.

So what happened?

We were heading to Manaus aboard the Premium ship.  

We came across a group of poachers on the National park, fishing and stealing turtle eggs, our guide Wolf gave them a wide berth as who knows if they were armed.

We stopped at a more modern Native settlement.  They had a new school, had electricity since 2017, a store, but eighty steps to get up the hill.  Below is their sawmill.

The village was a mecca for birds

I saw our first variegated flycatcher there, on a power line they had just put in

I saw a Hauxwell's thrush in a tree, not well as we heard it mostly and tried to get the other birder on it and lost it and never got a photo.   Then there was also this immature thrush

I was thinking it was a Pale breasted thrush due to it being more conspicuous and looking at me, but I am not sure.

The namesake of the Hauxwell's Thrush is a bit of a mystery, as it (and some other things) is probably named after John Hauxwell, a "collector of specimens," but whose affiliation and how he came to the Amazon and what he did is unclear.  He died somewhere between 1886 and 1919, lived in Peru after maybe Manaus...(There is also a T. A. Hauxwell).

So, with the trip winding down, we ended up trying to unsuccessfully catch a piranha, we fished off of a high and dry floating home.

Then it was back to Manaus, an obligate tourist activity seeing the Manaus Opera house built in 1897, it had been abandoned after the rubber boom ended in 1915 when British agents smuggled out rubber seeds and found they could be grown cheaper in Malaysia 
We had an early night, just before dark, I was out birding behind the hotel and slipped in the mud and wiped out coating myself with sticky clay-mud.  I had to scrape it off everything in the shower in the room.  Luckily my camera was in my backpack.

This Chiri vireo, not a lifer was what I thought was going to be the last bird for the trip ,

We went to bed at 8 and were up at midnight for a 1245 departure in the morning,  We loaded up, zipped through tickets, security, passport control and causally noted that the flight would be 30 minutes late.  The plane came in, they took their time boarding and eventually everyone got on and we sat down but they never shut the doors and Rico the pilot looked like he was waiting for something, and we waited, and waited

The announced something in Portuguese and then in English, "flight cancelled."  That was it, nothing more and we all filed out and through customs, who had all gone home.  It was 0430 at the airport.  We tried to pump a few bilingual people about what was also said, but we got little.  

What had happened, the airport in Manaus closes from 4AM to Noon every day and despite a plane loaded and sitting on the tarmac, the Air traffic control people in the tower went home at 4AM and as such the plane could not take off and depart.

This also made the crew "time out" so their mandatory 12 hour break would not start until they got to the hotel and COPA was dithering about that and they did not depart the airport until 530 so, that was the rumor of the time of departure in the afternoon.   

Everyone piled in front of COPA's one representatives, nothing was happening and here we were the 19 Americans who could not really understand what was said and we sat in a closed airport with no food and nothing.  COPA "called" all of the hotels but they were full. Silja got on the telephone with the emergency number at Road Scholar and woke someone up named Steve.  Calling a random relative of one of the fellow travelers would have been more helpful.  My wife was then on hold for a while and then got nothing just advice to call the main office when they opened in 4 hours.

Then we decided to try to contact our guide Wolf, but how do you call Brazil in Brazil from a US cell phone?  We could not do it and then my wife remembered she had him on Instagram and he answered.  Wolf showed up like an angry German and walked into the COPA manager's office, soon we were on a bus back to our hotel and our old rooms, a free breakfast and then lunch.

I went back to the spot in the back of the hotel and watched them remove a caiman from a hole and then tried to identify honeycreepers with another birder.....

olive potted hummingbird
I saw my last lifer, an olive-spotted hummingbird, and after two showers and a nap, it was back to the airport for round two at 230

Checking was still crazy and no officer was in immigration just a woman with a list of all of us that had "left the country" earlier that morning.  

I read some comments on the airline while we waited.

"COPA sucks!"  Non stop delays. Not 15 min delays I’m talking HOURS. Horrible. Even worse than Spirit. I think this might be the worse airline in the world. 

"Reservation System does not work properly, very bad customer service." COPA system for reservation is very bad. I tried to add a checked bag in advance and the system did not allow me, it ask me to wait until check in day. On check in day, the COPA system to collect the payment did not work. Now I need to pay at the counter a more expensive price, this is the only option I have. Then, when I call the call center, the poor service representative cannot do anything because the system is locked everywhere. This translated in a very bad customer service. There are many more things that I want to complain, but I do not have time to keep writing.

COPA poked around and finally we got going to Panama City with Rico driving the plane, somehow it was uneventful, and then luckily our quick transfer to Miami was a gate away, but after going through the scanner, we walked up and noticed the flight was delayed two hours, even with the plane sitting around at the gate.

We finally left, I was stuck in a middle seat stuck between two bigger guys than me with a woman in front of me grabbing me on the top of the head while I slept.  It was a relief to get out at Miami, we hustled through the airport found our car and drove the rest of the night and early morning home, the trip was over 16 hours later than expected.  We were tired, furniture was arriving soon and in a day, my mother was coming and a day after that, Silja and her were both flying to Germany to check on our son, who was having surgery.

The trip was over, I logged 50 new bird species, 104 for the trip, which was a bit of work.  I logged country number 59 to my Century Club total, met some nice people and brought home chiggers.  We ran aground, had a crazy airplane delays and we rode COPA Cobana airlines for a first and maybe....last time.

COPA is bad but Road Scholar should not have forced everyone to start in Miami, some, could have saved 6-14 hours or more in the air by meeting in Panama, we could have started in Tampa, half of the ground could have flown into the west coast directly.

Road Scholar needs a better emergency response, and we need to figure out how to use our phones from an international country to that country.

Brazil, maybe another time, we'll see, maybe Peacock Bass fishing, it was nit epic but memorable.  COPA, I'd advise a pass.

Cheers

Olaf

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last

PART 4 of 5:  When I last left you we were stuck on a rock in the middle of the Rio Negro River just over 2 degrees south latitude in Brazil.  As rocks go, our was at least a comfortable one and the boat was only slightly perched askew with the rain accumulating aft

We went out at night and mostly saw spectacled caiman, the above blue and yellow macaw came later....

During thenight the Princesp Clariant, a smaller motorized transport ship came torescue us and take us to a hotel on the mainland.  I do not remember the town. Having nothing better to do, and with theship still stuck on a rock, we got up at 0530 and went to scout the shorelinefor something, anything.  The morning airwas still cool and so I climbed in a back seat and off we went.

Somethingelse was also different, I had bug bites, all sorts of bugs bites on mytorso.  Were they mosquitoes, flies, orbed bugs?  From the look of them, itappeared that they were chiggers, a souvenir from the walk on shore yesterday.

As birdingexplorations go it was just okay.  It wasovercast and the only lifer bird for me was a velvet-fronted grackle, a blackbird not unlike many of the other grackles found around North and SouthAmerica.

Not the stylish Amazon bird but a lifer none-the-less

After a rainscare we were heading back to the boat to eat breakfast and to pack when thedriver of our small boat stopped and grabbed for Silja’s bins.  The boat had moved, THE BOAT HAD Moved!

 Princesp Clariant tied up to the Premium but the ship was three hundred yards from its last position
A phrase came to mind from Martin Luther King, maybe well out of context but it described my feeling, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last."
The crew reloading an air compressor.  The owner came with the rescue boat.  They dove under the boat and used floats and with 2 tons of people off the boat, they were able to bust it loose.    Now we could proceed, but the program which I had never read was thrown out the window.  The river was deemed too low to go much up river and so, they planned alternatives and they deployed Brazilian sonar to lead the boat as we poked along up the river.
But then the water was deemed too low, so we went back and then went to the shore and hacked a trail through it, there were no birds nor snakes but two frogs...
a frog of the Hyla genius, "green tree frog"Find this 5 inch forest toad...

Later more birding in the boat, all lifers except the Crane Hawk
Brown chested martins
Crane hawk

A shocking find of a paradise jacamar from the boat!

rusty margined flycatcher
Silver billed tanager
sungrebe
white throated toucan, heard many seen a few, all were badly photographed, my fourth species of toucan the other in the area channel billed I have seen in Trinidad
tui parakeet
If nothing else, I kept seeing birds and logging lifers 
At the end of the day of freedom, Silja was made a princess, princess of the Amazon, queen of the after dinner drinking, or empress of the evening, I don't know but she looked goodbut then that night she also got chiggers.
The trip, continued and where we go or what we would see, no one except maybe Wolf had an idea, what else could happen?  Hopefully the birding gods and the vacation gods would give us a pass and let the bad luck go on to someone else, but when Olaf gets the weird going, it just keeps going.....
Hey at least we got off the rock!
Cheer 
Olaf

Aground on the Rio Negro

It was the best of times, and then it was the worst of times.  The title of this blogs reads like a Hitchcockian novel, Aground on the Rio Negro and it was, sort of, save for the mysterious deaths.

Day 3 started off lucky as Silja spotted a Burrowing owl on "her" beach in front of where the boat was parked for the night. I don't know how many of these guys are around nor extent of range in the Amazon basin but I thought this was a good bird.

A Burrowing owl on the "beach of Sarah," or as we (I) initially thought it was encouragement to "pray for Sarah" Portuguese is tricky! I pray for Silja every day
We went to a native village and saw the Dessana people.  We bought a few trinkets   I realized how nice the people were on this boat as we got to know each other.  Everyone had a story and interesting ones too.  I tried to stay as low-key as I could even though it is hard.  That evening we went out on a magical boat ride for birding.
Scarce and an incredible colored male Agami heron, the "hummingbird heron" as named locally
Cocoi herron
Festive parrots
Fulvous shrike tanager
Hoatzin, an odd bird with two stomachs
Orange crowned yellow finch
Rufescent tiger heron, not a lifer but still a cool bird
Things were going well, I even got two nightjars driving home which was a long trip as the channel we were on was blacked and the boat had moved.
The next morning brought more luck, early morning with my spotting scope on the front deck of the Premium ship we drove past two huge birds that came out of the woods feeding, the crestless curassow, what luck!  A drive-by miracle.....lifer birds were falling into place!
We went for a forest walk that morning, and mostly saw trees, but there was this trogon, in the distance, then up close but maybe 20 yards behind but the guides did not want to turn around the pack train, and I bit my tongue, remembering my pledge to keep my mouth shut but the trogon did not, it moved with us and then nearing the end of the planed walk was to our right and then forest guide Aldinei said "for those of you birders lets go find the trogon."  I was right behind him.
It was high in tree but it is pictured as the lead photo to this blog.  A lifer, but a lifer what, there are lots of trogons here.  The bird pictured is a female and then back at the boat a friendly disagreement between the three birders ensued.  White-tailed vs. Green backed trogon, it was obviously a green backed to me, it turned out we both meant T. viridis which had been split and used to be the White-tailed trogon but the T viridis subspecies had been split off to be the "Green backed trogon."  It was worth a chuckle at using old books and old names.  Birding is hard enough when just knowing it is a trogon is not good enough.
We were sitting up in the air-conditioned lounge on the second deck, and I was fixing the first picture here when all of a sudden, the boat violently stopped, and you could here the sound of steel on rock.  Glass at the bar could be heard breaking.  There was suddenly a feeling that the front of the boat was higher than the back of the boat. I looked over the rail and saw crew doing the same.  It was clear, we had run aground in the middle of the river.  Yikes!
Our intrepid leader did not look fazed by the ordeal he had his normal midday "Medicine" his Caipirinha, a drink of the local cachaca with lots of lime, sugar and ice.  Here is Wolf with Eddy the barman.
You can see the reef by the waves dropping over it, the ripple tells of a ledge

So plan A was to use the diesel engines to blast us back, and off the rock.  So the engine roared to life and the boat shuttered and shook but it did not budge.Then we added the two shore boats to the mix and they tried to loosen it sideways
 That did not work either.  We had lunch while it rained and then the ship tried it again, to no avail, and then they got out the "Brazilian Sonar" a man in a boat with a stick
A passing ship the Tucano came to our rescue
We sent over a boat to get their experts onboard to assess the situation.  They apparently had a better and more sophisticated sonar system and used it around the boat.  This upgrade "Brazilian sonar" (Lidar?) had an extra blue stick attached to the end and extended the range apparently.  Sometimes they even used two sticks.  "Double mounted sonar?"
They moved in the Tucano for an apparent big combined pull and attached a rope, tying it to something in front.
As an objective reporter, the rope looked a bit substandard.  They tied it on and then.....untied it.  Men looked over the two boats and then....Our captain in a small boat took a picture and....the Tucano turned and left us to our fate without even trying.  We were stuck...

There we sat perched on a rock like a cormorant.  Plan C was not a plan at all, pink dolphins circled the boat and looked to attempt to get us off but they just moved on, too.  A rumor circulated later that evening that we would be rescued by a "fast boat" from Manaus and taken to a hotel in some small village on the river...Plan D apparently but who was counting, the program would need to be adjusted, but again, I could say nothing. I was just along for the ride, and what happened, happened.....We went for a night boat ride and I looked for birds, there was nothing else left to do except watch the barges of sand pass us.

We saw a few boat-billed herons and a few caiman.  It was nothing stunning.  Just our boat sitting stuck

The Premium boat still sitting aground that first uneasy night.....
Aground on the Rio Negro....nineteen passengers, 2 guides, and 10 crew.  Around midnight I hoped this would be our rescue boat but alas...no.  We were not that lucky, it just sped past.


Stayed tuned, does Olaf and Silja get recued?
Cheers.
Olaf

Exploring the Amazon...or so we thought

Large billed tern I dipped on at Naples Florida a month back, a world lifer here

Part 2 of 5: I apologize for my "hanging post" as I have been lost in the jungle so to speak. So after some obligate cultural activities in Manaus Brazil we boarded the "Premium" ship of the Amazon Clipper, a flat-bottomed ship design quite common of the Amazon River system, most of these ships look like they were built in the 1950s but this one 2007.  It was a comfortable room with 16 small cabins and only two with decks.  There was a ten person crew, and two guides to show the Amazon to us.  We were led by Wolfram Wink, a plucky German ex-patriot who came to the Amazon looking for a new start in life sixteen years previous and except for two years of unemployment due to COVID forcing him to sell his house to keep his kids in a good school he had been prosperous as a local tour guide.

His German English accent was almost imitatable after a while.  He was knowledgeable and his local partner  Aldinei was also pretty good and a better birder, so we tried to hang with him more on little boat excursions.

We took off after seeing the Governors Palace.  Manaus sits a few miles upstream from the mouth of Rio Negro where it meets the Amazon, The Rio Negro a big river itself, which unlike the Amazon had clearer but tannin stained water.  A few miles downriver we would head to the Amazon and take a right and do some serious exploring.

First look at the Premium ship, the Rio Negro Bridge in the back, note how low the water is.  

The advertised hot tub, which was not hot, and filled with brown Rio Negro water.  No one gave it a try in the entire week, would you?

My first idea that something was up when Wolf pointed out the Rio Negro Bridge and stated we would be going under it twice but then we went the other way.  It should also be known that the Amazon and Rio Negro are at their seasonal lows and this year the lowest in a century.  The Rio Negro for one fluctuates a good 60-100 feet in depth, an amount that is somewhat unfathomable.  

Truth should also be known that although the program had been sent out twice, I never read it, as I said earlier this was a trip I was going on and was keeping my mouth shut on it as I was going to make due with whatever came our way.

We reached the confluence with the great river in no time at all and we followed the dividing line for a while where the black and acidic Rio Negro does not mix well with the faster, lighter, and more basic Amazon.  We saw gray dolphins and looked west at the great expanse that was the upper Amazon and then....turned around and headed back towards Manaus.

Amazon right, Rio Negro Left

So that was the Amazon for us, 1000 miles from the Atlantic and just a quick turn in the edge for ten minutes.  

We parked for the evening and went Parana fishing.  I caught a very small one which made me a rare lucky guy for the boat.  We used no pole-it was basically a hand jig with a piece of meat dangled from a set line, they bit well but were hard to hook. 

The next morning, we went for a walk in the trees to see where giant water lilies lived until the dry season came, BUT we saw a bird, a straight billed woodcreeper, another lifer, so it was not all bad.  The walk was slow and snaky with 21 people and hard to see much, but we did what we could

Then we went off to a River village, then a native settlement where they danced for us, we met the chief, they lived in thatch

Straight billed woodcreeper
We tipped our hats for the mighty bridge going under it for the first time.

Silja and her sister swam with wild pink dolphins  and we even saw jack fruit below, such an ugly odd fruit of the tropics


I had seen a few birds, the trip was a pretty good tourist trip, the food fine, the ship okay, and the company of the other nice people excellent BUT day three ended with storm clouds on the horizon, and it was not the weather, something odd was a bout to happen and I just could not figure it out.  We went to bed thinking of a morning jungle walk and well, of better birds to come.  It was a restless night, and luck was turning.
We were not on an Amazon adventure but on a Rio Negro adventure, but what could go wrong?
To be continued....
Olaf

Viva Brazil!

Where has the summer gone?  Better put, where has Olaf and Silja gone? I guess between selling and buying houses, properties, building sheds, stolen cars, wrecked cars, book events, and even new RV Tires, it went away in a sea of busy-ness like every other year.

So we took off with our new tires south a week ago.  I had a book event in Wabasha Minnesota and talked about the Wabasha Nelson bridge which was a chapter in my "Expensive crossings" book to about 40 people.  It was a good show, a fun crowd, and then came the uneventful drive in the RV to Florida

is this the treasure chest of the Mississippi?

The last speaker on a book that was loosely based locally was the author of "Grumpy old Men" he may have out drew mw but I was a close second.  We did tour "Slippery's" the restaurant in the movie.

 

Yesterday, we drove to Miami and flew through Panama City to Manaus Brazil.  This is not really a birding trip.  It is a wife hanging out with her sister trip.  I was given three options

1) Go with and keep my mouth shut and entertain myself

2) Stay home and watch the cats

3) go somewhere else by myself

Life is lonely alone so, well, and as I have never really been to Brazil so...I took door #1, and plan on making do.

This is a Road Scholar trip which used to be called "Elder Hostel". and well, the only person younger then me is Silja.  I have never felt so young. I am four years younger than even the German born guide, who tries hard but he was misidentifying birds today so if I need to ID anything I see, I have to do it myself.  He got some correct but parrots and parakeets....yikes.

There was a really negative and sensationalized article on the rain forest in the NY Times on Sunday and well, it spooked two people who actually cancelled the trip since the Amazon is now "gone."  It seems so odd, but it is true.  People believe everything and well let me say, the Amazon is still here.  yes the water is low, but a year or two and it will be at record heights, the Mississippi was record low last year and again one of these years it will have an epic flood because everything is sensationalized.  The guide had to bring 131 years of river data to show us that the two were wrong in not coming, and said, if it was so bad then maybe they should "come faster."  As Culture Club states, the shole world is stupid.

The fourth youngest person on this trip is my sister in law at 66, My mother would be middle of the pack on age, i think.  But, at least so far I have logged country #59 for my Century Club project, 41 to go.  Today I added five lifers too

Two Red bellied macaws, misidentified by my guide as "orange winged parrots"
He got the Striated heron correct but this is not a lifer bird.

I missed photo shots of  things and the lighting was generally bad but heck, it beats playing with the cats!

How bad could Manaus and the Amazon be with these people?

I'll see some birds...and I need most Brazilian birds

Manaus Brazil a city of 2.5 million

We arrived at 4 AM to our hotel and Wolf our guide gave a little grandfatherly (his) advice.  When you have a short night, you need to "sleep a little faster" and we did but tired tonight so time to go to bed

So a lifer Brahma beer for five, I wished I had photographed the red and green macaw pair that flew overhead but you cannot have it all, 

Cheers!  More soon on this trip with the Elders

Olaf

A Flamboyance of Flamingoes

 

IT has been a long and busy summer filled with selling houses, buying houses, buying land, and digging holes.  

The start of building my shed on property I don't own quite yet

Typically, doing anything except birding.  Along the way, I came across a body in my field which turned out to be alive, I have had two book events in Hudson WI, and Taylors Falls MN, and I even went back in time into the untouched office of a country music legend Dave Dudley in his former home.

Dave Dudley's office b1925-d2003, Burnett County WI

I had to award the Stan Peer Trophy I won in 2022, to both Drs Jeff Rapp and Jerry McCullough after they had caught the largest walleyes up in Canada

So then came Hurricane Idalia, and at first it looked as though we might have damage to a third house by a hurricane, which coincidentally happened 6 years ago today when Irma stormed through St Martin and our future dreams took a beating, but life moves on and dreams change, and you can make them happen.

Luckily, Idalia turned late and made a mess of Perry, destroying a favorite truck stop but leaving our place in Lutz alone.  Idalia, however moved something else.

The American Flamingo was largely extirpated in Florida a hundred years ago and then 70 years ago a bunch escaped Hialeah Park and bred and flew around Florida and occasionally a few from the Bahamas, Cuba, or even the Yucatan showed up.  I chased some of these birds and until my big year in 2016, I always missed them. This species became my nemesis.  This changed in 2016 when I nabbed one in Fort Myers.  I then observed a whole flock of them in Curacao in 2019, and saw their cousins, Chilean Flamingoes in Uruguay, Lesser Flamingoes in South Africa, Greater Flamingoes in Corsica finishing a quadfecta of Flamingoes, just missing two of the various species.

I have not, however, seen one since.  

After Idalia, deciding we wanted to see our new house in Florida before the next hurricane got it, off we went to Florida

Somewhere between Yucatan and Cuba, Idalia pushed or picked some groups of Flamingoes and deposited them all over the Gulf coast of Florida, the Carolinas, Alabama, and even points north.  With all of these birds around, it seemed terrible and a missed opportunity if I had not come and seen a couple of them so noticing some were being seen at a favorite beach on the bike trail along the Courtney Cambell Expressway on Tampa Bay.  We arrived this morning and were not disappointed.  There were three there in the mangroves at high tide.  They were out at a bit of distance seen with my scope.

I decided to not to wade any closer even though a couple of birders had.  Always fun birds, flamingoes, it was a nice addition to our Florida trip, 

Now I need to focus on buying furniture.....btw, what is all of this fascination with gray painted furniture?  In terms of furniture, I appear to be a dinosaur.  That is yet another story for another time.  

A group of flamingoes?  A flamboyance!  And yes they were FLAMBOYANT!

cheers,

Olaf

Hail-ing Nebraska

 I mentioned to someone the other day that we were still south of the "freeze line." which is not really a meteorological term.  In waterfowl it involves where the lakes are frozen or not, but I like to use the term where it is cold and where it is warm.  It can be good to watch ducks. In the Great Plains during the spring, the line where the cold air meets the warm air is another freeze line.  Being east or south of that line requires some other watching, watching for tornadoes and hail.

Almost every year since about 2007, I have taken a trip to Oklahoma to check up on things, sometimes in the fall, but the other half of the time in the spring.  I have seen the effects of some powerful storms over the years.  On the other hand, a few of the train like sounding storms turned out to indeed be just trains

We turned north in Texas and spent five nights in Oklahoma.  We ended up at a campground which was having a "Prom party."  The statement "off like a prom dress," was the theme.  We had fun dancing.  You kind of had to be there.  We also ran into some other campers we knew from Minneapolis and as such we had some campground cookouts and shared trucking stories since two were retired truckers. The butterflies were out, the weather warm, and we hiked around and had a great few days

Today, the storm I was watching finally moved over the Rockies and since we had a tail wind to get home, we made a break for it.  I saw the next big snowstorm looking like it would be in North Dakota and the effects of the mountains looked like they would prevent big Tstorms until Iowa.  We could sneak into SE Nebraska and then in the morning get north before the storms reformed, everything would work out.  It was a bit ominous when  the Univ of Kansas storm chasing van flew past us north of Topeka driving hard to the north.  I still had hope to miss it, but unfortunately, we were literally three miles off.  

The storms popped up out of nowhere at 5PM an hour after we had set up the RV in Nebraska City.  The first three of the "training" thunderstorms missed up mainly with only glancing blows a little hail but just enough to take a big sigh of relief.  It would not last.

Quarter sized hailIt was the 4th storm that hit hard or should I say the roof and the glass.
Here comes the hail

Going through my change, half-dollar sized hail
The fifth storm lasted for twenty minutes and the stones were even bigger Silver dollar sized?


The tornado warning was issued at 7:51, with the tornado 3.1 miles south of us, heading our way.  We are tucked a little in a hole and it is a good 200 yard run to the storm shelter.  It passed over us, with just a green hue to the sky, silent but scary.  We survived that just as cell number six formed  southwest of us.  It looks like it will be a long night.
Sheez, I'll look outside when the sun comes up, and survey damage.  Who does RV body work?  I got a feeling more storms will follow.  The sounds of hail on the roof of an RV is just awful.
Olaf

The Colima Warbler Revisted

 I could almost write a book about some of the clueless, snarky, and sometimes downright strange comments I have received while doing my periodic hikes up the Chisos Mountains in the middle of Big Bend National Park for the locally endemic Colima Warbler.  If you want to ever see this bird in the USA you have to come here.  There is no way around it, none.

This is my 5th ascent to this monument to birding.  The holy birding mecca of west Texas. The trips roll of my tongue.  1994, 2013, 2016, 2018, and now 2023.  Despite just 5 trips up and back, I am 5 for five for the goal bird but I have become somewhat outspoken on giving advice about how best to do it, (maybe too outspoken?) but the few who have followed my route have thanked me and the others well, sometimes it has not gone so well.  Yes, you need to hit the trail 2 hours before sunrise, yes, you have to carry a flashlight, and yes, bears and cougars can be encountered.  We were followed by a cat in 2018, and you could smell the scent of cat urine at one spot we were taking a break.  It was unmistakable to all that we were being watched.  But going early also means Mexican whippoorwills calling and sightings.  So it is a trade off.  Owls are rarely if ever heard.

Nobody we pass ever seems to have the right shoes (today someone was hiking in shower sandals and was past the saddle and getting towards the rim, I hate to be his feet tonight).  Nobody takes enough water despite the signs of taking 2 liters (no yelling at the NPS about this). I have had people maybe a half mile in and not even to the initial crest of the hill look exasperated when I told them they had barely begun the ascent.  Others come by at 10 maybe 2-3 miles in with the plan of doing the whole brutal 12-mile loop.  My large camera or binoculars have always created a stir.  One college girl in 2016 even asked me if my camera was overcompensating for something.  "My wife would think it was the other way around." I replied.  Then giggling, she offered me $50 bucks if I could impress her.  Her girlfriend gave her a push, "That is my money in your pocket, I'd rather have lunch when we get back down, I don't want to lose it seeing his junk."

Another guy quipped today, so what are you looking at with those binoculars, naked people? A birder who had caught up to us (Donna) and who I was helping find the bird, retorted, "you first." to the gentleman.  I looked at my wife who was biting her lip.  Sometimes too much information on the trail is not a good thing, but yes, Olaf has an infamous story about that, too.  I guess buy the book, "A chapter in my Boobies, peckers, and tits" happened here, on this trail and over this very spot.

Today we also met some Indian tourists.  They looked all professional, with high end hiking sticks, new packs and they were displaying some serious use of those sticks, like that was the goal not a by product.  I got out of her way. She said something to me that I had no idea what it was (it almost sounded like "help me please!") Maybe  was her look but it was like they had watched a Youtube of how to use hiking sticks.  The wife, however, decked in pink, because...I guess everyone hikes in pink was using so much force with the sticks she was wearing herself out and was carrying a full pack, and yet they were only a half mile up the trail.  She also had on bad shoes (okay too much shoe watching), but had on an orange UT Longhorns hat on (pink clothing, orange hat??  Quite the clash) farther up the trail they stopped and one could hear arguing in Hindi.

Then there is everyone with enough water carrying gallon jugs by the handle.  Ouch that looks painful!  Today we saw some water stashed by someone for the trip down.  I have to confess I have done that at Glacier back in the day.  Some of it may still be there.  All yuccas, pine trees, rocks look the same on the way down.  I almost lost a stashed mountain bike once, but I digress.

I have also had some odd events, some I have been a casual witness for and a couple caused solely by "strange old Olaf" (naked birding for one),  I'll just leave you with two and not that one.

Let me see....  

1) I had to go up alone once because the person who started with me, had as it would turn out either a mild heart attack or some serious dyspnea just past the water tank. Doing a big year and on a tight schedule I had to go get the bird and get back, so I told him to go down the hill, I would fly up get the bird at dawn and come back. He lived but when I was returning, I was able to put my spotting scope on our vehicle in the parking lot from way up and it was at some distance but his head was clearly falling out the window and it sure looked like his tongue was hanging out.  We called that the "Q sign" in my surgery residency.  A rare "Dotted Q sign" meant a person was out with tongue hanging out with a fly on it.  That was a terrible prognosis, but a Q sign was not much better.  I ran down the hill.  My friend (a non-birder by the way) was just asleep.  His chest discomfort had abated.  I diagnosed him with an MI and called 911 in Florida in 2019.  I was not taking anymore chances them and he got stented in the ER.

2) My friend Jim Brown and I invented a religion up this trail with the sacred Ocotillo and involving Lucifer hummingbirds, ritual bathing, and sacramental wine, pretty much all one needs for a good religion.  Now Ordained for the Church of St, Ocotillo, I look forward to performing more weddings, saying prayers, or just observing the sacred.  I do funerals but those are less fun. We travel with an Ocotillo, who born in Texas in 2018 and has returned home this week.  He (named Occy)  has 40,000 miles on him.

I might ask Carolyn who owns the Christmas Mountain Oasis to join, but she may ban me from her Lucifer hummingbird spot and that would be tragic.

Lucifer Hummingbird yesterday, with the Ocotillo in bloom they are feeding on them and not feeder birds although this male had taken up a territory and was not giving it up.

I have run into many birders up on the trail, nobody it seems or few do their homework.  The Lucifer spot? Never heard of it, where to see Colimas?  None, or little knowledge.  They leave too late up the trail or waste their time looking way too low, even in the parking lot.  One person swore she saw it at the parking lot.  Even showed me a picture.  It was a Say's phoebe.  Mexican whippoorwills......here?  Everyone just looks at me but again, you need to be on the trail at dark.
Even last night owling, I was not sure the other three looking for Elf Owls got the plan.  I would have showed it to them, but they were out standing at where the road loops at Dug Out Wells.  We just left.  So we bring chairs, park them by a tree, 30 minutes to full darkness, the bird obviously calls from the tree and I have my light out.  I don't know.  Maybe they came to hear the Western Screech owls?  It was not rocket science but no one came to see what we had.  Sometimes you got to do a little skua birding. There are only a few cottonwoods left in there thanks to the NPS, cutting them out.  Poor owls, what will they do?  

So today, after owling last night, we took off at 0530 on the Pinnacles trail for the top.  Big Bend is my favorite National Park and I have vowed that if I can't get up to the rim at least, I am checking into a nursing home and throwing away my bins.  When I feel old and fat, depressed and mortal, off I want to go to see the Chisos and "buy myself" a couple more years from the inevitable.  I needed Big Bend this year, I really did.
The Park service has redone the trail taking out the route near the water tanks and added some distance to it.  It may be less steep, but I am not sure that helps.  I also felt lost until we made it to the first campsite where it levels a bit.  I also met the first person ever on the trail at night and he was coming down the hill.  We heard some close whippoorwills but I did not try to find them.  I had one almost land on my daughter once.  There were no bears, no cougars, and not a mammal of any sorts.  

We took a break at the Saddle and I took out my camera as the light was coming up.  I walked up to the usual spot on heard one and then saw one in terrible light but then after ten minutes, all was quiet.  We worked our way to the rim where a group of Louisiana kids were making a racket.  It was great to see them out there even if they were too loud.  They were all waiting for the turn at the pit toilet there...priorities in the backcountry.  I assumed they would leave and go down but they were there when we came back around.  It was too noisy up there and ever since the forest fire, it is not a good birding space and it was cold on the top of the basin so we went down to get better photos.
I have had some bad camera experiences with this bird...
1994--"so what does this bird look like?"  I am sitting pooped with my pack on."brown cap, yellowish orange behind, eye ring on a drab warbler"  I reply"If I show it too you, can we go back to the car?"  I nodded.  "There right in front of you."It was a perfect shot on film.  That photo was lost.  It was my lifer bird then and I have never again seen that photo
2013-- I had to make choices, bird in tree, camera in backpack 30 feet down the slope and two woman (by voice) descending from the Rim and were a switchback above me.  I was not wearing clothing.  A pareo was 10 feet the wrong way where my birding buddy Jim was standing.  I had the bird....choices
2016--actually the exact same place, again even tougher choices.  Bird in tree, and then flitted off, heard and seen, tick for the big year.  Friend possibly dying in the parking lot.  Look for another to photograph or get my a$$ down the mountain and see if he is okay.
2018--taking Mexican whippoorwill photos during the darkness when I notice battery is almost empty, I was certain I had packed a spare.  Sun comes up, see the bird, ready to snap photo and nothing....power goes off, dig for a spare battery..."what" spare battery
2023....no excuses, and I did not want to die trying.  It is tough enough getting up the mountain



Not National Geographic but good enough, this bird never comes out well for me and horribly harsh lighting.  The only reason I got these three was because a "Donna" from Massachusetts stopped us and looked like she needed some help getting a lifer bird.  I took a bit but another showed (or the same one I had seen a few minutes before she came).  She saw it and her trip up the mountain was made.
Heard 9, saw 4 photographed 3.  A good morning on this bird.  Colima photograph--TICK!!


It was Silja's third trip to the Rim, my fifth.  The first was a backpack trip, 1994 BYOW, bring your own water
It was a hot trip down the mountain as it was later than we wanted but it was good to help another birder.  We got to the bottom, saw some butterflies I need to identify and then ate lunch and bugged out to the RV.
They say they are redoing the Chisos Lodge next year.  Aramark gets a new hotel to make money from for free.  They own the Big Bend Adventures Resort and RV park in Terlingua (our rig is too big for the park).  It has the worst toilet I have ever seen, one has brown ooze like a bucket's worth running down the side.  The rust, $2 showers, toilet paper everywhere was bad enough.  It will be a mess up at the Basin so we were glad to come this year, BUI DO NOT STAY IN TERLINQUA AT THE Aramark lodge here!  So in 2024 I do not know what to recommend, maybe call your congressman to get rid of Aramark.....if they cannot do toilets at an RV park, how can they clean your scrubs?  What a TFSDD%%# company.  all imho.
anyhow, the Colima warbler, revisited again, and they were spectacular.
Olaf