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WorldTwitch is coming back after more than 3 years without updates. The
last version of the home page (June 2008) has been archived here. Corrections and additions
will be forthcoming in due course.News from BrazilAves do Brasil - WikiAves - Encyclopedia of the Birds of Brazil - post your photos and recordings, identified or not. From the latest issue of Revista Brasileira da Ornitologia: First record of Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo Neomorphus geoffroyi in caatinga. Link (pdf). It was photographed by camera traps in the vicinity of Sento Sé, BA, about 200 km southwest of Juazeiro near the Rio São Francisco. The habitat looks much better than in the vicinity of the former Spix's Macaw site at Curaçá, northeast of Juazeiro, where goats have destroyed most vegetation they can reach. New records of Kaempfer's Woodpecker Celeus obrieni (photo) in Goiás. Link (pdf). This recently rediscovered species has now been found at 20 sites in Goiás, mostly in the north near the border with Tocatíns, athough three sites are south of Brasília. New records of Forbes's Blackbird Curaeus forbesi in Minas Gerais. Link (pdf). The new records are in the Rio Doce basin, north and south of Rio Doce State Park, where the species was known to occur. January 2012 News
This is the finest identification guide to pelagic birds published to date. For the first time, everything you need to prepare for tubenose ID on both east and west coast pelagic trips is accessible in one volume. It's also an authoritative and well-written text on tubenose biology. The book is extremely well-organized to help the user zero in on critical marks. Thus, for example, the section on Pacific gadfly petrels is introduced by five pages of photos and accompanying text showing and comparing the 10 species most likely to be encountered. Following are subsections on each species with comparative photos, including species not yet recorded but which may occur. For Cook's Petrel, there five pages of photos, with comparative shots of De Filippi's Petrel, Black-winged Petrel, and Pycroft's Petrel. Without question, a 2012 WorldTwitch Best Bird Book award winner. In case you missed it, the report of the Jamaica Petrel Pelagic Expedition (November-December 2009) by Hadoram Shirihai, Maria San Román, Vincent Bretagnolle and David Wege is posted on the BirdLife website (pdf). Here's another great article for pelagic birders: First observations at sea of Vanuatu Petrel Pterodroma (cervivcalis) occulta by Hadoram Shirihai & Vincent Bretagnolle, Bull.B.O.C. 2010 130(2):132-140 (pdf). Reports from BirdLife: New stronghold for the Japanese Murrelet Synthliboramphus wumizusume -- about 1000 birds in the Izu Islands on the Pacific side of Japan. Details and photo. Timor Bush-Warbler Bradypterus timorensis rediscovered on Alor & Timor. C.R. Trainor, P. Verbelen & S. Hoste. Bird Conservation International, 20 December 2011. Abstract. Vocalizations on xeno-canto. Grauer's Swamp Warbler Bradypterus graueri at Kibira National Park, Burundi -- an estimated 30 singing males, with a bird mistnetted on 25 January 2011. Details & photo. Vocalization from Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda on xeno-canto. New population of Grey-breasted Parakeets Pyrrhura griseipectus found in caatinga around "table mountains", e.g., Pedra da Galinha-choca, at Quixadá, Ceará, Brazil. Birdlife summary. W. Girão, A. Alves Campos & C. Albano, O Eco Colunista Convidado, 26 April 2010. (Article with excellent photos, including next box breeding.) Vocalizations on xeno-canto. Two West Indian Whistling-Ducks Dendrocygna arborea were found at the Woodbourne Shorebird Refuge, Barbados, on 10 September 2011, the first Barbadan record since 1961. Details with photo. The species was found breeding at Petite-Terre Islets National Naure Reserve, Guadaloupe in February 2008. (pdf, see p. 3). Vocalizations from southwest Puerto Rico on xeno-canto.
Until reading the illustrated addedum on accidentals, I hadn't realized that the type specimen of Worthen's Sparrow was collected at Silver City, New Mexico in 1884, from a population subsequently extirpated. In view of this bird's occurrence with Mexican Prairie Dogs at the "Tanque de emergencía" stakeout in Coahuila, Mexico, I wonder if poisoning of prairie dogs may have contributed to its disappearance from the U.S. and most of its Mexican range. (Vocalizations of Worthen's Sparrow on xeno-canto.)
Scroll down on this Surfbirds page to see a fine photo of a mist-netted Grey-breasted Crake Laterallus exilis from Veracruz, Mexico taken by Manuel Grosselet. This small rail can be heard in many places throughout the Neotropical lowlands, including around oxbow lakes in Amazonia. It readily approaches in response to playback but usually is impossible to see in its dense marsh habitat. (Vocalizations on xeno-canto.) Coming Soon - New Editions:
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