Category Archives: Amazon

Monotypic Birds—Evolution’s Survivors

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Since Braden returned to college, I haven’t been birding a whole lot. Instead, I’ve been working on a new children’s picture book about monotypic animals—animals without any close relatives. The book won’t be out for a couple of years, but I can’t wait that long to share some discoveries. But first, an explanation of monotypic: in a scientific sense (and what other sense could there be with such a word?), monotypic refers to an animal with no other members in its genus. According to Birds of the World, for example, the genus Turdus contains 83 different species—including the American Robin—but a monotypic species would have no other ‘roommates’ in its genus.

**With 83 species in its genus *Turdus*, the American Robin is a species that is decidedly NOT monotypic!**

For my book, though, I have been investigating animals that are monotypic not just to genus, but at least to their scientific family or order. In other words, these species are truly apart, without any even vaguely close relatives. I didn’t know how many of these loners I might find, but guess what? There are a lot more than I expected—including birds! You probably have heard of some of them including the Hammerkop, Shoebill, Egyptian Plover, Rail-babbler, and my favorite, the Secretarybird! All of these are only distantly related to any other kind of bird.

Not that they’ve never had relatives. I suspect most of them have. What happened to their close cousins? We will never know, but they undoubtedly succumbed to a panoply of climatic, geological, and biological catastrophes. Which makes these monotypic survivors all the more impressive, in that they somehow navigated the endless avalanche of disasters that have befallen the world! Learning about these animals, however, also made me ask myself, “In my own relatively brief birding career have I myself actually seen any monotypic-to-family birds?” Astonishingly, the answer is yes—and if you’re reading this, you probably have, too!

Number 1 on most of our lists has to be the Osprey. If you think about it, that makes sense. I mean, the Osprey is just one weird-looking bird of prey, but even more interesting, it split off from all other raptors very early on in raptor evolution. Can you guess its closest living relative? Yep. Africa’s Secretarybird—another very bizarre bird of prey!

**The Osprey may be the most widespread and well-known monotypic-to-family bird on earth!**

Many of you also may have seen the Limpkin—the sole species in the bird family Aramidae. Long before I ever became a birder, I enjoyed these gastropod- and bivalve-eaters while visiting Florida’s Wakulla Springs south of Tallahassee. More recently, I heard—but didn’t see—one down in Houston while working on My Accidental Big Year. If you are birding Arizona and New Mexico, you can nab yet another monotypic-to-family bird, the Olive Warbler, of the family Peucedramidae. For other birds that are monotypic to family, however, we must venture outside of U.S. borders—something Braden and I have been fortunate to do.

During our visit to the Sani Lodge in the Amazon in 2017, we picked up two monotypic species—in the same location! One was the iconic Hoatzin, a large turkey-like bird that is the sole resident of the family Opisthocomidae. Hoatzins like to show off, and if you watch almost any film or read any book about the Amazon you will undoubtedly see this bird since it often gathers near humans in large numbers. During our stay at Sani, I woke up to dogs barking one night and asked our hosts about it. They looked at me strangely. “We don’t have any dogs here.” We finally figured out that I’d been hearing Hoatzins!

**It’s probably no surprise that the Hoatzin is monotypic to family. Looks like these probably don’t inspire a lot of copycats!**

In between outings at Sani, Braden and I were also lucky enough to see a handsome bird silently stalking worms, crayfish, and frogs in shallow waters. What was it? A shy Sunbittern, sole species in the bird family Eurypygidae. These birds are quite cryptic (camouflaged), but apparently when they spread their wings they unleash a burst of spectacular color—something Braden and I unfortunately failed to witness. Still, we didn’t even know Sunbitterns existed before the trip and are happy to now have them firmly dwelling in our brain banks.

**The secretive Sunbittern is another South American species that is monotypic to family—one we were lucky enough to encounter.**

If you want to learn even more about monotypic-to-family birds, click here for a fun website. Some of the taxonomies have changed, but most are still accurate, and you’re sure to notice some surprises. Meanwhile, I am contemplating a quest to see every monotypic bird family on earth. If you would like to help me and Braden do this please send a nonrefundable check for, say, fifty thousand dollars, and we will begin post-haste! As always, thanks for reading and be sure to share this post with your birding buddies!

Peregrine Possibilities: Birding Therapy Day Two

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Ever wanted to visit the Amazon—the rainforest, not the store? Check out Sneed’s new travel article at Perceptive Travel online magazine!

So after getting home from my Blue Mountain hike on Monday, I began planning Tuesday’s birding therapy outing to the Missoula Cemetery, a place I have monitored since the pandemic began last year. Almost immediately, however, I received a message from a friend of a friend (FOAF) about a putative Peregrine Falcon pair a few miles from our house. Peregrines are not uncommon in Montana with well over a hundred nesting pairs—a remarkable resurgence considering the DDT disaster that devastated dozens of bird species through the 1960s and 70s. However this possible nest site was one that neither Braden nor I had heard of, so instead of hitting the cemetery Tuesday morning, I convinced Braden to skip first period and go check it out by bike.

**Braden and I never tire of seeing Red-naped Sapsuckers, especially in a new location!**

It was a perfect morning for a bike ride and we spotted or heard Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and an assortment of other birds—Braden more than I thanks to his Bionic Ears of Youth! We were especially excited to find a nice boggy area with a couple of Red-naped Sapsuckers drumming on snags. Finally, we reached the area the FOAF had described and almost immediately thought that we heard the peregrines calling. We set up “camp” and watched, hoping to catch sight of them. No luck. Even worse, Braden had to leave to get back to school. “Well crap,” I thought. I didn’t want to see them without him, but also knew I might not head back to the spot anytime soon so decided to stay longer.

**One of the benefits of hauling a camera with you is to “slow down” birds that are too fast and too far away to easily observe. Peregrine Falcons are a case in point!**

I pulled out my phone to play a peregrine recording—not to attract them but to make sure what they sounded like. WHAM! Almost instantaneously a loud answering call hit me from above and I looked up to see the unmistakable shape of a falcon flying against the gray skies. That turned out to be just the opening salvo in an amazing twenty-minute aerial exhibition that the peregrine and his mate put on for me. I watched them chase off another raptor, skim forest treetops, and in a grand finale, copulate on the branch of a tree! Granted, the birds were far away, but I can’t recall a more exciting raptor experience—well, at least since seeing the Gyrfalcon with Braden earlier this year.

I got in touch with the Montana Peregrine Institute to see if they knew about this particular nest and it turns out that the pair was first discovered in 2020 and had apparently successfully fledged three young! My FOAF went even further and single-handedly convinced the Forest Service to delay a controlled burn that was supposed to happen this last week—right in the peregrines’ territory! Hopefully, the burn will go ahead in the fall—and give the birds a wonderful larder of new prey to raise their next batch of chicks.

**Even though the birds were far away, it was thrilling to watch them mate—something that will hopefully ensure a new crop of peregrines this year!**

Amazon Birding Bonanza at Sani Lodge

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Braden here.

The majority of our first week in South America was spent in Ecuador’s portion of the Amazon. It was May, 2017, and we were staying at a place known as Sani Lodge, a resort run by the Yasuni people. The lodge was located about a half mile from the Río Napo, a large tributary of the Amazon River, nestled on a small lagoon. The only way to reach the lodge was by a combination of motorboating, canoeing and hiking.

Hoatzins, an Amazon version of a crazy turkey, provided plenty of entertainment around Sani Lodge. (Photo by Braden Collard)

Bird-wise, I was super excited about the Amazon—it hosted more species than all of the ABA area! As we approached Sani Lodge, though, we saw and heard few birds. Our guide, Danny, pointed out flocks of oropendolas flashing through the canopy or the echoing call of a lone tinamou, but birding was tough as we hiked to our canoe dock, and my expectations slowly diminished. I figured there were lots of birds here, but almost all of them would be difficult to see through the brush. The lodge itself proved my idea wrong, however.

As we canoed up to the dock, our guide began pointing out a broad array of activity—White-winged Swallows flying low over the lagoon, Black-capped Donacobiuses meowing from the marsh, and “stinky turkeys”, or Hoatzins, weighing down branches and screaming about it. As we walked up to the open-air lounge, Danny pointed out two Tropical Screech-Owls roosting in a palm tree next to the trail. In the bar, a chicken-like bird picked crumbs off the floor. Danny introduced us to Apasha the Gray-winged Trumpeter. An Australian birder nearby, the only other tourist in the lounge, stressed that Apasha was “completely wild,” and therefore “completely countable” on ebird. Apasha had shown up a few years ago and just stuck around. In fact, my sister soon discovered that Apasha enjoyed picking insects off of peoples’ heads.

Got critters in your hair? A Gray-winged Trumpeter may be just the ticket! (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Feeders were set up next to the bar, snagging my attention from the manager, who was giving us a presentation on the expectations of the lodge. Silver-beaked and Masked Crimson Tanagers decorated the fruit feeders, while White-eared Jacamars and Scarlet-crowned Barbets watched from nearby.

Masked Crimson Tanagers were some of the most spectacular “feeder birds” at the lodge. (Photo by Braden Collard)

The lodge grounds were small and mostly unmanicured, as the Yasuni wanted to be as eco-friendly as possible. This also meant that the electricity generator ran only twelve hours a day, around mealtimes.

One day, we went for a canoe ride around the lagoon. The story behind the lagoon was that it was a sanctuary for endangered Yellow-spotted Turtles and Black Caimans, both of which we saw. In fact, we released four baby turtles into the lagoon, named Tortugi, Speckles, Rick Turtle and Terminator. As we canoed around, we all suddenly heard drumming. As we looked into the trees nearby, we glimpsed a brilliant-yellow woodpecker—one Danny said was the rare Cream-colored!

One of the most thrilling birds we saw around Sani Lodge, this Cream-colored Woodpecker even made it into my dad’s book, Woodpeckers: Drilling Holes and Bagging Bugs. (Photo by Braden Collard)

My expectations were filled, but more was to come…