April 8, 2020

Dear friends:

In the weeks since the pandemic crisis heralded mass disruption to society, I and our team of office staff and tour leaders have been hard at work servicing our customers. At the same time, I have been in close touch with many of our tour leaders, and we want you to know that VENT is well positioned to get through this crisis and that we look forward to brighter days ahead. However, with most of us sheltering at home for the foreseeable future, we want you to know that we are thinking about you during these troubled times and want to stay in touch. Recently, we began receiving messages and notes from our tour leaders that are intended for you.

Starting this week, these messages will appear in a brand-new email communication we’re calling “Messages and Memories.” In the coming weeks and months, through “Messages and Memories,” you will be hearing directly from VENT tour leaders at least a couple of times a week. Some of the messages will be simple expressions of hope and well wishes while others will relate prized memories from past tours or remarkable experiences in birding and in nature. I hope that these messages will brighten your days while serving as sources of hope and inspiration until we can again be together doing what we love: being out in nature, birding, and sharing these passions with others.

This message comes courtesy of Andrew Whittaker, a longtime tour leader for VENT, who has led tours since 1993 throughout Brazil, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica, Panama, Europe, Israel, and Antarctica.

Best wishes,

Victor Emanuel

Cryptic Forest-Falcon (Micrastur mintoni) © Andrew Whittaker

NEW SPECIES OF RAPTOR DISCOVERED ON A VENT SCOUTING TRIP!  
By Andrew Whittaker

On October 26, 1997, I was scouting a new VENT destination in a remote corner of northeastern Brazil at the Estação Científica Ferreira Penna, Caxiuanã, Melgacao, Pará, in my all-time preferred biome: the Amazonian rainforest. Little did I know what would result from this trip! 
 
At 0400h I walked along a narrow rainforest trail with my flashlight. An hour later, with sweat dripping off me, I arrived at the top of a 50 m canopy tower surrounded by the dark forms of immense emergent tree crowns. After catching my breath and arranging my equipment, a bright glow in the east signaled dawn breaking over the Amazon rainforest. In the next half-hour, during the course of an intense dawn chorus, my attention instantly swung onto something extremely exciting: a vocalization that was entirely new to me. After hearing the distinctive loud note repeated a couple of times, I recognized its characteristic quality as belonging to an unknown Micrastur Forest-Falcon! I had extensive field experience with all known Brazilian Forest-Falcons and knew their complex repertoires intimately. At this point my mind went into overdrive; trembling, I thought to myself, “It’s a new species!” My microphone pointing in its direction, I was frozen, hardly breathing, looking intently at my recorder needle and counter on my Sony TCM5000 to confirm that I was in fact recording this exciting voice well—not over-recording, nor burning it out (due to insect noise), or heaven help that my machine was stuck on pause. I kept thinking to myself, “This is not just any new species, such as a new passerine, but a new raptor!” It was almost too much to believe! I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the bird to finish before I switched off the recorder. Quickly, I rewound my tape and hit play at a low volume to confirm that I had captured the vocalization, which to my great relief I had. 
 
I descended the tower as quickly as possible, and at the bottom I waited to see if it vocalized again, which fortunately it did. I started making my way by bushwhacking through the still-gloomy, dense forest understory towards the call. The bird was about half a kilometer away, and as I pushed on, I marked my way by snapping small branches so that I wouldn’t get lost. Finally, I was close enough to make a much better quality tape recording. In fact, I made several recordings, since I had decided that if I waited a little longer, the light would improve, and I might have a better chance to see the bird. 
 
My adrenaline levels went through the roof as I finally hit the tape-playback button with the expectation of seeing a NEW SPECIES and wondering what it would look like! I already knew that I would have to be very patient and would need some luck to see it at all. Forest-Falcons are always elusive and a real challenge to see—almost impossible without playback. Finally the time had come, and remaining like a statue, I played back a series of notes. I stopped and waited, eyes peeled, urgently scanning the midstory for the slightest hint of movement, but could see nothing.  A couple of minutes went by before I played more tape. But still there was no response. I therefore made the decision to wait and abstain from any further playback in case the bird had approached unseen (as Micrastur often do), hoping that it would start to call again. 
 
The minutes ticked by until I finally heard a very quiet “whisper song” response and, better still, the bird had approached closer and was within what I estimated to be 50 m. Remaining as still as a statue, with a large tree trunk behind me, I quietly hit the playback button again, all my senses focused in the direction of the song. I caught a quick flash of movement in the midstory, as the bird flew closer, and with my naked eyes I could see from its form that it was indeed a small raptor! My heart raced as I raised my binoculars to my eyes ever-so-slowly, and at last I could happily confirm my suspicions: I had a neat-looking Forest-Falcon in my field of view! It was 30 m away, 10 m up and face-on, looking intently at me with striking white eyes surrounded by bold, bright orange facial skin; its white underparts showed the typical horizontal dark barring. I was amazed by its striking resemblance to the monotypic Lined Forest Falcon (M. gilvicollis), which I knew so well from Manaus. I immediately knew that I was dealing not just with a new species of Forest-Falcon but an extremely cryptic one at that. What were the plumage differences? 
 
Hypnotized, over the next couple of minutes we watched each other; I had no camera in those days, so I was paying great attention to the plumage details. Finally, the bird turned on its perch, giving me my first back view, and I was instantly struck by a single, very prominent diagnostic broad white tail-band before it flew off into the dense forest. On my return, my mind was racing. I was so anxious to inform my birding pals of this major discovery that I almost ignored a group of fine Dark-winged Trumpeters calmly walking in front of me as I crashed my way back through the undergrowth to the trail. Over the next couple of days, I collected several more tape recordings of the new Forest-Falcon before returning to Belém. 
 
This culminated, after several years of further research, in the bird’s formal description in the Wilson Bulletin (Whittaker 2002) in which I named the new species Cryptic Forest-Falcon (Micrastur mintoni), the specific epithet honoring my childhood birding mentor in the UK, the late Dr. Clive Minton, world-renown for his shorebird work worldwide, and who sadly passed away last year.
 
I hope you all enjoyed my reliving of what for me was the single most exciting ornithological experience of my career—thanks to VENT! 

Andrew Whittaker