Resplendent Quetzal Report

Description
Resplendent Quetzals are one of the world’s most gorgeous birds. I have never seen one myself, but I’ve heard of how beautiful they are. Males have a red breast, green body, bluish back and very long, green tail streamers. They also have a yellow beak, which is fairly small (the females have black beaks). Males are 39 inches in length, including their plumes or streamers. Females have much shorter plumes (just extending right below the tail) and are drabber in color. The “song” is like “a whimpering pup” or as kyow or vi-viu, which is sometimes repeated monotonously. They have other unmusical calls too.

Range and Habitat
“Resplendents”, as I call them, are found from southern Mexico to western Panama. There is also a subspecies found in Costa Rica, P.m. costaricensis. The population in southern Mexico (Pharomachrus mocinno) is found only in Chiapas in remote montane cloud forests called “bosques de niebla”. The “bosques de niebla” are dense and wet and have mixed trees including pines. One of the quetzal’s favorite trees is the tepeaguacate tree, which has small avocados that the quetzals like to eat (see diet).

Diet
Resplendent Quetzals eat mainly fruit; their favorites are the wild avocados from the tepeaguacate trees. They also like fruit from the trees of the Laurel family. The birds swallow the fruit whole and then regurgitate the pits, which helps to increase the population of these trees.
Resplendent Quetzals are weak fliers and they have some predators. These include the Ornate Hawk-Eagle, owls, and Kinkajou, which hunt the birds themselves. Emerald Toucanets, (yes, little toucans) and squirrels, eat the eggs of the quetzals when the nest is left unguarded.

Breeding
Resplendents usually start calling and looking for mates in February. They start nesting a little bit after they call and mate. The female chooses a suitable tree for nesting (mostly rotting tree stumps) and then the pair pecks out a good-sized hole for the nest. Then the female lays 2 pale blue eggs and starts incubating them. The male and female share incubating: the male sits on them in the daytime while the female incubates at night. The incubation period lasts 18 days while the pair keep switching off incubating. When the male is sitting on the eggs, his long tail hangs out of the nest-hole so that from a distance it looks like a green fern is growing out of the hole! When 18 days are up, two little quetzal babies pop their heads out of their shells and say “give me some grub, mom”! Both parents take care of the little youngsters and feed them their grub, which includes fruit, berries, insects, and some frogs and lizards (big grub). Here is when it gets interesting. Near the end of the rearing period the female gets sooooo fed up with her little furballs that she says “vaya con dios you little scraps”, and leaves the dad to finish rearing the young until they are ready to fend for themselves!

Myth and Legend
Resplendent Quetzals play a big role in Mayan and Aztec legend and myth. The Mayans and Aztecs viewed the quetzal as the “god of the air” and as a symbol of goodness and light. Mesoamerican rulers wore headdresses made from quetzal feathers that symbolically connected them to Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl was the god of wind and the creator god. It was a crime to kill a quetzal so people simply captured and plucked its tail streamers and then released the bird. The tail feathers supposedly grew back in time. Ohh, I forgot. Mesoamerica was a region of Central America and South America that was inhabited by the Mayans and several other pre-Columbian civilizations.
The Resplendent Quetzal is Guatemala’s national bird and the quetzal is on their flag and coat of arms. The bird is also on the paper money and of great relevance in the country. It is mentioned in the widely popular legend of Tecún Umán, a prince/warrior of the Quiche Maya. The legend is that when the conquistador, Pedro de Alvarado, fought against Tecún Umán, there was a quetzal flying above the fight. Pedro de Alvarado managed to disable Tecún Umán’s horse and then killed him. Then, the quetzal flew down to Tecún’s chest and dipped its chest in the warrior’s blood. It was there that the quetzal acquired its gorgeous red chest feathers.

Conservation
Resplendent Quetzals are as Wikipedia states “near threatened”. They are not on the Endangered Species List but they might be on it in the near future. The population in Guatemala and southern Mexico is most threatened due to loss of habitat and hunting for their feathers. Costa Rica’s population of quetzals is in better shape because Costa Rica is setting aside some forest for quetzals and other wildlife.
I wrote this article so I could learn more about quetzals and help the species. I traveled through the quetzal’s forest in southern Chiapas and never saw one but I’m glad I at least know a little bit about them.



References:

1. Resplendent Quetzal, by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. El Quetzal, by Miguel Limón Rojas, Edmundo Salas Garza
3. A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, by Steve N.G. Howell and Sophie Webb
4. The Resplendent Quetzal, by TED Case Studies

Hot, Tired and Owls 31 de Marzo, 2008

Whew, I thought that we would be stuck in Bonampak with our crazy friends, Esteban y Susan! But luckily, dad managed to somehow drag us all out of Bonampak and then drive us to Palenque, pick up our stuff, pick up a couple who wanted to go along with us folks and then hit the road. Our first stop was in Campeche at a restaurant/campground to eat and set up. The food there was ok and there were turkeys and chickens walking all over the place. After we finished popping up, I walked around the campground once and saw a male Altamira Oriole calling but not a lot other than the oriole. We stayed there one night and then went to the Calakmul ruins near the restaurant (well, sort of near, 2 hours isn’t that bad) and I saw 4 lifers-Ocellated Turkey, Lesser Greenlet, Olivaceous Woodcreeper, and a male Pale-billed Woodpecker. We also climbed up a huge structure that was the second tallest in the place (the tallest was a pyramid partly covered by grass and shrubs a little way off). We all were really hot and all had at least a mild sunburn. Lucky the wind was whipping so we all were in luck.
After going to the ruins we headed back to our camper with Nate and Nichole (the couple), ate lunch, and put the trailer down. When we left for Bacalar it was about 3:30p.m. When we got to Bacalar it was sunset and we had to pop-up fast so that we wouldn’t be setting up in the dark. I didn’t see that many birds (they were probably already nestled up in their sleeping perches) so I helped set-up and then relaxed (ahhhhhh). We ate dinner at a spaghetti restaurant, which was pretty good in my opinion and had great limonada minerales. I had a pasta dish with spicy peppers and butter. After a delicious dinner we came back to Big Poppi and hit the sack.
The next morning I woke up at 5:45 to grackles and a high hooting sound I couldn’t identify. So birder that I am, I got out of my very cozy bed, dressed, grabbed my binos off a shelf and went outside. I walked over to the sanitarios and met Nate. He said he wanted some toilet paper so I walked back to Poppi and grabbed the roll. As I was passing a tree next to our trailer I saw an unusual bump on a branch. I thought it was just a bump until I looked at it in my binos. Then I saw that it was actually an owl! I looked closer and saw that it was a pygmy-owl and either Northern or Ferruginous (I hoped it was Ferruginous because it is one of my favorite birds). Then Nate started calling to me to hurry up so I hustled the sanitary paper over to Nate (the owl still on my mind). Right after I had handed the paper to Nate I hurried to the tree and saw that the owl had moved to another tree on the other side of our pop-up. After I had located it I looked closely and then looked it up in my Howell and Webb Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. Under range I found that Northern was in northern Mexico, Central American Pygmy-Owl was in the Chiapas rain forest, and Ferruginous was the only one on the Yucatan Peninsula. So it was pretty easy to figure out what species it was (Ferruginous). I was so excited because that was the bird I had first looked at in National Geographic’s Birds of North America that helped teach me to read when I was five!! It is also my 2nd favorite bird (second to Golden Eagle).
After I had admired the beautiful owl for a while I walked near the shore (we were in a lagoon) and saw a Spotted Sandpiper and some grackles bathing. I also saw a pair of Limpkins and Snail Kites! The Limpkins were wading out into the shallows and gulping down fish and the pair of kites were hunting snails near some reeds in shallow water. I jumped in the lagoon and swam as close to the kites as I could without disturbing them and watched them for a while; soaring, diving, and sometimes hovering above the water and picking off snails. It was a beautiful sight to watch (especially swimming 20 feet in front of them).
Oh, I almost forgot to describe the lagoon! Ok, the lagoon is actually more like a bay and is a popular place to swim in (especially at the campground) because it has clear blue water and has a sandy bottom. It is also a good birding spot-kites nest on little islands, cormorants rule the water, and there is plenty of waterfowl. Fair amounts of people (mostly extranjeros) have bought houses next to the lagoon and there are a couple of nice hotels. But the town is mostly about the lagoon and Cenote Azul (limestone hole filled with river water from 100-200 feet below the ground) across the road. We went there today (Monday) with Nate and Nichole and had great ceviche (kind of like pico de gallo but with shrimp, onions, and vinegar). Teslin and I also explored the cenote, which was about 70-100 feet deep. There were tons of fish including the big hunkers and little tiny minnows. We threw in tortillas and they all went bonkers! All the tortillas disappeared within 20 seconds and then they started looking at my leg! I quickly got out of the water before hungry fish ate me up!
Nate and Nichole are leaving tomorrow morning and are hitchhiking to Tulum, a beach town 220 mile from Bacalar. We are probably leaving tomorrow too (although we might stay here another night just for the swimming)!