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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Birdingcraft" data-source="post: 2545693" data-attributes="member: 55810">Guiding at Quebrada on Saturday turned out to be a very memorable day. Mixed flock activity was pretty good although the birds tended to stay high up in the trees. We heard many Black and Yellow Tanagers but got looks at very few because they never ventured lower than the canopy, probably due to lack of fruit in the understory. Nevertheless, we still managed to see most of the tanagers, including excellent looks at White-throated Shrike Tanager, Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher, Emerald Tanager, and Rufous-winged Woodpecker. Also got great looks at Streak-crowned Antvireo, Checker-throated Antwren, and Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush.Although we didnt see any army ants, I suspect they were swarming somewhere away from the trail because we heard several Ocellated and Bicolored Antbirds and got brief looks at both of those species.Nightingale Wren was also briefly seen but the mega bird of the day was my lifer Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo! Every time I go to Quebrada, I know that I have a chance at seeing this rare apex predator of the understory but unless you come across an antswarm, your chances diminish and even then, the cuckoo might not show. On Saturday, we heard antbirds at the back of the Las Palmas trail and were hoping that the supposed antswarm would come our way when one of the clients says, "Whats that"?I hear the soft bill clacking given by a ground-cuckoo and immediately realize that this is what she saw. Fortunately, it is still there and its head is just visible above the understory vegetation! Before the other client can get onto it, it disappears but we wait around for it to show again and after a minute or two, it reappears just 10 meters way in a different spot! It is looking at us and actually ventures onto the trail! It seemed genuinely curious of us and hung around for another two minutes before scurrying off into the understory. Oddly enough, it ran off in the exact same spot where I glimpsed the tail of a much shyer ground cuckoo running away from me in 2001!We didnt see much else for the rest of the morning and raptors were oddly absent but we couldnt have topped that in any case!</blockquote>

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