The Red-throated Caracara, Ibycter americanus, is the subject of my academic research and the namesake of this blog.

This beautiful raptor may look like a strange vulture or a hawk, but it is actually in the falcon family. It is classified in the subfamily Polyborinae. This group includes the caracaras, forest falcons and some others, and is thought to have split from the rest of the falcons some 14 million years ago . The caracaras are oddballs in the falcon world, as they are not swift-flying, long-winged aerial hunters, but for the most part rather slow-flying generalists and scavengers, many of whom spend a lot of time walking on the ground. There are currently five recognized genera of caracara, with 10 species.

This is a Crested Caracara, Caracara cheriway. These birds are more typical of the group, found in open habitats. (photo CC Licenced by Manjith Kainickara)

This Yellow-Headed Caracara, Milvago chimachima is a smaller generalist predator, also found in open habitats. A beautiful photo by Bart vanDorp, taken in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Caracaras are for the most part birds of open habitats, from windswept Patagonian plains to sunbaked Venezuelan llanos to the open cattle country of Central Florida. Bucking this trend, the Red-throated Caracara is a forest specialist, preferring densely forested habitats from Central America to southern Brazil. And unlike most of its relatives, it is not a generalist predator or a scavenger, but rather a specialist predator of social wasps.  This unusual diet is mirrored in the Old World by the Honey Buzzards, of the genus Pernis. It is this unusual dietary choice which led to me taking on my PhD research, the main objective of which was to determine how these caracaras manage to prey on well-defended social wasps without getting injured.

The warning coloration of these Apoica albimacula tell most predators to stay away, and with good reason.

In addition to the diet, the social behavior of Red-throated Caracaras also stands out. Unlike most falcons, this species  is rarely seen alone, preferring to travel in groups of up to 15 birds. They are extremely loud birds and are in almost constant vocal communication with each other.  If you want to hear what I am talking about, listen to  this!

Yeah, we bad… The Red-throated Caracara is one of the most sociable (and loud) raptors you are ever likely to meet.

This species, and most caracaras in fact, have rarely been studied. Prior to my work on these strange birds, only one study has focused on their behavior, showing that they exhibited some degree of cooperative breeding, and that they appeared to be defended against their social wasp prey by “a powerful chemical repellent”.

Because I have become so enamoured of these caracaras, I would like their tale told more widely, and this blog will be one of the vehicles to do so.  In some upcoming posts, I will begin to tell the story of my research on these (ridiculously cool) animals. My research has been a  fascinating journey, which is not over yet. You are most welcome to tune in to future posts to learn more about the world of the Red-throated Caracara.

References

FUCHS, J., JOHNSON, J. A. & MINDELL, D. P. 2012. Molecular systematics of the caracaras and allies (Falconidae: Polyborinae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data. Ibis 154:520–532. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

THIOLLAY, J. M. 1991. Foraging , home range use and social behaviour of a group-living rainforest raptor , the Red-throated Caracara Daptrius americanus. Ibis 133:382–393. Wiley Online Library.

The first and only time I saw this beautiful arboreal pitviper was on the last day of last year’s field season. This shot required running down to the Grand Plateau an hour before the chopper arrived. This is Bothriopsis bilneata (formerly Bothrops bilineatus)

Over the past few years, during my fieldwork in French Guiana, I have been on the lookout for snakes. As a child, I always loved these animals, having kept several as pets. In fact, like many entomologists, I first wanted to be a herpetologist!
In the field, there are snakes to see, but for better or for worse, I usually only see 2-3 per month of fieldwork. This past field season, perhaps because we were covering 7-16 km per day most every day, we did encounter more than that. Please enjoy this selection of French Guianan serpents that we saw this field season:

My first anaconda! This was actually spotted by an ONCFS director (Jean-Marie), somehow…It is just a small one. Eunectes murinus

See? Just a small one! Thanks Jean Pierre!

A small vine snake, Oxybelis aeneus

A small nonvenomous colubrid, said to be a mimic of the venomous Bothriopsis bilineata at the top of this post. This is Xenodon werneri

Pseustes poecilonotus…Kinda like a rat snake, I suppose, but maybe a bit more active. This shot was exposed at a couple seconds, steadied with a tripod.

Gorgeous, eh? Oxybelis fulgidus… Somewhat venomous arboreal colubrid with dreamy yellow eyes.

Yep…Super pretty.

You know you wanted to keep gazing into these eyes…

Here is a Bothrops atrox. This one I almost stepped on. My boot was within 1 m of this animal, but it did not bite. Catherine spotted it after my careless blunder!

The rain started pouring shortly after the first shot, so with our transect scrubbed, I put the camera in a bag on the tripod and kept shooting.

Note on Snakes and the danger posed by them:
Some of the most common questions I get about work in the tropics is “what about snakes? Are there lots of them? Are you afraid?”
Well, yes, of course there are snakes, and yes, there are a lot of them, but no, for the most part, I am not terribly afraid…
Lets be clear, it is a very remote area to work in, and it takes at least 40 minutes for a helicopter to fly out and get you, assuming one is available and it is not crappy weather or nighttime. A snakebite could very well be a very very bad thing indeed.
That being said, with a few sensible precautions, snakebite is very unlikely (or that is what I like to tell myself anyhow). First of all, do not handle the snakes, especially the dangerous ones or the ones you do not recognize to be harmless. This should be obvious. There is probably no good reason to be handling them anyhow, unless they are what you are studying.
Secondly, do try to watch where you are going, and watch where your feet fall. Even with some of the most cryptic species, you can often see them before you step on them (I think you can anyway…I have seen a few anyhow. If I did step on some I did not suffer for it…)
Thirdly, I like to think that the wearing of high boots may ward off some bites, at least of smaller specimens. I generally wear high rubber boots in the forest, as they are cheap, durable and waterproof. They are also pretty tough, and while they probably would not stop all fangs from entering the skin, they might at least make some of the small ones glance off. I always try to look where I am going, and I always use a headlamp or flashlight at night.

Chances are, you won’t get bit… BUT!

it could happen, and it would probably suck, so a little healthy fear is probably a good thing….

Speaking of nighttime and venomous serpents, this is a Bushmaster Lachesis muta or “silent fate”. This species is one of the biggest venomous snakes in the world. Contrary to its binomial, it is not really silent, and in fact has a hardened horny tail, which it vibrates rapidly to produce quite a loud sound.

You really do not see these beauties too often, as they are nocturnal. They are one of the best reasons to always use a lamp!

For more snakey goodness from the internet today, click here

Wild Research is a local consultancy group offering environmental services as well as public education. I have been invited along as an event photographer for some local bird identification trips. The second such trip (Saturday!) is to Vancouver’s famous Stanley Park, which is a great location for both waterbirds as well as forest species.   It is also one of my favorite photography destinations.

10/10 ant-mimicking mantids recommend tropical fieldwork. Canon 60D, 100 mm macro diffuse speedlight on subject, 2nd speedlight illuminates background

At this stage of the long dark Canadian winter, thoughts of tropical fieldwork should be going through the heads of all sensible entomologists…If you find yourself longing for the moist and humid insect filled paradise of the Neotropics, or even if that is what your research plans call for, let me introduce you to the wonders of French Guiana.

French Guiana is situated just north of Brazil on the Atlantic coast of South America, and remains to this day an overseas Department of France.  Both French and Creole are spoken, so Canadians should feel right at home.

The reserve is off limits to hunters, so large populations of monkeys and other large vertebrates are still present. Canon 60D, 300mm f4 L

French Guiana truly shines as a biodiversity and natural areas hotspot because unlike many countries in the Amazonian forest region, it has not experienced extensive deforestation. The immense expanses of unlogged rainforest are truly impressive.

The Red-throated Caracara, a specialist predator of social wasps is abundant (and awesome).  Canon 60D, 300mm f4 L

I have done all my tropical fieldwork at the Nouragues station, supported by an annual grant program that seeks to assist visiting scientists with the travel and logistical expenses involved with a tropical field season.  If the pictures above do not whet your appetite, please feel free to browse a more extensive collection here.

Inselberg des Nouragues at The Nouragues Reserve: the camp is right below this impressive rock. Canon 450D, 18-55 IS, helicopter

The 1000 km ² Nouragues reserve is located approximately 100 km SSW of Cayenne, and was established in 1995 to be both a refuge free of development and to facilitate research on Neotropical forest dynamics.

There are two research camps, the Inselberg Camp, situated just beneath a 420 m granite mountain, the Inselberg des Nouragues, and the camp at Saut Pararé, situated just below a series of high rapids on the Arataye River. The camps are accessible by helicopter, or you can take a motorized canoe (pirogue) to the Saut Pararé camp.  Both camps are administered by the CNRS (Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique) which has an office in Cayenne. Field costs are €20/day for students and postdocs and €35 per day for established researchers. Travel to the station can be expensive, but sharing the cost of helicopters/pirogues with other researchers can bring the costs down considerably.

Motorized pirogues can take you up and downriver. The skill of these boat crews as they navigate the rock filled channels is amazing to behold. Canon 60D, 18-55 mm IS

Access to various parts of the forest is facilitated by an extensive trail system (see map). Data on tree species and flowering/fruiting phenology in two large research plots at the Inselberg Camp are available. At the Parare camp, there are many trails, although not as extensive as at the Inselberg camp, as well as access to riverine and palm swamp habitats. Lists of species of birds, bats, fish and trees are available, and there is an impressive list of scientific data already published.

The two camps in the Reserve. Trails marked in red. ArcView with some Landsat Imagery and trails courtesy of Valentine Alt

The camps are comfortable, with covered shelters (carbets) for sleeping and eating, and there is electricity and running water at each station (it is the rainforest!). There is also a satellite internet connection which is adequate for email and keeping in touch with labs and colleagues. Food is provided, and is quite good (as one might expect at a French field station!), cooking/cleaning duties are shared.

20s exposure Canon S5IS, tripod, hacked firmware (CHDK)

If you are a student or a researcher at the planning or pre-planning stages of a Neotropical research program, there is no better time than now to submit a research proposal to the scientific committee of the station. The recently announced call for proposals will fund projects to a maximum of €9000, which would nicely cover the transportation and field costs for a several-month expedition. The deadline is Feb. 14, 2013. For more information, the details are available here.

Eciton army ants…Go see some now!
Canon 60D, 100 mm macro diffuse speedlight on subject, 2nd speedlight illuminates background

My name is Sean McCann, and I am a PhD student in biology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. I am a passionate amateur photographer and a lover of the outdoors.

I grew up not far from here in Victoria BC, on Vancouver Island, where I also did an undergraduate biology degree at UVic.

My background is in entomology, and I have completed a masters degree in Florida on mosquito reproductive ecology.

This blog will be a place to show some of my photos, communicate my research and my insights, and to reach out to the public at large. For some images that I shoot, I will try to give some details to how the shots were achieved, especially if they used any unusual techniques.

Here is a picture my brother took of me a few years back, with a vacuum device for collecting yellowjackets from their nest….I have much better techniques now!

Somewhere to the right will be a link to my flickr photostream where you can see a selection of my recent images.  I will also try to maintain a blogroll, for pages that catch my fancy and inspire me. As for what else I will put up, well I am not too sure.  I am hoping for suggestions!

As an aside, Ibycter (in the url and blog title) refers to the species that I study, the Red-throated Caracara, a Falconid found from Central America to southern Brazil. Expect to hear much about this species and its environment in the future.

A Red-throated Caracara, in the rainforest of French Guiana. This was shot with a Canon S5IS compact superzoom in 2009.

A large part of what my lab does is chemical ecology of insects.  We study the chemicals that mediate communication, defense, and foraging of all kinds of insects.

Orchid bees are amazingly beautiful insects, often iridecent or boldly striped. The males of these bees are attracted to strong scents, and they reputedly use these to gather up a group of other males, presumably to display to females.

Knowing this, on every field trip to the jungle, I have brought along cotton dental wicks and clove oil. These would serve well should we need to numb a broken tooth in an emergency, but the main purpose was to attract orchid bees.

Watch closely in the video as this male Eufriesea ornata gathers clove oil with his forelegs, transfers it to his midlegs, and finally tucks the fluid into special spongy tissues in his hind tibiae.

Orchid bees don’t only collect nice smelling scents… They are also attracted to foul smelling substances such as carrion and feces.

A male orchid bee gathers feces.
Canon 60D, EF 50 mm macro, f13, undiffused flash from MR14EX macro ring light.

A Robber Fly gets in on that Orchid Bee Look which is so hot right now. Canon 60D EF 70-300 IS. 1/60s F8

These filthy little bastards are beautiful and fun to watch however, so my advice is this:

Next time you go to the Neotropics (south Florida included), bring some methyl salicylcate, clove oil, or cineole and attract those bees!

Euglossa orchid bees are smaller and metallic green…Also a good look.
Canon Powershot S2IS, Raynox DCR250, foam bowl flash diffuser

References:

1. PHYLOGENY AND BIOLOGY OF NEOTROPICAL
ORCHID BEES (EUGLOSSINI)Annu. Rev. Entomol. 2004. 49:377–404

doi: 10.1146/annurev.ento.49.072103.115855

2. ORCHID BEES DON’T NEED ORCHIDS: EVIDENCE FROM THE
NATURALIZATION OF AN ORCHID BEE IN FLORIDA

Ecology, 87(8), 2006, pp. 1995–2001

2006