Yes, the astonishing presence of P. callopterus fits the category of non-migratory foothill and pre-montane species, like T. dilectissimus, that one would be surprised to find crossing the Panamanian Low. Yet there she was. Tino, my group, and I were birding the first stop within 100m of the trail that goes up to the fence where we had found S. m. pullus on a Field Guides holiday trip to the Lodge. Once again, we had found a pair of the Leaftossers, getting excellent views for all. We had gone back to the road and begun to walk toward the area where the first Snowcaps are to be seen when I heard callopterus give out a somewhat distant but clear vocalization. I turned to Tino in amazement and said, “Tino! That was a Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker!” Tino, wishing to moderate my overwrought enthusiasm, gently replied, “But, John, they’re not found here.” “Yes, I know,” I replied. “But that’s what it was!” still disconcerted by what I had heard. I quickly dialed up some playback and, lo and behold, in it came. We had great views of the bird, a female as you have seen, and Tino and I got voucher photos good enough for documentation, if not for the cover of The Rolling Stone. My suspicion is that this bird was a vagrant in search of a mate. I would suspect the same for Tino’s undocumented (but well-described) record of dilectissimus last year, another singleton. I know of no data on the vagrancy of non-migratory Panamanian species, much less this putative endemic. How far is it from Cerro Azul/Jefe to Altos del Maria? Not far. Maybe 100 kilometers? Yet for eons the resident avifauna have recognized that Low as the eastern boundary of the Talamancan massif and the western boundary of the Serranía San Blas. So although there is no notable interchange among related taxa found on both sides of the Low, there is the possibility for occasional exchange. Callopterus displacement strikes me as an example of inconsequential vagrancy, so far as population exchange is concerned, whereas dilectissimus vagrancy, especially if regular, could well have consequences since the two congeners would occur together in Altos del Maria. Touit sympatry could settle the conspecific question one way or the other, at least for the Biological Species Concept. Yet another reason to keep a sharp eye and ear out in Altos and another important reason to promote conservation of the area!

Thanks to John for this articulate and entertaining report; his discovery of this vagrant Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker at Altos del Maria is exciting in and of itself and, as Mr. Rowlett notes, challenges some of our basic assumptions regarding species distribution in Panamá. I welcome further comments on this subject from our readers.

In a separate communicae Mr. Rowlett echoed my sentiments regarding the unreliablity of the data associated with specimens collected by the early shotgun ornithologists. Erroneous data has a way of becoming self-perpetuating, and can be accepted as fact in ornithological literature unless the mistake is spotted and corrected, and emphatically so. As an example he cites the misinformation regarding the iris color of Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker. As the detail of Tino Sanchez's photo at right illustrates, the woodpecker's iris is clearly pale-gray or bluish-white, pick your term. Ridgely's Birds of Panama gets this fact right in both its text and accompanying illustrations. But John tells me that Winkler and Christie's monograph on woodpeckers describes Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker as having a dark eye, and this "fact" has worked its way into the literature, including the account of this species in the encyclopedic Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW). Perhaps the disparity between the truth and the published error stems from the fact that Rowlett and Ridgely are both acquainted with the woodpecker through extensive field experience, while it is my suspicion that most authors of family monographs glean their information from museum specimens, which may have been poorly-prepared or otherwise subject to discoloration of bare parts. I tried to track the misinformation back even further; the image at left is that of a female Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker as illustrated in Salvin and Godman's Biologia Centrali-Americana, Aves, Volume 2, 1895, part of the monumental work that represented the first catalogue of Central America's fauna and flora. The species account is brief and only the female is pictured, as at the time the species was only known from two specimens. Note that the woodpecker is pictured as having a pink iris, obviously incorrect. Decades later, Alexander Wetmore's Birds of the Republic of Panama, Part 2, 1968 fails to comment on the bare part coloration of Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker, despite the author's extensive field experience (a common oversight in this seminal work). It will be interesting to see if further research unearths the origins of Winkler and Christie's error.

But enough for the esoterica- John Rowlett shared the nice photo at right of a Dickcissel he and his Field Guides group found near Cana Field Station in Darién Province in early February. I believe this is the first time this species has been recorded at Cana, and possibly the first time in all of the Darién. Dickcissel can be found wintering in huge numbers in the lowlands of central Panamá at such locations as Tocumen Marsh, but is generally not known to stray to higher elevations such as at Cana.