Dreams of Manakins Dancing Around in my Head

Long-tailed Manakin (Chiroxiphia linearis) male perching on a tree in Santuario Ecológico, Monteverde

Birds are amazing animals; I think it is pretty obvious I think so, by how many posts on this blog are about birds. With over 10,000 different species their are many, many birds to talk about. One group though, is particularly marvelous and I have long wanted to see, the manakins. Many of the birds in this group dance in elaborate courtship displays that are wonders to behold.

A Long-tailed Manakin male pair perched in the canopy of the Bajo del Tigre section of Children's Eternal Rainforest, Monteverde

Manakin, not mannequin, though the etymology of both comes from the same Dutch root for “little man”. Manakins are a frugivorous neotropical bird family. There are about 60 different species found from Mexico to Southern Brazil. They have a very distinctive syrinx, which is where songbirds produce sound. This gives them the potential to make many more complex calls then there close relatives, which have simpler syrinxes. (This will be important later) This all adds up with their dancing displays to make them very exciting, and easily catching the eyes of tropical ornithologists. I think I first really remember hearing about them on PBS Nature’s 3 part Deep Jungle series, where the mating display of one species was described by a researcher.

Blue-crowned Manakin (Lepidothrix coronata) in the Wet forest of the Osa Peninsula

With my adventure in Costa Rica I ended up seeing three manakin species. Two of them on the Osa Peninsula. The Osa peninsula is famous for Corcovado National Park, sometimes called the most biologically intense place on earth. These hot coastal wet forests are buzzing with activity with all kinds of insects about, monkeys swinging through the trees, snakes slithering through the undergrowth, and birds flying around and calling. Birding and photography is really hard with all the light filtering through the canopy, and dense foliage that obscures everything off trail. The first species I got to see was the blue-crowned manakin. Black with a beautiful sapphire crest, it is a very handsome bird. Immediately upon seeing it I could tell it was a manakin, which was exciting as it was my first time beholding one live. The next day on a hike, I passed through the lek of one of the coolest manakins. 

A male Red-capped Manakin (Ceratopipra mentalis) in the Wet Forest of the Osa Peninsula. This bird is known for its remarkable "moonwalking" display.

A lek is an aggregation of males with the goal of attracting females. It likely gives each male an advantage, being ne
ar to best males, and possibly snagging a female, though actually mating in a lek is quite rare. Here in the wet forests of the Osa Peninsula I saw the most incredible sight, the dance of the red-capped manakin. This bird is famous for shuffling backward in a movement that looks a lot like a moonwalk. While it does this it makes a buzzing call, and a loud click produced by the wings. It was so exciting to see what has to be considered one of the most amazing avian displays right in front of you.

A Long-tailed Manakin male perched in the canopy of the Bajo del Tigre section of Children's Eternal Rainforest, Monteverde

The third and final manakin was up in the rain shadow forests of Monteverde. Below the cloud forest, it is a drier but very tangled forest. This is the haunt of the long-tailed manakin. This is a spectacular little bird with two long tail feathers, a red cap and a bright blue back. They can be tricky to spot in the very thick canopy and undergrowth, but they are easy to hear with their loud distinctive toledo call which rings through the forest. What makes them really special is that they lek in an alpha-beta pair of males that work as a team to court females. The alpha gets pretty much all matings, but the beta is usually a younger bird that will inherit the lek when the alpha dies. Their courtship is very complex and it was really cool to observe the different phases. They also have very complex vocal cues that are part of the different phases of the display, which is where the special syrinx of manakin is useful.  The teeamoo call is used to call the other male to a perch in the lower canopy. Then they make a series of popping wit calls, this seems to synchronize the males so they can synchronize the toledo which is a duet. This call is what attract females in. Once she is in the area, the males move to the display perch low to the ground. They then call the female down with the owng call. Once she is in position they do there dancing display. They leapfrog over each other making this really odd sound, the call nyanyownh. If she stays longer they co quiet and go to the butterfly flight where they fly back and forth from the display perch into the forest showing off their almost morpho-like back.

Two male Long-tailed Manakins in the middle of their leapfrogging display in the understory of the Bajo del Tigre section of the Children's Eternal Rainforest, Monteverde.

I had come to Costa Rica on a study abroad program through the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) on a tropical biology and conservation program over the summer. This program, which began in the early 90s, has been exposing students to the tropics and allowing them to do independent research. For my study, I looked at the effect of toledo playback at varying distances. I recorded toledo duets, and then made a five minute recording and then recorded the response of birds at the distances of 5-10 and 25 meters, and well I did not get enough data. It was a hard study, I had to locate the display perches of Manakins, which took a lot of time to locate. Then as it turned out, the birds don’t really respond to toledo with other calls; they only slightly change the intercall frequency of their own toledo duets, which to get a good answer requires each recording to get toledo

duets, and that did not happen.

A Long-tailed Manakin male perched on a branch in Santuario Ecológico, Monteverde

Despite my study having some serious methods problems it was a very valuable experience on setting up a study, and to make sure if I change what you are measuring after you start to make sure the new system works with existing methods. (which I think was my problem) It was also a good experience to have the stress of having to write a paper with not much to say, I think that will be useful for managing stress when I actually have a paper with interesting results. If you want to check out my research go to https://cieetropicalecologyandconservation.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/summer2019book.pdf (it is at the very end) I had a great time in Costa Rica and I would like to thank the wonderful staff of CIEE Monteverde for the amazing experience. 

Source

"mannequin". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2004. Retrieved 2009-08-07.

New Oxford American Dictionary (2nd ed., 2005), p. 1032.

Prum, Richard O.; Snow, David W. (2003). "Manakins". In Perrins, Christopher (ed.). The Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Firefly Books. pp. 434–437. ISBN 978-1-55297-777-4.

McDevitt, M. K., C. I. Rodríguez-Flores, C. A. Soberanes-González, and M. d. C. Arizmendi (2011). Red-capped Manakin (Ceratopipra mentalis), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.recman1.01

Trainer, J. M. and D. B. McDonald. 1993. Vocal repertoire of the Long-Tailed Manakin and its relation to male-male cooperation. Condor 95: 769-781.

Some Great Macro Pictures of the Zion Snail

This is quite a good image of the Zion Snail.

On a beautiful early spring day, I was in Zion National park. Among many of the things it is famous for are its rock seeps and springs. Water falling on the Colorado plateau percolates down into the rock, and eventually flows from the more porous stone as is encounters less porous layers. One of the shorter hikes in the park showcases this quite nicely, the weeping rock. More can be seen around the park, including those I was headed for. These springs create a unique and stable habitat, home to many endemic species. Of these unique species the most “famous” is Physa zionis, the Zion Snail. It is mentioned and shown in both the park's informational video and a sign at the visitor center. It is a tiny species of bladder snail, about the size of a pinhead, that is only found in a few locations on the planet, all within Zion National park. I had just purchased an adaptor that could rotate my lens around, converting it into a macro lens for just a few dollars. My goal was to photograph this very small and very special organism.

Clouds envelop some of the Sandstone cliffs of Zion Canyon, early in the day the canyon had quit low cloud cover from the recent rains.

Zion was quite interesting on this day, low cloud cover partially obscured the red canyon walls. The park's parking lot was completely full, and so we had to park the car outside. Zion is quite special for a National Park, as you can just walk in. The town of Springdale is right at the mouth of the canyon, and you can just walk over a bridge and you are in Zion National Park. To reduce crowding the park does not allow people to drive up the canyon, so you must board shuttle buses that make stops at the trailheads of the big hikes. Riding up the road into the heart of the park I was able to spot two peregrine falcons. These birds nest on the steep sandstone cliffs of the canyon. The drive up is quite picturesque as you make you way up a riparian corridor, and you can see mule deer, turkeys, and larger birds like Steller's jays. You pass the Zion Lodge and Angel's Landing, with its shear cliff faces and crowded summit. After going passed all this, the bus pulled up at the Temple of Sinawava. This is the last stop on the bus system and leads to the start of the World famous Zion Narrows. I have done this hike before, and it is quite the adventure. You hike up the Virgin River, with the steep canyon walls rising above you on both sides. On this particular day, the spring rains made the river run muddy and fast, I am not sure you would want to attempt the narrow, you might have been swept down river.

A beautiful waterfall pouring down the sandstone cliffs of Zion Canyon. I slowed the shutter speed down to give the falls a silky appearance.

The recent rainfall meant waterfalls were prevalent, with a high one flowing right off the edge of the canyon, and several more were along the trail. The Riverside walk as it is called, is paved and you could get a wheelchair down it if you really wanted to. Many of Zions trails are like this and it is quite rough on your feet by the end of the day. Along the Riverside Walk path you can see a variety of wildlife. Canyon wrens call from there unseen nooks, as rock squirrels rustle through the brush along the tails edge. People have been feeding these large rodents, despite the several hundred dollar fine for doing so, and they will come right up to you. I felt a little too close. I saw kids get right up to them. A man even had his phone, and fingers, mere inches from one's head. These animals have sharp teeth and could give a nasty bite. I jokingly wondered; if one took a bit of your finger off, would you have to pay a fine for feeding the squirrels?

A beautiful hanging garden in Zion National Park, with plants growing out of cracks in the rock.

I finally got far enough along the trail to reach the hanging garden springs. This is a magical place of dripping water and plants growing right out of the stone, something truly special to behold. I began my search for my quarry. They blend in quite well with the bits of organic debris and this makes them nearly impossible to spot. I previously had found a few in a smaller spring here, but could not locate any in this spot. I reached the biggest wall; an American Dipper jumped around the wall and hanging vegetation. It was here that I found a single snail.

Water dripping down a hanging garden in Zion National Park

Quickly attaching my macro adaptor and flipping the lens, I got to photographing the specimen. I was still new to learning how the adaptor worked and so my aperture was closed all the way down, making my shots so dark I had to use flash. This brought out some detail by removing some of the waters reflection, allowing you to actually tell that it is a snail. I also filmed it moving along but the high ISO makes it quite grainy, and the lack of a good stabilizer makes it a little shaky.

While photographing the snail, a group of people rounded the corner. A man was telling two others to look out for the snails. As they walked nearer I said, “I got one right here.” They were quite excited to see the tiny animal and tried to find more, but among all the tiny bits of organic material the snails are all but invisible. Although it is probably best to leave the species alone in its little refuge and to keep it a secret, I feel it is worth sharing; snails are not something people are usually excited about. Most people just obviously walk by, or put their hands on the wall, feeling the springs flow, which I personally would kind of discourage since who knows what oils or chemicals on our hands could do to these little animals and this ecosystem.

An even closer macro shot of the Zion Snail

I began the short walk back to the bus stop to continue my quick one day tour of Zion canyon. I would recommend the Riverside Walk to nature lovers, and as long as you are careful around the dripping springs and hanging gardens you may get the chance to see this incredible little creature and its incredible little ecosystem. Late afternoon was beginning to set in as I walked up to the road. Up above the red rock cliffs, I saw the moon. It looked really neat and I had to take the shot. With that done I boarded the bus and headed down canyon for the next hike.

The Moon over the Cliffs of Zion Canyon