Cotinga Online — access to the upcoming issue

Cotinga issue 31 is due to be published this autumn, but you can already have a look at many of the articles online. Read the latest two additions by clicking the appropriate article links below. Or see what else is available by clicking on the issue’s Table of Contents.

• Birds in the Park Estadual dos Três Picos, Rio de Janeiro state, south-east Brazil
  Francisco Mallet-Rodrigues and Maria Luisa Marinho de Noronha
  Cotinga 31 (2009): OL 96 – 107


• A contribution to Nicaraguan ornithology, with a focus on the pine-oak ecoregion
  Jeffrey K. McCrary, Wayne J. Arendt, Lilliana Chavarría, Lorenzo J. López et al.
  Cotinga 31 (2009): OL 89 – 95


• Cotinga 31 Online — Table of Contents

Only four places left on the club’s upcoming trip to Guyana!!

Sun Parakeet

Places are going fast on the NBC’s upcoming tour to Guyana. With a 17–day itinerary that targets some regional specialities and visits a wide range of habitats, it promises some truly exciting birding.

Among our quarries will be the Sun Parakeet, a stunning bird whose populations are slowly recovering following decimation by the cage bird trade. We'll also target the Rio Branco Antbird and the Hoary-throated Spinetail, two species which have highly restricted ranges and have been seen by very few birders. And, of course, there are a whole host of other special birds that we have a great chance of seeing, including Black Curassow, Rufous Crab-Hawk, Red-fan Parrot, Rufous-winged Ground-Cuckoo, White-winged Potoo, Guianan Toucanet, White-bellied Piculet, Blood-coloured Woodpecker, Ferruginous-backed Antbird, Spot-tailed and Todd’s Antwrens, Rufous-crowned Elaenia, Guianan Red-Cotinga, Crimson Fruitcrow, Capuchinbird and Dusky Purpletuft.

The trip, which will be guided by Chris Collins and Barry Walker, runs from Saturday, 21 November – Monday, 7 December, 2009. For prices and the full itinerary, available as a PDF file, click here.

To learn more about this beautiful country and its birds, be sure to read Chris Collins’ article in Neotropical Birding; for a PDF version, click here.

Blood-coloured Woodpecker       Rufous Crab-hawk   

Neotropical Birding

Issue 4 has now been published (April 2009)

In brief, articles include:

• identification of juvenile mollymawk albatrosses
• seabirding in Humboldt Current Chile
• birding around Quito, Ecuador, and in Suriname
• tracking down White-masked Antbird and tanagers in the Ecuadorian Choco
• conservation in Colombia
• sharing bird sightings to help conservation
• features on Black-and-tawny Seedeater and Speckled Crake

There’s also a forward look to future issues of Neotropical Birding.

If you would like to receive Neotropical Birding and Cotinga, please CLICK HERE to join NBC

Cotinga Back Issue Sale Ends Soon

Current sale prices for Cotinga back issues will end on 31 August, 2009; if you’re planning to fill any gaps in your collection, why not take advantage of today’s lower prices? In September, the price will rise from £3.50 to £5 for each issue shipped within the UK, and from £5 to £7 for each issue shipped outside the UK. Order soon!

To order, please click the appropriate link:

• Shipping to UK
• Shipping outside UK

Trustees’ Report and Financial Statement for 2008,
and 2009 AGM Minutes Online

If you missed the club’s recent AGM, but would like to see a copy of last year’s trustees’ report or financial statement, or a copy of this year’s AGM minutes, they are now available online; click here for the 2008 trustees’ report and financial statement, and here for the AGM minutes.

Cotingas and manakins — a request for photographs

The long-awaited Cotingas and manakins by Graeme Green and Guy Kirwan is nearing completion. Part of the renowned Helm Identification Guides series, the book contains superb colour plates by Eustace Barnes covering 129 species in the Neotropical families Cotingidae, Oxyruncidae, Pipridae and Tityridae; these groups include some of the most spectacular and colourful species in the world. The book will also include photographs to help illustrate the tremendous variety of plumages in these birds; the authors are inviting submissions (preferably digital) from photographers and birders who have taken good photos in the wild (not in the hand). If you think you might be able to help, please send an e-mail in the first instance to the project editor at A. & C. Black Publishers, Jim Martin. His address is jmartin AT acblack.com. (Replace AT with @ in your e-mail program.)

NBC on Facebook

NBC now has its own Facebook Group, entitled Neotropical Bird Club. If you are a Facebook member, please join the group, post photos, and take part in discussions! The URL is http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=31491408108

Request for photos of pipits Anthus

Seven species of pipit Anthus occur in South America. The Editorial Committee is looking for good digital photographs of all forms of the seven species to inform a possible Neotropical Birding identification article and, potentially, for publication. Please e-mail your photographs, initially in low resolution, to Neotropical Birding. All contributions will be acknowledged.

Caribbean Birds www.worldbirds.org/caribbean

Conservation birding

Join more than 200 birders on 20 islands who manage their bird sightings and make them work for conservation through Caribbean Birds – the easy-to-use, online system empowering citizen scientists and community monitoring groups throughout the region. Caribbean Birds is part of the World Birds global program linking together existing and new Internet systems to collect and report on bird populations and movements in different countries around the world.

Observando aves para la conservación

Únete a más de 200 observadores de aves en 20 islas quienes manejan sus propias observaciones y las facilitan para la conservación a través de Aves del Caribe, - el fácil de usar, sistema en línea que fortalece al científico ciudadano y los grupos comunitarios de monitoreo a través de la región. Aves del Caribe es parte del programa global Aves del Mundo enlazando sistemas existentes y nuevos de Internet que compilan y reportan sobre poblaciones de aves y sus movimientos en diferentes países alrededor del mundo.