Tag Archives: Paramaribo

Suriname, 12th day, harriers and dolphins

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This video about Suriname says about itself:

This is a video collection of 15 garden bird [species] of Paramaribo, Suriname.

These are the birds that you see:
1. Brown-throated Parakeet (Aratinga pertinax)
2. Tropical Mockingbird (Mimus gilvus)
3. Smooth-billed Ani (Crotophaga ani)
4. Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus)
5. Bananaquit (Coereba flaveola)
6. Gray Kingbird (Tyrannus dominicensis)
7. Silver-beaked Tanager (Ramphocelus carbo)
8. Pale-breasted Thrush (Turdus leucomelas)
9. Palm Tanager (Thraupis palmarum)
10. Ruddy Ground Dove male (Columbina talpacoti)
11. Ruddy Ground Dove female
12. Rusty-margined Flycatcher (Myiozetetes cayanensis)
13. Arrowhead Piculet (Picumnus minutissimus)
14. Blood-coloured Woodpecker (Veniliornis sanguineus
15. Spectacled Owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata)
16. Glittering-throated Emerald (Amazilia fimbriata)

14 February. Yesterday, we arrived back from the interior in Leonsberg.

In the morning: tropical mockingbird. Great kiskadee. Yellow oriole. Grey kingbird.

A ruddy ground-dove.

The tide is high; so, not so many waders on the Suriname river mud now.

Tri-coloured heron. Little blue heron.

An osprey flying.

A striated heron on a branch.

A white-lined tanager.

A black-capped mockingthrush couple.

A buff-throated saltator.

A black vulture and orange-winged parrots in the air.

A smooth-billed ani.

A green-rumped parrotlet, sitting on a crane (lifting machine; not a bird).

A violaceous euphonia on a bush.

Tropical kingbird, rusty-margined flycatcher, and grey kingbird on a wire.

We take the ferry to the east bank of the Suriname river, to Commewijne district.

Yellow-billed tern.

On a boat at the east bank sits a great kiskadee.

A bit further, two spotted sandpipers.

Fort Nieuw Amsterdam was built in the days of Dutch colonialism and slavery. On the muzzle of a big gun sits a tropical kingbird.

A house wren on a pole.

A white-headed marsh tyrant.

A ruddy ground-dove.

Male and female variable seedeater.

Cattle egrets.

A solitary sandpiper, wintering here away from the cold in North America.

The fort Nieuw Amsterdam is an open air museum now. Close to the gate is a big tree. A great potoo sleeps there now, and will get active after sunset, when it will catch insects again.

Rufous Potoo (Nyctibius bracteatus) in Ecuador: here.

A dead snake on the ground.

A pale-breasted thrush.

Shiny cowbirds, sitting on the roof of the former prison of the fort.

A moat with a wattled jacana and many cattle egrets on a bank.

A bit further, there is a fine view of the Suriname river estuary.

This is a video about a dolphin in the Suriname river.

Every now and then, a dolphin is visible in the water here, but you have to look fast to spot it.

A juvenile long-winged harrier flies far away over the water, then comes much closer to us.

Leaf-cutting ants in the grass.

We go further to the east.

In a tree, a boat-billed flycatcher. It looks much like a great kiskadee, but has a bigger bill.

We arrive at Marienburg plantation. It has a long history; about which more will be told in the next entry.

Great Potoo in Brazil: here.

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Suriname, 11th day, tapir and tamarins

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This video is about a Brazilian tapir (Tapirus terrestris) which had been attacked by dogs.

13 February. After yesterday, today our last day in south-west Suriname.

In the morning, the sound of the little chachalaca.

And the usual morning concert by the red howler monkeys.

Red-and-green and blue-and-yellow macaws.

The ringed kingfisher on its customary tree.

A blue-throated piping guan.

A scaled pigeon. A blue-grey tanager. A bat falcon.

A female red-legged honeycreeper.

A blue-headed parrot.

Painted parakeets.

Orange-winged parrots.

Not far from the airstrip is an aircraft wreck. It is from 1960, shortly after the start of the airfield. The US American crew got wounded, but was rescued. The wreck is still there. Close to it, tapir tracks. Deep and big footprints by the biggest land animal of South America.

Little cuckoo sound.

In the jungle, a group of golden-handed tamarins, in trees not far away. They are the smallest of the eight monkey species of Suriname.

There are holes in the forest ground: made by giant armadillos (the living species, about 90 centimeter in size. Not to be confused with prehistoric glyptodonts, several meter in size).

A blue morpho butterfly.

Back to the buildings.

A red-billed pied tanager.

A bare-necked fruitcrow sitting close to a building.

13:45: two swallow-tailed kites.

Turquoise tanagers in the cecropia close to the building.

Three king vultures.

Then, something even bigger than a king vulture in the air: the plane to take us back. It lands. The amphibian research people get out. A woman of the “frog” group asks me what I think has been the highlight during my stay in the Kaysergebergte. I reply: “the capped heron on the river bank, with the osprey with a fish in its claws flying overhead”.

Surinamese frogs in Rotterdam zoo: here.

At 15:30, our aircraft takes off.

At 15:55 we pass the Tafelberg mountain.

At 16:35, we are over the savanna belt between the rainforests of the interior and the coastal lowlands.

16:50: we land in Paramaribo. A great kiskadee.

In the evening, a barn owl sound.

Brazil: Researchers have dubbed the monkey Mura’s saddleback tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis mura) named after the Mura Indians, the ethnic group of Amerindians of the Purus and Madeira river basins where the monkey occurs: here.

Fast Fact Attack: Endangered Species No. 94 – The Golden Lion Tamarin: here.

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Birds and history around Paramaribo

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This is a video about a Rusty-margined flycatcher (Myiozetetes cayanensis).

Suriname, 4 February.

The bus to Paramaribo passes Clevia. In the eighteenth century, Clevia used to be one of the plantations owned by Ms Elisabeth Samson. She was the first Black woman in Surinamese history allowed, after a long legal fight, to marry a white husband. Before that, in another long legal fight, she had been exiled from Suriname to the Netherlands “forever”. The background to that: Governor Raye tried to introduce some minor reforms, like allowing African slaves as witnesses in trials against their masters. There was much anger against those proposals among white slave owners. When Governor Raye asked her, Elisabeth Samson reported to him a seditious remark about the governor by a slave owner. This caused much anger against this free African-Surinamese woman among the slavocracy. Governor Raye shamefully betrayed her. Defamed as a “whore”, she had to board a ship to the Netherlands.

There, she got much insight into the trade networks between Suriname and the Netherlands. After her appeal against the exile verdict was granted and she was allowed to return to Paramaribo, this knowledge helped her to become a successful trader and plantation owner. Surinamese author Cynthia Mc Leod wrote about her.

Cover of book about Elisabeth Samson

South of Clevia, there used to be Geyersvlijt coffee plantation, owned by a German in the eighteenth century. The old manager’s mansion can still be seen from the road. It stands empty today. In front of it, an old well, with a rusty-margined flycatcher and a female silver-beaked tanager sitting on top of it.

Germans in Surinamese history: here.

A bit further, an osprey flying over the Suriname river.

Tri-colored herons. A juvenile little blue heron; still white, not blue yet. A snowy egret. Black vultures.

Later, in the numismatic museum in Paramaribo, another bird. Not alive, but on the paper of a banknote: the Guianan cock-of-the-rock.

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