art01 - omena júnior.indd - Sociedade Brasileira de Ornitologia

124 Notes on the breeding ecology and seasonality of some Brazilian birdsGuy M. KirwanPauraque Nyctidromus albicollis /Blackish Nightjar Caprimulgus nigrescensOn 30 August 2004, in the Serra dos Carajás, Pará,I found a nest of Blackish Nightjar with one pinkish-buffegg, within 150 m of a nest of Pauraque Nyctidromus albicollis(with two eggs), both of them atop a 30 cm-highsandy bank heavily strewn with dead leaves. Breedingbehaviour of both species is quite well known relativeto other Neotropical Caprimulgidae, being summarisedby Cleere and Nurney (1998) and Holyoak (2001), forC. nigrescens based primarily on observations of Ingels(1981), Ingels et al. (1984) and Haverschmidt andMees (1994), but also diverse other observations fromacross the range. The nests of both species in the Serrados Carajás were typical; as noted by Oniki and Willis(1982a, 1983d) and Holyoak (2001), C. nigrescens doesnot always nest on bare rock. For Blackish Nightjar myobservation accords well with seasonality known from theBelém and Manaus regions (Pinto 1953, Oniki and Willis1982a), although at the former Oniki and Willis (1983d)found nests in six months between April and December.Surprisingly, breeding seasonality for Pauraque in AmazonianBrazil appears to be surprisingly poorly known,except around Belém, where Oniki and Willis (1983d)found a total of 30 nests in all months between May andDecember, albeit with a clear peak in June to October.At Manaus, the same observers found single nests in lateAugust and mid September (Oniki and Willis 1982a). Ihave a record of a nest with an incomplete clutch of oneegg in the northeast Peruvian Amazon in late September.In the Atlantic Forest, I have breeding records (nestswith eggs or small young) for Pauraque between at leastSeptember and February (pers. obs.). Euler (1900) alreadymentioned nests of Pauraque in this region with recentlyhatched chicks in late September, and eggs in Octoberand January.Great Dusky Swift Cypseloides senexOn 29 September 2002, from the base of the CascaD’Anta waterfall, in the Serra da Canastra National Park,Minas Gerais (one of the species’ relatively few knownbreeding sites), I observed at least two pairs at nests (ofan estimated 400‐500 individuals present). The first pairwas seen to ‘change over’ at the nest, which was situatedin a narrow cleft in the horizontal rock wall < 5 m fromthe main body of water. Through a telescope, the topof the cone-shaped nest appeared to be a grassy pad afew centimetres high and c. 10 m long (estimated whenthe bird was perched on it). One bird replaced the birdinitially seen on the nest, bringing some additional freshgrassy material, which it added to the structure once itwas settled on the nest. The material was collected froman area immediately nearby (< 2 m below the nest), andother individuals of the same species also appeared to beengaged in taking material from the same patch of vegetation.The second nest to be located was much nearer thefalls and was sited in a quite large natural grass hummock,making it impossible to ascertain the proportions of theactual nest itself. Neither nest was located directly behindthe waterfall. Chantler and Driessens (2000) were unableto provide much information about the breeding of thisspecies, all of it based on Sick (1997), although de la Peña(1994) had already provided nest and egg dimensionsbased on observations at Iguazú, Misiones, Argentina, inmid October 1981. Together with J. Mazar Barnett, J.C.Minns and H. Remold, I observed an adult Great DuskySwift on a nest behind a waterfall at Parque ProvincialSalto Encontado, Misiones, Argentina, on 21 November2002. From my observations and those of Pichorim andLorenzetto (2004), it seems that at least some Brazilianpopulations breed at the same season as that in northeastArgentina (i.e. the austral spring).Black-throated Mango Anthracothorax nigricollisOn 17 August 2007, at Cristalino Jungle Lodge,northern Mato Grosso, I observed a nest of this speciesplaced on the branch of a broken tree that was just c. 1 mabove the surface of the rio Cristalino and c. 5 m fromthe bank of the river, almost in mid stream. It was thuswell exposed to direct sunlight for long periods of eachday. Schuchmann (1999) already noted the propensityof this species to nest in exposed situations, albeit usuallymuch higher above the ground. The small, opencupnest contained two young, their feathers still in pin.The nest’s structure and coloration closely matched thatrecently described and photographed by Greeney andMerino (2006) in eastern Ecuador, which nest was alsoin August and was also placed low over water, albeit stillnot flowing. Oniki and Willis (1982b) found an Augustnest built over a swimming pool at Manaus, and they alsofound an August nest at Belém (Oniki and Willis 1983d).Snethlage (1935) found a nest with two eggs in AmazonianBrazil c. 2 m above the surface of the rio Iriri in thefirst half of July. Schuchmann (1999) stated the breedingperiod to occupy December to July, but Hilty and Brown(1986), in summarising breeding data for Colombia, suggestedthat the species might be expected to nest virtuallyyear-round.Rusty-breasted Nunlet Nonnula rubeculaSome 11 km south of Pirapora, in northern MinasGerais, on 5 December 2008, I found a pair of this nunlet,which is common in tropical dry deciduous forestbeside the Rio das Velhas, feeding two fledged youngperched on branches less than 2 m above ground. Theyoung were effectively identical to the adults in plumage,Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, 17(2), 2009