New Birds

[Tony Buzolich]

Here's a couple of new ones you guys might not have seen before. With Jay's unusual collection of Wisconsin birds I thought I'd throw in a couple that we don't see very often around here either.
Have fun guessing, Tony

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/yellowbird_zps834d6bfd.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/yellowbird_zps834d6bfd.jpg.html)

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/konacardinal1_zps11b362cc.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/konacardinal1_zps11b362cc.jpg.html)

[jbird]

The first one looks like a yellow warbler, but its hard to tell for sure. The second one is easy. Youre in Hawaii you dog! That's a Brazilian Cardinal

[Tony Buzolich]

Right on Jay :) Kona to be exact.

The first one is a Saffron Finch. The other is a Yellow Billed Cardinal which originally came to the islands from Brazil. If you think about it everything on the island except the lava did come from somewhere else.

Aloha, Tony

[DLJeff]

Time for more bird pics. This guy decided the juniper outside our kitchen window was a good spot to wait for dusk and nap away the day .

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[DLJeff]

Here's a few photos from a recent trip into the Amazon basin. Not the best photos - I blame the moving boat and the distance, heh heh. But you can still get a good view of some tropical birds and animals we saw.

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Amazon kingfisher female

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Amazon kingfisher male

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black-collard hawk

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great black hawk

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black vulture (this guy walked right up to our beached boat as we ate lunch and took siesta)

[DLJeff]

A few more ...

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channel billed toucan (they always land in the high canopy)

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jabiru stork

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juvenile rufescent tiger heron

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pair of little blue herons (these are the same species, just two color morphs)

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pied lapwing

[DLJeff]

A third set ...
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Green kingfisher, female

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Roadside hawk

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Roseate spoonbill

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Black skimmers (we watched them teaching babies to skim, the babies would walk and skim)

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Sunbittern (I tried and tried to get one with its wings open, really gorgeous feathers)

[DLJeff]

And a few animals to keep things interesting ...

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Black caiman on a sandbar (this is a big lizard, pushing 17ft)

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Goofing around one day I caught this little caiman on a popper, we laughed our butts off trying to get it to hand and trying to retrieve my popper

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A very healthy giant river otter population

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brown bearded saki monkey (also saw white faced capuchins and squirrel monkeys; heard howler monkeys but they stayed too far from the river)

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Nice tapir sighting late one afternoon

The absolute best sighting from our week was one boat watched a giant anteater clamber up a sandy bank one afternoon. Watched it for maybe 10 minutes. That is an extremely rare sight. Wished I'd been there.

[jbird]

Hey Doug! Too cool! Those kingfishers look like killing machines! That bill is one helluva a weapon!

The heron and bittern have some really tempting feathers for our craft dont they? ;)

[Tony Buzolich]

Doug,
Quite a variety of fauna. I've been to Belize numerous times and have never been able to see a Toucan or any kind of monkey though they're there.
Tony

[DLJeff]

Thanks Jay. There are five variety of kingfishers down there and I bet over 50% of the time we saw them they had a minnow in their beaks. Excellent fishermen.

Tony - that's actually down on the Agua Boa in Brazil. Although I have seen some pretty good bird life in Belize - kingfishers and macaws especially.