New Years Eve began with a short canoe ride to the trail for the canopy tower. Once up in the canopy of the huge Kapok tree we witnessed a Blue-and-yellow Macaw flap lazily into a tree in front of us, and also shared "our" tree with more than a few birds, including a startling male Blue Dacnis, a male Plum-throated Cotinga, a pair of bold White-necked Puffbirds, Sirystes, and a migrant Blackpoll Warbler vacationing in the Amazon for the cool winter boreal months. Down on the trails once the canopy activity had slowed somewhat we came upon my life Yasuni Antwren, a tiny antbird that is only found on the south side of the mighty Napo River.
In the afternoon we were back in the canoes taking a more leisurely pace to our birding by checking once more for a major target bird that had been leaving a gaping hole in our checklist: the multicolored Agami Heron (top photo). As we idled gently along the creek our boatman a movement caught our boatmans eye. He quickly moved the boat around and we soon found ourselves being eyeballed by a fantastic adult Agami, complete with its impressive long, long dagger shaped bill. Nothing else mattered after this stellar sighting, although we were only to happy to add Chestnut-capped Puffbird, pick up all 5 species of South American kingfishers, and a roosting Boat-billed Heron (bottom photo) too before the sun cam down once more in the Amazon.
1 comment:
Agami Herons are ace! Great reports Mr Woods - takes me back to my visit to Sacha in 2006. I'd love to go back someday.
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