29 January 2011

In your face toucans...ECUADOR Jan. '11


While the so-called celebrity birds at Paz de las Aves like Toucan Barbets and Black-chinned Mountain-Tanagers squabbled with each other for a place at the bananas, this emerald green Crimson-rumped Toucanet slipped in almost unnoticed. Of course, when the earlier posted Dark-backed Wood-Quails came bustling nervously across the trail, we almost forgot to look at the feeders altogether. The trials of where to look first, one of the wonderful burdens of birding on “the bird continent” of South America! There are numerous small green toucans, or toucanets, in Ecuador and South America, although just this species occurs on the western slope of the Andes in Ecuador.

More was to come as we left those fruit feeders behind and checked out the hummer feeders, where various “jewels” were present…

1 comment:

Larry said...

Glad you noticed this guy. He is a stunner.