Species of the day: White-throated mountain gem! It was Ava’s first day of proper hummingbird capturing today – and was already photo-bombing bird shots. 3 species in total with 9 captures made a pretty good day! Our REU – Christina deserves credit for this photo.
Species of the Day: Resplendent Quetzal! This is the male – you can tell by its long tail feathers, which it uses to attract the female. Why such long feathers? Clearly useless for flying, the thinking goes that if a male can survive with such an apparent disadvantage, he must really be worth having as a ‘husband’. The Maya considered this bird “God of the Air”. Thanks for the encouragement with the photos everyone. We will continue to torture you with more photos.
Species of the Day: White-crested coquette! This might be one of my favorite species. ‘Lophornis adoriblis’ might say it all. Weighing in at a terrifying 2.5 grams, it is one of the smallest hummingbirds in the world. This one actually flew into the window of the kitchen today and it was brought to Adam and I to save. We fed it sugar water and it flew off.
Species of the day: Violet Sabrewing! This is also one of our focal species. We’ve found that these can travel kilometers across landscapes and may be the best pollinators of heliconia because they bring outcross (genetically unrelated) pollen. This photo does not do the violet much justice.
Species of the Day: Charming hummingbird! (Amazilia decora). This one flew into our net today when we were trying to catch a Green Hermit. It took about 5 minutes to take a photo that showed its color. Most hummingbird feathers bend light to make the colors that they do – rather than having pigment like many other bird species (we call this “structural coloration”). This means that from certain angles, they can look black, with little apparent color at all.
Species of the day: Anole Lizard! This is a tough one to spot, and even harder to catch – but Ava found it (and snapped this shot) and Miles caught one today.
Species of the day: Speckled tanager! Every morning extra bananas are put out – which attracts a large number of native tanagers. This is one of our favorites.
Species of the day: Emerald glass frog! Ava found this on the way to supper tonight. Miles re-found it on the way back and it was out of its hiding place and using its suction cup toes to stick to leaves!
Species of the day: Cupiennius coccineus. This one is for you Dave Hill. We actually ‘found’ this yesterday on the porch. It jumped near Karen and she might have ‘freaked out’. I was forced to capture and transport it about 1 km down the trail, but it seems to have re-emerged tonight on the window.
First species of the day for 2014! This time, Ava, Miles and Anna are here, so this is for other kids (big and small) that enjoyed the photos last year – you know who you are. Chestnut-mandibled toucan! Why is the toucan bill so large? People have wondered about this for a long time, but recently scientists found that they use it partly to stay cool. They can change their own temperature as much as 10 degrees C in a few minutes using the beak as a sort of radiator.