othmanebe's Favorites

INCROYABLE !!! Passe en nocmig dans la nuit du 4 au 5 vers 2h du matin. Merci à Stan Wroza pour l'identification car je n'aurais jamais pensé à cette espèce. Belle série de cris qui montre que l'oiseau est en déplacement et qui permet (entre autres) d’exclure une chevêche (jamais notée de mon jardin d'ailleurs). Ça colle très bien avec les enregistrements faits sur la côte espagnole : https://xeno-canto.org/750758 et https://xeno-canto.org/744740. Il y a eu aussi ce jour plusieurs observations de l'espèce en France (Nord, Bretagne, Charente-Maritime, Landes...). Confirmé par Magnus Robb

Генетические данные этого ежа по данным зоологического музея МГУ им. М. В. Ломоносова:
Митохондриальная EUR
Ядерная EUR/ROM
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14476771
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14476908
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/15403749
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/73934716
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/73937507
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/73938051
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/73938640

Branta leucopsis x Anser indicus
Interesting hybridization between a barnacle goose and a bar-headed goose.
This pair (and their goslings after they hatched) has been documented on ornitho.de for some time now.

Shallow evolutionary divergence between two Andean hummingbirds: Speciation with gene flow?
Coeligena bonapartei consita

get the PDF of an article by Juan Pablo López et al. on this and other fascinating birds from Serranía de Perijá

López-O., J. P. , J. E. Avendaño, N. Gutiérrez-Pinto, and A. M. Cuervo (2014). The birds of Serranía de Perijá : The northernmost avifauna of the Andes. Ornitología Colombiana 14:62–93.

Cattle Egret
with Barn Swallow it has caught
Dry Tortugas, Florida
1 May 1988

Cattle Egrets are a species known to wander. They made it to the U.S. on their own in the early 1950s and are now a common species all over the Americas. I once found a dead Cattle Egret on a rocky beach in Antarctica. There are no insects on Antarctica, so that particular Cattle Egret just wandered too far. Such might be said for Florida's Dry Tortugas. They are called "dry" for good reason. There is no fresh water. Birds that end up there and are too tired to move on, simply die. It is a daily task of employees at Fort Jefferson to walk around and pick up and discard the Cattle Egret carcasses before they open the fort to the birdwatchers each spring day. On this day my group watched a starving Cattle Egret (there are few large insects for the egrets to feed on) grab a Barn Swallow. It certainly made for a strange scene!

White Rock lake, Sunset Bay
Photo 1:
Odd Wood Duck
Wood ducks look strange when they change from their pretty breeding colors into their drab summer (eclipse) colors. But this duck is stranger still. It has both male & female characteristics. Not a juvenile, they have dull olive color bills. Male traits here are that colorful bill that remains even in summer and the colorful head crest feathers. Female traits are the brown eye instead of red, the shape of the white outlining the eye and the lack of a white chin strap going up the neck. Males keep the red eyes and white chin strap even in the summer.
Photo 2:
Another View Of The Odd Wood Duck
From every angle and when I lightened up colors all the way on the desktop briefly, that eye stayed brown. Pretty cool.

Photo 3:
Comparison shot of mine that shows 1 male & 2 female wood ducks in eclipse colors. Male eyes red, female eyes brown. male no white around eye and white chin strip and colorful bill. females white around eye, no chin strap and non colorful bill.
So, is this a gynandromorph or am I missing something?

Toucan Barbet is one of my trip favorites so far :-) Small bird with Attitude.

Toucan Barbet (Semnornis ramphastinus) is a neotropical bird in the Toucan-Barbets (a.k.a. Prong-biled Barbets) (Semnornithidae) family that is 23cm (9 inches) long. It is distantly related to woodpeckers and toucans (Order Piciformes). Toucan Barbet is native to western Ecuador and Colombia and there are 2 subspecies. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/117180-Semnornis-ramphastinus
Conservation Status: Near Threatened (NT) (IUCN Red List)

Toucan Barbet: Ebird: https://ebird.org/species/toubar1
Toucan Barbet is a "spectacular and iconic cloud forest bird of northwestern Ecuador and western Colombia. Note gray throat, red breast and belly, black cap, thick white stripe behind eye, and stout, yellow bill tipped with black. Nothing remotely similar occurs in range. Usually found in pairs in the forest canopy, often with mixed-species flocks. Eats large insects as well as fruit; visits feeders. Song duet is a characteristic sound of the region. Male and female simultaneously give a long series of nasal toots at slightly different pitch and pace, so that sometimes the notes overlap."

E-bird with species description, range map and sound recordings: https://ebird.org/species/toubar1

Ebird checklist with great photos showing Toucan Barbet working on nest hole (#15 in list): https://ebird.org/checklist/S191402424 and Irene's Toucan Barbet observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/239032477

Birds of Colombia, by Steven L. Hilty, March, 2021 (excellent color illustrations, species distribution maps, QR codes,) p. 26.

Link to smaller, handsome male Red-headed Barbet for comparison: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/239004138

Xeno-canto (worldwide) Bird songs, sound recordings, and species range map: https://xeno-canto.org/species/Semnornis-ramphastinus

Merlin Bird ID: How to use/get the portable App (Bird ID help for 8,500+ species) https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

Comprehensive Feather I.D. tools and more: https://foundfeathers.org/resources/

Found Feathers (Worldwide): https://www.fws.gov/lab/featheratlas/idtool.php

Birds of Colombia, by Steven L. Hilty, March, 2021 (excellent color illustrations, species distribution maps, QR codes,)

Irene's Ebird Profile: https://ebird.org/profile/MTIwNjIzMg and my worldwide checklists (including Colombia): https://ebird.org/mychecklists