The Four Ages Of Sand

What I learned today: Bananas grow upwards!

And woodpeckers love to eat the seed thingy that hangs off the bottom

Mating Carib Grackles

I got some funny looks and a couple of (I suspect) less than complimemtary comments from the locals as I photographed this scene, but as a man of science I had to rise above it and continue with my work.

Click on image for full size

Chiguara and the national bird of Venezuela

I'd heard that Chiguara, a high dry area of the Andes an hour's drive from Merida, was a good place for butterflies so that's where we went:

It turned out to be too windy for buterflies and I only got 2 for the list (next post) but I did get to see the wonderful Venezuelan Troupial for the first time. 

At 10.5" (27cm) tall and intense bright orange, it's quite a sight.  It's the national bird of Venezuela, and my guide book says it  "often perches atop a large columnar cactus." 

Here it is, doing exactly what it's supposed to:

 

 

 

 

Can you tell the difference between an owl and an eagle?

I can't!

I was very happy to get these shots of what I thought was my first venezuelan Owl but having gone through my field guide, I can't find anything that looks like it so now I think it might be a baby eagle.

 

The birds of Venezuela 185. The Yellow-rumped Cacique (Cacicus cela)

I just found this bird in my Draft box, which means I don't think it was ever posted up on the blog!

Luckily I posted this bird  up twice so it can take its place in the Life List

 

It's not all over...

Ok just because the Life List is complete, I've still got some good shots to post. How about this one; I took a series of photos of this ringed kingfisher and one of them shows something unusual. At the moment it blinked something odd appeared on its back. An insect of some sort?

 

The birds of Venezuela 187. The Pale-breasted Thrush (Turdus leucomelas)

The Pale-breasted Thrush (Turdus leucomelas)

Well that's it; the last of the birds of Venezuela. 187 species! Not at all bad for two "tourist" trips.

What have I learned - apart from the fact that it's easy to lose 2 months of your life if you get obsessed by something?

The main thing is that quite a large proportion of the birds of Venezuela are not very exotic looking at all.  We have a perception that South American birds are exotic and brightly coloured,and many of them are, but there are even more that are very similar to our very own British LBJs (Little Brown Jobs)

Another interesting thing is that I worked out roughly how much time I spent photographing the birds and I reckon it was an average fo 3 hours a day over 5 X 7 days = around 100 hours.

And how long for the processing and identifying images? Some gave up their secrets in minutes and others took hours. If it was an average of half an hour per bird, that's around 94 hours. Add in the ones I researched but never identified and you get... 100 hours. Once again the idea of the 100 Hour Challenge pops up: Previous post

 

 

 

The birds of Venezuela 186. The Mouse-colored Tyrannulet (Phaeomyias murina)

A really tricky ID only made possible with my new mates over on the forum. They are specialists, and even they got into quite a lot of debate as to the ID. The general concensus is that it's The Mouse-colored Tyrannulet  - Phaeomyias murina - and who am I to argue? 

The birds of Venezuela 121. The Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea) Part 2

The birds of Venezuela 185. The Social Flycatcher (Myiozetetes similis)

I'm still digging out new birds from the last scraps of the memory cards. Can't carry on much longer though...

The Social Flycatcher, Myiozetetes similis