pantanal

Narrow-billed Woodcreeper

Choror (Great antshrike) close to the Negro River. Otuquis National Park, Bolivia.

Mbigus (Neotropic cormorants) jump from a tree on the banks of Negro River.

Curuti Colorado (Yellow-chinned spinetail) on the banks of the Negro River. Border between Paraguay and Bolivia.

Pica-palo Colorado Grande (Red-billed scythebill) at Los Tres Gigantes station.

Almost every day, during my work at "Los Tres Gigantes" Station (Paraguayan Pantanal), I had the opportunity to meet this nice couple. Jacamara (Galbula ruficauda).

Lavandera (spanish), White-headed marsh tyrant in the Otuquis National Park (Bolivia) a few meters from the Negro River

This Trogon, called in spanish "Surucu Aurora", is a permanent inhabitant of the reserve "Pantanal Paraguayo". It is one of the most attractive birds for its plumage and is very easy to see in "Los Tres Gigantes" station. About it and other colorful birds I wrote the following post...

Feeding on nectar in the Pantanal, Brazil

And that's my last photo from this particular trip. But those of you who've been paying attention may have realized that this was in 2015 - I'll have more photos coming soon from a journey the following year.

This looks almost like something out of a scary movie. I was lucky here with the low sun at sunrise.

A particularly confiding Tropical Kingbird was in our chosen spot for the only stop we managed to make that morning.

Now here's a cooperative bird flying at a nice height reasonably close exactly at a right angle to me, and the light is quite nice (though I could have done with a bit more of it). The blotch on the sky is not a gigantic dust particle on my sensor, but a Large-billed Tern looking for breakfast.

Standing near a pool of water along the Trans-Panateira, seeing the sun come up, we got a lot of high flying herons, and then the occasional one passing by much lower and quite closely. One had to be quick on those occasions... Again I like the light on this bird.

This goes with the Large-billed Tern picture I posted yesterday - you can see the bird is homing in on something. As I said, I don't think any of us managed to get a picture of the subsequent plunge.

There was a decent number of Large-billed Tern hunting for breakfast. It was possible to get pictures while they were on the lookout, but I don't think any of us managed a shot of the subsequent plunge into the water.

You can see that the sun has just come up and is helping to put some light on the bird. The skimmers had a somewhat unpredictable flight action that would occasionally bring them reasonably close - quite a challenge, in particular since the lack of light meant the balancing act between exposing...

And there it was, our last day of the holiday. Because the airline had meddled with flight times, instead of being able to spend a leisurely morning along the Trans-Panateira, taking pictures in good light, we were reduced to one stop when it was still pretty dark. All the shots I took first...

My final bird from the Araras Garden - quite a selection.

And another portrait from the bird water station in the garden.

And now in a more conventional pose.

More garden birds from Araras.

One he was done drinking he paused for a moment longer, just for my camera, before making off.

This image is pure luck! For some reason the bird decided to scatter around a few drops, and they can still be seen in this picture.