red-breasted toucan

State of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil.

This week I was looking at some toucan images on the archive, and thought that this one was worthy of being posted..

This bird is quite common in Serra da Mantiqueira (where the picture was taken) and Serra do Mar, but its pupulation has declined a lot because of deforestation. It was a wet day there, so the photo isn't good, unfortunately, but I thought I could share its beautiful colours with you.

Today they came to visit us.They like to eat the little coconuts of our Palm trees

The same toucan tried hard to eat eggs and small birds that might be on the nests of the red-rumped caciques. The fathers and mother birds became desperate, and fought the long-billed one until he gave up, after some fifteen minutes. As long as I could see, it went away with ampty hands and stomach!

This is the same toucan of the previous photo, now ready to eat a small coconut.

I saw this toucan last Friday afternoon. When I took this photo, I had no idea of what would happen later ( please, see photo 3 of this series ).