Monday, March 22, 2010

The Birds of Puerto Rico- The Puerto Rican Tody


Hi Friends-

Before my memory of the tropical island of Puerto Rico fades, I just need to start showing some of my images from the trip.  Before we left, Megan got me a fantastic book by Mark Oberle entitled "Puerto Rico's Birds in Photographs".  What a fantastic book.  With over 15 species of endemic birds on the island, I was very excited to see birds that I could see nowhere else.  Although I had my brain in full-on naturalizing mode, I was paying very close attention to the birds, and keeping track of all the species that we encountered.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be intermixing my posts of Ohio's natural history with a few images from Puerto Rico.   I hope you enjoy these amazing birds.  And although Puerto Rico sounds like an exotic destination, it's only a 4 hour flight on US Airways from Charlotte-  it is close.

Here is the Puerto Rican Tody, the first endemic bird species we ecnountered on the island.  This bird was in a dry forest in Guanica State Forest on the southwest shore of the island.  Megan saw this one first and said "tommy, there's a ruby-throated humming bird, right there!"

Well, it's not a hummingbird, but it surely does have a ruby throat!

Tom

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful shot! I'm looking forward to the Puerto Rican pix. ;)

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  2. They were really neat. Good trip that day.

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  3. Thanks Lana. I'm glad that you are looking forward to them. I'll try to intersperse Ohio stuff too.

    Megan- That was a great find, you rock at finding birds.

    Heather- It really was a cool bird. It ranks right up there with the fairy wrens of Australia, another really cool bird.

    Tom

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