A Beautiful Flycatcher
March 23rd, 2014
If Great-Tailed Grackles produced, say, 70% of the noise in the resort garden, then Great Kiskadees heartily took care of the rest. Kiskadees are a member of the tyrant flycatchers, the most diverse family of birds on earth (though all of them limited to the New World.) Most tyrant flycatchers are in the tropics; Costa Rica alone boasts over 70 of them! And most of them are small, drab LBJ's (little brown jobbies) that are often a challenge to tell apart. But Great Kiskadees are big, bold and beautiful. And though they do have a few lookalikes, they are easily distinguished by their human-friendly habits (one at the resort had a favorite blue car he liked to perch on), and their raucous calls of "kis-kadee! kis-kadee!" all day long.
I could never get exasperated with the kiskadees, as I did with the grackles. They were just too pretty.
1680x1050 wallpaper
Like many others, they were working on their nests. One pair seemed to get in a fight with a pair of Rufous-Naped Wrens for a spot right in front of our window. (Near as we could tell, the wrens won.)
March 23rd, 2014
If Great-Tailed Grackles produced, say, 70% of the noise in the resort garden, then Great Kiskadees heartily took care of the rest. Kiskadees are a member of the tyrant flycatchers, the most diverse family of birds on earth (though all of them limited to the New World.) Most tyrant flycatchers are in the tropics; Costa Rica alone boasts over 70 of them! And most of them are small, drab LBJ's (little brown jobbies) that are often a challenge to tell apart. But Great Kiskadees are big, bold and beautiful. And though they do have a few lookalikes, they are easily distinguished by their human-friendly habits (one at the resort had a favorite blue car he liked to perch on), and their raucous calls of "kis-kadee! kis-kadee!" all day long.
I could never get exasperated with the kiskadees, as I did with the grackles. They were just too pretty.
1680x1050 wallpaper
Like many others, they were working on their nests. One pair seemed to get in a fight with a pair of Rufous-Naped Wrens for a spot right in front of our window. (Near as we could tell, the wrens won.)
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dagibbs
March 23rd, 2014 at 5:10 pm
Pretty!
Mike
March 24th, 2014 at 8:20 am
Nice shots... the first one is a striking pic of the bird, and the last one makes an excellent background... I really like the textures and composition.