Laughing Moorhens

So, Moorhens then. A common bird across the world, but are they all the same 'species'? Martin Garners book "Frontiers in Birding" has a chapter all about sorting out Moorhens from the States. However, he only mentions that cachinnans (or Laughing Moorhen in the book) has a range from North America down to Mexico and Central America, Bermuda and the West Indes, with a winter range sporaically to South America If this is true what are the birds breeding throughout South America - are they cachinnans too? (I will have to look this up.)

These images are of some Moorhens at REGUA in the Atlantic rainforests of Brazil. They have a deeper voice, look a little bigger and also have a squarer top to their sheild:

And this one is from Madagascar. Looks pretty similar to me, with the same shaped sheild. Unfortunately I never noticed if the call was deeper on these birds:

Swallow-tailed Cotinga

A simply gorgeous bird. We saw many Swallow-tailed Cotingas on this tour, and we never tired of seeing them - absolutely stunning. However this wasn't the rarest Cotinga we saw on our travels - we also scored Grey-winged Cotinga at Pico de Caledonia! Unfortunately I never got a shot of it though, dispite it landing around ten meters from where Carrie and I were standing...

Wolfie!

Birds weren't the only thing on the agenda for our trip to Brazil. These Manned Wolves at Caraça Monastery are fed every night on chicken and kitchen scraps by the monks. They attract quite a crowd and up to 100 people can be seen sitting around the patio waiting for these amazing animals to come in each evening.

Three-toed Jacamar

These Three-toed Jacamars were at a secret stakeout our guide showed us. We saw six in all along the road sides!

Brazil nuts

Just back from two weeks birding in the south-east of Brazil. Some excellent birds and mamals were seen including these two Brazilian Mergansers at their usual stake out near Serra da Canastra. October 2008.