Although this beautiful Amazon has a huge range in central and southeastern South America, it has a Near Threatened status because it is so highly prized in the pet trade. It is easy to see why as it is one of the most stunning species. We saw this one and others on our trip to the Pantanal.
The Blue-headed Parrot is one of the most prevalent and wide-ranging of the Pionus parrots with a large range in Central and South America. We saw them in my first and second trips to Colombia in totally different regions. The trademark for all the Pionus parrots is the red under tail coverts, although some of the other parrots and parakeets have this too.
Some taxonomies have split this high elevation parrot species into two, but for now I am keeping this as one bird. I saw this species on my second trip to Colombia near Bogota. If eBird updates the taxonomy per the split, it will now be Plum-crowned Parrot with the other half of the split being the White-capped Parrot.
I hate that the only picture I have of this species is a out of focus flight shot, but who knows when I will get back to this area of Brazil. They prefer dry gallery forest or what is locally known as Caatinga or Chaco habitat. Many times the only chance you get for parrots is a noisy fly-over.
We saw this species a couple times flying over head on my first trip to Colombia so it was good to finally catch them feeding in a tree even through they were quite far off. The sister species is the Scaly-headed Parrot which we got on my trip to Brazil in 2022. Its strange that finding these birds in a tree when you hear them is way harder than it should be for a colorful and loud bird.
These parakeets have a pretty broad range in central South American mostly south of the Amazon River basin. They are fairly common in their range and we saw them many times on our trip to the Pantanal. There are several self-sustaining populations in the US including in south Florida where I have seen them before but nothing beats seeing a bird in its native range.
This small parakeet is endemic to the coastal forests of southeast Brazil. This was one of the only birds I picked up on my own when I decided to visit an urban park in Sao Paolo while waiting on a flight. The park was a little sketchy with some of the locals following me with my big camera in their sights, I had to lose them by walking to a police station. I don't regret it one bit as this parakeet was not seen anywhere else on the tour.
The experience of seeing Rufous-fronted Parakeets in the Volcan Ruiz-Tolima Massif in Colombia was one of my all-time favorite birding experiences. We had stopped our van to take some scenery pics at this high elevation paramo habitat on our way to our hotel and heard a flock of parakeets. We were able to pick them out in the low scrub almost a mile away with a scope. The Colombian guide told us about how seeing them was a real treat and this species with a vulnerable status only has about 2-4 thousand birds left and they are usually not seen on his tours. They range in elevation from 10,000 feet up to 13,000. That was when the flock took to the sky and decided to land right near us! What followed was a point-blank photo shoot with this beautiful parakeet eating berries in its natural habitat.
This medium sized African parakeet has been introduced either on purpose or mistakenly around the world with populations in many major cities in Europe including London, Nice and various cities in Belgium where I have seen them. They are loud and do very well in urban parks so they are easy to find. This particular photo is from London.
This pecker's range includes all of southeastern South America as far west as the Pantanal in Brazil which is where I saw mine. It is in the same genus as all the flickers. I can kind of see the resemblance.
Even though I have seen this species a couple times now in Central and South America, I do regret never chasing the one that was hanging out in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. It would have been so fun to bag one for my ABA list. This small falcon has a huge range and although it will eat bats, that is just a small percentage of their diets which consist of all kinds of small critters. This one was photographed somewhere in the Pantanal in Brazil.
The huge genus of Falco includes 50 species encompassing kestrels, hobbies and small falcons. The Eurasian Kestrel has a massive range across much of Eurasia and Africa. I have seen them in England, Belgium and France. The first picture below is an adult from gardens in London and the last photo is a young bird from Belgium.
This southern South American species is a highly intelligent falcon in the genus Milvago which has only one other species (Yellow-headed Caracara). They are fairly common and we saw many in our short time on land in Ushuaia, Argentina before heading to Antarctica.
Not only is this the only member of the genus Cariama, it is one of only two members of the family Cariamidae with the other being Black-legged Seriema. They are pretty huge birds standing at close to three feet high. We had them just walking around our Pousada in the southern Pantanal in Brazil. They were wild birds but they are encouraged in farms because they help keep predators away from poultry.
This is one of 15 species in the genus Colaptes which consists of seven live flickers, one extinct flicker (Bermuda Flicker) and 7 woodpeckers. Although it looks totally different, its habits are similar to our Northern Flicker in that it makes most of its living terrestrially. Its range is fairly large across much of southeastern South America. We had ours in the Pantanal.
Crimson-mantled Woodpecker is a relatively large pecker with amazing crimson coloring all over its head and back which is relatively unusual in peckers who usually only have red coloring on the head. It is restricted to higher elevation forests in the Andes of South America. We had several at the Reserva Ecologica Rio Blanco.
This striking woodpecker in the Genus Celeus is found in a relatively large area smack dab in the middle of South America including much of the Pantanal in Brazil which is where I saw this one.
This large woodpecker has a huge range across most of northern South America and also in Panama and Trinidad. It is in the same genus as the now extinct and legendary Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I had mine in the Reserva Gairama near Santa Marta in Colombia.
This is another small woodpecker in the Veniliornis genus. We had this one in Tatama National Park in the western cordillera of Colombia. It has a relatively large distribution in the Andes mountains but mostly north to south and not east to west.
Its true this is a small woodpecker, but its family mates include Piculets which are even smaller. It has a huge range across most of South America, including Brazil which is where I saw several of them. Its genus Veniliornis includes 14 species of small woodpeckers ranging across Central and South America of which I have only seen the Little WP and the Yellow-vented WP. This one was in the Pantanal area.
This denizen of the pine forests of the Western US and Canada had been on my bucket list for a long time and I was finally able to meet it just outside our hotel near Yosemite National Park in California. Unfortunately it was not terribly cooperative for photos, but it was still a special moment to me.
This large WP is a wide ranging pecker across most of Eurasia and some of far northern Africa. They are fairly common and its weird that it took me so long to photograph one in the UK. Perhaps this is mostly because I usually only visit city parks in Europe. This one was in the famous Hyde Park in London.
I had initially posted this gem as a Glittering-throated Emerald but was pleased to later find out it was an "armchair lifer" when an eBird reviewer corrected it to Versicolored Emerald. The Versicolored has a slightly decurved bill whereas the Glittering-throated is straighter among several other more subtle differences. Both species were seen in the Pantanal in a gallery forest habitat.
This is the second of the two Picoides woodpeckers found in North America with the American Three-toed Woodpecker being the other. Both species can be found across the boreal forests of Canada, the northeastern US and also in some areas of the western United States as well as some of the Great Lakes. In the areas where they overlap, the Black-backed is probably the more aggressive of the two and will usually force their other three-toed brethren out. Both species specialize in eating boring beetles that usually infect conifers that have been impacted by fires or floods. I saw this one at high elevation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
This interesting pecker sits in the genus Picoides which includes the Eurasian Three-toed WP and the Black-backed WP. It can be found in conifer forests that have been degraded by beetle infestations frequently after a fire or flood, mostly in far northern North America but it also strays down into the rockies of the western United States. I had been mostly skunked in my efforts to find them until we found a nice burned out tract of conifers in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado where I saw this one. As the name implies, it has three toes unlike most WPs which have four.
This super common species is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). We saw tons of them in and around the resort we stayed at in Encuentro on the north coast. The trip was mostly a surf trip but I was able to rack up a bunch of endemics without going too far.
Although this species of pecker can be found in multiple South American countries, we were super chuffed to see it on our Pantanal trip because it has a very limited range within Brazil. It is one of the 23 Melanerpes woodpeckers.
This pecker is one of the 23 species in the genus Melanerpes and is said to be similar in behavior and structure to our Red-headed Woodpecker. However, it clearly looks different in color scheme and pattern. I obtained this poor picture back in 2014 when I first seriously started birding. The main purpose of the trip was surfing so most of the birds I bagged during this trip were in the Rincon area near our rental property. It is endemic to Puerto Rico which you can probably gather from the name. Like many other woodpeckers, they are very important to other birds because the hollows they drill can be used as nesting cavities for many other species.
This gregarious and huge woodpecker is a ton of fun to watch because they do typical woodpecker things (like pecking wood) but also will hawk insects from mid-air like a flycatcher does. They are loud and will perch out in the open unlike many other peckers. They have a huge range throughout the western United States including pine forests but also they enjoy some palm habitats in Arizona and other desert states. My first three photos are from Colorado in 2021 but the last is from Arizona in 2014.
