Here’s a final Puffbird to wrap up this family of birds. It may seem like WC has been writing about Puffbirds for months, but in reality WC has photographed only a tiny fraction of the 36 members of this family. So many birds; so little time. The Barred Puffbird has a pretty restricted range, from eastern Panama to Ecuador. It’s apparently most common in Columbia, where WC has never been. And despite being present in a chunk of Ecuador, WC has never seen it there, despite four birding trips to that excellent country. It’s rare, as well as difficult to…

The Collared Puffbird is found in Amazonia, the Amazon River basin, including the lower eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador and Peru. WC was lucky enough to see and photograph – admittedly poorly – the species in Peru, where it is comparatively rare. In fact, eBird reports less than 300 sightings for Peru. The bright orange bill, cinnamon head and distinct black collar makes this a very easy bird to identify in the field. Its call, given generally before dawn, is a classic jungle sound, a loud: “awww awwAWW-chaw awwAWW-chaw awwAWW-chaw”, repeated up to six times. This species…

It’s standard fare for Republicans to come out with glossy election-season “scare mailers” showing Democratic candidates in red monochrome, juxtaposed next to distorted pictures of [Obama/Pelosi/Schumer/AOC] or whomever is the boogeyman du jour. This usually happens 2 or 3 weeks before Election Day, and it reminds us that Republicans don’t really run FOR anything, they just like to scare their base into voting against something – and that something usually ends in “ism” and doesn’t exist. But this year is different. Congressman Don Young, facing his toughest opponent in decades (he’s been around since 1973), is starting the smears in…

Remember WC cautioned readers that some of the Puffbird photos were pretty sketchy. Here’s another. The White-eared Puffbird is found from eastern Peru and central Brazil south to Paraguay and northeastern Argentina. It prefers the middle levels of jungle forest and the gallery forests of the lowlands. Like other Puffbirds, it still-hunts from mid-level perches in trees and shrubs, and will take a wide range of prey, from insects to reptiles to crabs. White-eared Puffbirds have one of the most southerly distributions of any species of puffbird; there is some evidence that the southernmost populations of White-eared Puffbird are migratory, moving north in the austral…

If there are puffbirds called “Monklets” you should have known there would be puffbirds called “Nunlets.” In fact, there is a whole genus of them, Nonnula, in which there are at least six species. The Gray-cheeked Nunlet is the only one of the six which WC has been able to photograph to date. It’s a pretty easy species to recognize: the reddish eye ring, cinnamon breast and brownish cap are distinctive. Ironically, the Gray-cheeked Nunlet is possibly the rarest of the six. This is a lowland species found in western Panama and eastern Columbia. Like all of the puffbirds, it’s an…

GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH It’s been a very bad week for faux “family values” Christians in positions of power this week.   First, Jerry Falwell Jr. was outed by the pool boy for an ongoing sexual dalliance with him and his wife that spanned seven years and began when he was barely out of his teens. This revelation prompted Falwell to 1) throw his wife under the bus and disavow his own involvement (new developments on that today) and 2) step down, giving way to his temporary (or maybe not-so-temporary) replacement, Alaska’s own Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist…

WC has a few more photos of Puffbirds, but none of them are going to win any prizes for quality. Still, the birds are interesting enough that WC will share the mediocre documentation photos, with apologies for the sub-standard quality. Here’s a White-necked Puffbird, a species found from southern Mexico to Peru and much of Brazil. It’s one of the largest of the Puffbirds, and likely has the largest bill. It’s fairly uncommon across its entire range. Unlike its cousins you’ve met so far, this is generally a canopy bird, harder to find and photograph. This photograph is taken against the…

Another of the puffbird species that WC has been able to photograph, this one in 2010. Panama is more or less in the middle of this species’ range, which extends from Mexico to Ecuador, generally in humid evergreen forests and shady forest edges, usually pretty low in the understory. This is an ambush predator. It perches motionless on branches, where it can be remarkably hard to see, and then sallies out to capture insects, spiders, frogs or lizards, then returning to its perch to beat the prey to death on the branch before eating it. Unusually among puffbirds, it is…