Today we have the fifth set (8 to come) of photographs taken by reader Robert Lang on a visit to Brazil’s Pantanal. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
The Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland area; here’s a map from Wikipedia:
Readers’ Wildlife Photos: The Pantanal, Part V: Birds
Continuing our mid-2025 journey to the Pantanal in Brazil, by far the largest category of observation and photography was birds: we saw over 100 different species of birds (and this was not even a birding-specific trip, though the outfitter also organizes those for the truly hard core). Here we continue working our way through the alphabetarium of common names.
Black vulture (Coragyps atratus), perched:
Black vulture, flying:
Two blue-crowned parakeets (Thectocercus acuticaudatus):
Same two, a bit later. (Jiminy, y’all, get a room!):
Brazilian teal (Amazonetta brasiliensis), one showing us some teal:
Buff-necked ibis (Theristicus caudatus):
Burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia) with adorable fluffball chicks:
And one posing on a post:
A campo flicker (Colaptes campestris):
Capped heron (Pilherodius pileatus). We often saw herons hanging out with the mobs of caimans in the shrinking watering holes. Never saw one of the latter try to take a bird, though. (Never saw a bird try to take a caiman, either, though they do eat the babies if they can find them):
More birds to come.
Such a precious, magnificent feature with this particular series here – thanks so much for sharing, I did not know or hear anything about Pantanal until now – the Earth is so vast, so much out there … very thought-provoking….
Very nice! Thanks for the great pictures.
Incredible! Great photos.
Thank you so much!
Cool pictures. Love the Burrowing Owls and the Black Vulture.
Beautiful portraits all. I especially love the Burrowing Owl, the Campo Flicker, and the Capped Heron.
The parakeets are lovely. Great series.
Superb. Thanks!
Strangely several of these birds (such as the ibis and the owl) also live in Ecuador, but in cold high-elevation or even alpine grasslands. They must not be very fussy about temperature.