Today we have Part VI of Robert Lang’s recent trip to Brazil’s Pantanal region (wetlands). Robert’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Readers’ Wildlife Photos: The Pantanal, Part VI: 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.
Crested caracaras, adult and juvenile (Caracara plancus):
A caracara eating another bird (too far gone for me to identify, but perhaps our birding experts recognize it):
This one shows an onlooker waiting its turn. The facial color can change, depending on the bird’s mood (according to Wikipedia) and also reflects the dominance hierarchy, so here, yellow = boss, red = underling:
A chaco chachalaca (Ortalis canicollis). Say that five times fast. Its onomatopoeic name reflects its call—it’s one of the chattiest birds to be heard in the Pantanal:
Chalk-browed mockingbird (Mimus saturninus):
Chestnut-eared aracari (Pteroglossus castanotis). I love the wild coloration on this toucan relative:
Cocoi heron (Ardea cocoi) with a fish (unknown species). They hunt by spearing their prey, then can spend a fair amount of time and effort flipping and playing with the foot so that they can swallow it head-first and not get the heartburn of spine-in-the-gullet:
A cocoi heron flying:
Crane hawk (Geranospiza caerulescens):
Crested oropendola (Psarocolius decumanus). These are weaver birds, building elaborate hanging nests, one of which you can see immediately behind the bird:
More birds to come.
Very good! That aracari has a wicked hook on its beak.
What a treat – figuratively and literally, for the birds anyhow .. I mean, most of them… I mean, of course, not the fish.
And the eye of the aracari just ties her all together – massive personality!
Quite the variety of birds. Very nice!
Just beautiful! Thanks!
I think the big black dead bird the caracaras are eating is a Piping-guan, probably the White-throated Piping-guan. The black, with white only in the wings, and the one foot suggest that. If only we could see its head.
Thanks for the great pics. I especially love the Crane Hawk and the Chalk-browed Mockingbird, both of which must be very difficult to photograph well.
Chest nut aracari (Pteroglossus castanotis) has got it all going on, what a sight! Thanks.
Great photos. Thanks!
Just an interesting language tidbit. The word aracari comes from the Brazilian native (Tupi-Guarani) language and is araçari. The final I gets the emphasis, so the word is pronounced arasaree (ah rah sa ree) and not ara kary.