FEATURED PHOTO Chestnut-breasted Coronet Boissonneaua matthewsii Owlet Lodge, Abra Patricia, San Martín department, Peru. A common hummer of Andean east slope cloudforest. Like all other coronets, they have a habit of holding their wings open for about a half a second after landing on a perch. After many attempts, I finally got a pose that I liked against the blurred mountains in the distance. Photographed with a Canon 7D camera and a Canon 100-400mm f4.5-f5.6 IS lens (no flash) on 2 March 2012. You can find previous featured photos here. Go to the Neotropical birds photo gallery Go to photo galleries from countries outside of the Neotropics Go to complete species index Go to recently-added photos Latest updates and blog: 28 April: This will be my last update for a couple of weeks, but I have been churning though the backlog of photos, adding over 30 in the last two days. It struck me this week that I have working on this site for over five years now, and have uploaded photos of more than 2000 species; I celebrated that milestone by buying a brand new lens! I won't reveal yet what it is, but it's the most expensive thing I have ever bought that did not have four wheels, and hopefully will help take my obsession to another level. It will be a week or so before it arrives, but I'll be dying to take it for a spin! After five years and over 2500 photos, I look back through the antpitta.com and am frequently shocked at how bad some of the photos were that I uploaded in the beginning. Some of them can be improved with better image processing, and some of them may be better off removed. Back then, some of these birds had no photos available online at all, which is one reason why I uploaded them, but there's no doubt that my standards (and hopefully skill) have vastly improved over time. I have been slowly working to replace, reprocess, or remove these old shots, but some of them will remain for a while as I only have limited time to work on the site. An Inca Wren from southern Peru A pair of Snowy-throated Kingbirds lift their wings and raise their yellow crown patches duriing a courtship display 25 April: Many new updates the last few days, mainly from Peru and Argentina. There are some great new finch shots as well as some cormorants and gulls from a surprisingly good boat trip off the coast of Pucusana in Peru. I've highlighted some of my favorites below, and check the full list here here. Citron-headed Yellow-Finch, a locally common species in the high mountains of Bolivia and northern Argentina This Rusty-browed Warbling-Finch in northern Argentina was bringing food to an unseen nest It's not often I feature a gull here, but I especially liked this Gray-hooded Gull from northwestern Peru 22 April: Plenty more today, highlighted by this Three-banded Warbler, one of my favorite shots so far this year. Three-banded Warbler from NW Peru 21 April: A big update today with new photos from Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador. A few of my favorites are below, or see the full list here. A beautiful Tawny-throated Dotterel in some grassy Patagonian steppe near Trelew in Argentina A female Amethyst-throated Sunangel in the mountains of southern Ecuador. Straneck's Tyrannulet was only recently accepted as a species even though ornithologists have been aware of it for a long time 15 April: Road trip! April is a slow month for me, so I took some time off and drove off into some remote corners of Ecuador, accompanied by my friend and fellow TB guide Andrew Spencer. I clocked about 3000 km and my poor car came back so covered with mud you could hardly tell the original color! First stop was some foothill forest near Lumbaquí, though we mostly got washed out there and missed a lot of the birds we were looking for. Did find Fiery-throated Fruiteater but it did not cooperate for photos. We drove south along the foothills of the eastern Andes, eventually reaching the small town of Paquisha on the edge of the Cordillera del Condor, a wonderfully remote and still largely pristine mountain range on the border with Peru. We birded various trails and roads based from Paquisha, and the first of several landslides added 10 km to one of our hikes. I finally founded a couple of long overdue lifers, Spectacled Prickletail and Roraiman Flycatcher, though only got a very poor photos of the prickletail. Photography on the narrow, dark, and muddy trails was a challenge with my current lens (an upgrade may be in my near future!), and this Brown-billed Scythebill may be the best I got there. Others interesting shots include Chestnut-bellied Thrush, Fulvous-breasted Flatbill, Long-tailed Tyrant, and Rufous-tailed Tyrant. One afternoon we hiked to the border and enjoyed a spectacular view of endless forest stretching as far as the eye could see. Leaving Paquisha, we drove southwest to the far southern part of Ecuador in the Marañon drainage. The road was being widened and was a total mess, with foot-deep mud in some places, and it looks like it will be eventually paved almost all the way to Peru, at the cost of a lot of roadside habitat. We spent the night in Zumba, a town that is lot nicer than I remember from my last visit almost nine years ago. We found lots of birds that can't be seen anywhere else in the country, like this Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch, a species only found in Ecuador for the first time about ten years ago. Leaving Zumba behind, we headed up into the remote and spectacular Cordillera de Lagunillas. The lower slopes are mostly deforested, though we lucked into a beautiful pair of Chestnut-crested Cotingas, with the best views I've ever had of this scarce species, and the first photos. As we continued upslope, the forest got better, but we were disappointed to find that the road was blocked by multiple landslides. We hiked 30 km in two days so that we could bird the beautiful forest and the edge of the páramo and were lucky to have great weather, but we never did make it to the highest elevations, and were forced to retrace our route back through Zumba instead of being able to go down the west slope and leave on a different road. It was still worth going and I will try to go back someday. There were some nice photo ops in the mountains, like the Black-headed Hemispingus below, as well as others like Mouse-colored Thistletail, Orange-banded Flycatcher, Rufous Wren, and others I have not yet uploaded. A highlight of the trip was seeing a territorial display between two pairs of Torrent Ducks. I had been lucky enough to see this display once in Argentina, and this time I decided to concentrate on videoing it instead of photographing it, getting some fantastic HD footage. I uploaded it to Youtube, but had to lower the quality as the video file was several GB in size. As usual, the full list of new uploads can be found here. I also uploaded a few more photos from Argentina just before leaving, including an entire gallery devoted to Magellanic Penguin. 31 March: The waterfowl gallery got a total overhaul today, with many new photos added and some reprocessed. I've also split the gallery into two parts since the single gallery was quite slow to load. The first gallery goes from whistling-ducks to Spectacled Duck, and the second gallery starts with dabbling ducks and goes through to ruddy-ducks. I've also been adding a few other photos over the last week, you can check the full list here. A male Rosy-billed Pochard, one of South America's most striking ducks. This is from a pond near the city of Trelew in Patagonian Argentina A pair of flightless White-headed Steamer-Ducks, endemic to coastal Argentina, rest on a rock just offshore 23 March: I've still got a big backlog of photos from an Argentina trip late last year, and today I created a special photo gallery for a single species, the Burrowing Parakeet, a beautiful fascinating parrot of southern South America. There were six photos that I wanted to use, but did not want to add them all to the main parrot gallery which was already getting quite large. I may start doing more of that in the future when I have multiple photos worth sharing. I also added a couple of photos of the distinctive form of Collared Inca known as "Gould's Inca", from southern Peru. SACC did not accept the split (Proposal 140) because of insufficient published evidence. "Gould's" Collared Inca from near Machu Picchu in Peru 19 March: Back from a three week Peru tour that visited a selection of sites in both northern and southern Peru including the deciduous forests and deserts of the Northwest, Abra Patricia, the upper parts of Manú NP, Machu Picchu, and the high mountains nearby. It was a fairly relaxed pace trip, and also the first time I had been to Peru in the rainy season. The deserts of the Northwest were a beautiful emerald green color like I had never seen before. We got a serious amount of rain at Abra Patricia that cost us quote a bit of field time, but we managed to dodge most of the rain in Manú, and Machu Picchu and Abra Malaga were absolutely gorgeous. My first two new photos come from Abra Malaga: two very scarce tit-tyrants. Unstreaked Tit-Tyrant is a very local Peruvian endemic found in high elevation bamboo patches, and Ash-breasted Tit-Tyrant is an endangered species restricted to Polylepis woodland in just a few sites from central Peru to western Bolivia. I have no major trips planned for a while so intend to spend more time adding and updating photos in the next few months. Unstreaked Tit-Tyrant from the north side of Abra Malaga in Peru The endangered Ash-breasted Tit-Tyrant in a Polylepis bush from Abra Malaga in Peru 25 February: One last update before heading off to Peru for three weeks. I've changed the "featured photo" to yet another hummer, a Black-backed Thornbill. It's not a terrific shot, but until recently there were no photos of a male in the wild, and it was species I had long been waiting to see. Other new shots include Blossomcrown, White-tailed Starfrontlet, Band-tailed Guan, the newly-split Sierra Nevada Brush-Finch, and a White-sided Flowerpiercer piercing a flower. 20 February: More photos from Colombia this morning, including some "record shots" of the very rare Sapphire-bellied Hummingbird. Or is it? Click the link and read about it. My favorites of today's bunch include the Blue-naped Chlorophonia below and a couple of other hummers, Buffy Hummingbird and Pale-bellied Hermit. The other new additions are: White-browed Spinetail, Olivaceous Flatbill, Chestnut-capped Piha, and Sooty Ant-Tanager. A distinctive subspecies of Blue-naped Chlorophonia from the Santa Marta Mountains in Colombia 18 February: A pretty big update today with material from my recent Colombia trip. Black-and-gold Tanager is my favorite of the bunch, but others include more Colombian endemics like Gold-ringed Tanager, Antioquia Bristle-Tyrant, and Apical Flycatcher as well as Purplish-mantled Tanager, Scrub Tanager, Magdalena Antbird, White-tailed Hillstar, Greenish Puffleg, Purple-bibbed Whitetip, Cinnamon Flycatcher, Black-billed Thrush, and Brown-bellied Swallow. Black-and-gold Tanager, a colorful Colombian endemic 14 February: I've added a couple of new antpitta photos today, the distintive alticola subspecies of Tawny Antpitta and a Slate-crowned Antpitta, a new species for the site. Also check out the shot below of a White-chinned Thistletail from the isolated population in eastern Colombia and western Venezuela. I think that there may be an unrecognized new taxon here - click the link for more on that. A distinctive form of White-chinned Thistletail from the eastern Andes of Colombia 13 February: I just returned from two tours in Colombia: a two week trip in the Andes of Central Colombia and a one week trip covering the far north includuding the Santa Marta Mountains and the deserts of the Guajira Peninsula. I've added a new species for the site with the very cool White-headed Wren, and a much better shot of the near-endemic Rufous-browed Conebill. White-headed Wren from the western Andes of Colombia Rufous-browed Conebill lives in páramo edge in the eastern Andes of Colombia, barely reaching Venezuela 15 January: Just a small update today, with the Rusty Flowerpiercer below, four photos of Brown Skua, and single photos of Santa Marta races of Cinnamon Flycatcher and Gray-breasted Wood-Wren. A nice profile shot of a male Rusty Flowerpiercer from Argentina Older posts Recently added photos: 28 April: Inca Wren from Peru. 28 April: Bar-winged Wood-Wren from Peru. 28 April: Chestnut-breasted Coronet from Peru. 28 April: Fawn-breasted Brilliant from Peru. 28 April: Green-and-White Hummingbird from Peru. 28 April: Marvelous Spatuletail from Peru. 28 April: Speckled Hummingbird from Peru. 28 April: Violet-fronted Brilliant from Peru. 28 April: Blue-mantled Thornbill from Peru. 28 April: Neblina Metaltail from Ecuador. 28 April: Andean Cock-of-the Rock from Peru. 28 April: Variable Hawk from Peru. 28 April: White-browed Conebill from Peru. 28 April: Tawny Tit-Spinetail from Peru. 28 April: White-browed Tit-Spinetail from Peru. 28 April: Yellow-breasted Antwren from Peru. 28 April: Dull-colored Grassquit from Peru. 28 April: Chestnut-throated Seedeater from Peru. 28 April: Yellow-browed Sparrow from Peru. 27 April: Snowy-throated Kingbird from Peru. 27 April: Sooty-crowned Flycatcher from Peru. 27 April: Baird's Flycatcher from Peru. 27 April: Short-tailed Field Tyrant from Peru. 27 April: Yellow-billed Tit-Tyrant from Argentina. 27 April: Andean Avocet from Argentina. 27 April: Black-necked Stilt from Peru. 27 April: Marañon Crescentchest from Peru. 27 April: Ruddy Turnstone from Peru. 27 April: Sanderling from Peru. 27 April: Snowy Egret from Peru. 27 April: Barn Swallow from Peru. 27 April: Black Vulture from Ecuador and Peru. 25 April: Citron-headed Yellow-Finch from Argentina. 25 April: Rusty-browed Warbling-Finch from Argentina. 25 April: White-winged Brush-Finch from Peru. 25 April: Cuzco Brush-Finch from Peru. 25 April: Parrot-billed Seedeater from Peru. 25 April: Peruvian Meadowlark from Peru. 25 April: Long-tailed Meadowlark from Argentina. 24 April: Red-legged Cormorant from Peru. 24 April: Guanay Cormorant from Peru. 24 April: Neotropic Cormorant from Argentina. 24 April: Gray-hooded Gull from Peru. 24 April: Belcher's Gull from Peru. 24 April: Franklin's Gull from Peru. 24 April: Brown-hooded Gull from Argentina. 24 April: Kelp Gull from Argentina and Peru. 24 April: Black-and-white Tanager from Peru. 24 April: Chapman's Antshrike from Peru. 24 April: Lined Antshrike from Ecuador. 24 April: Spot-winged Pigeon from Argentina. 22 April: Peruvian Pygmy-Owl from Peru. 22 April: Crested Caracara from Peru. 22 April: Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush from Colombia. 22 April: Streak-headed Woodcreeper from Peru. 22 April: Olive-backed Woodcreeper from Peru. 22 April: Three-banded Warbler from Peru. 22 April: Piura Chat-Tyrant from Peru. 22 April: Marcapata Spinetail from Peru. 22 April: Ash-browed Spinetail from Peru. 22 April: Creamy-breasted Canastero from Argentina. 22 April: Sharp-billed Canastero from Argentina. 22 April: Cordilleran Canastero from Argentina. 22 April: Puna Thistletail from Peru. 22 April: Puna Miner from Argentina. 22 April: Plain-breasted Earthcreeper from Peru. 22 April: Cream-winged Cinclodes from Argentina. 22 April: Henna-hooded Foliage-gleaner from Peru. 22 April: Rufous-necked Foliage-gleaner from Peru. 21 April: Variable Hawk from Argentina. 21 April: Swainson's Hawk from Argentina. 21 April: Least Seedsnipe from Argentina. 21 April: Correndera Pipit from Argentina. 21 April: Short-billled Pipit from Argentina. 21 April: Southern Giant Petrel from Argentina. 21 April: Band-tailed Earthcreeper from Argentina. 21 April: Scale-throated Earthcreeper from Argentina. 21 April: Wren-like Rushbird from Argentina. 21 April: Straneck's Tyrannulet from Argentina. 21 April: Rusty-backed Monjita from Argentina. 21 April: Spectacled Tyrant from Argentina. 21 April: Lesser Shrike-Tyrant from Argentina. 21 April: Lesser Rhea from Argentina. 21 April: Patagonian Mockingbird from Argentina. 21 April: Chalk-browed Mockingbird from Argentina. 21 April: Mourning Sierra-Finch from Argentina. 21 April: Carbonated Sierra-Finch from Argentina. 21 April: Ash-breasted Sierra-Finch from Argentina. 21 April: Great Grebe from Argentina. 21 April: Tawny-throated Dotterel from Argentina. 21 April: Andean Motmot from Colombia. 21 April: Vermilion Cardinal from Colombia. 21 April: Santa Marta Bush-Tyrant from Colombia. 21 April: Tocuyo Sparrow from Colombia. 21 April: Amethyst-throated Sunangel from Ecuador. 21 April: Yellow-breasted Brush-Finch from Ecuador. 15 April: Brown-billed Scythebill from Ecuador. 15 April: Chestnut-bellied Thrush from Ecuador. 15 April: Fulvous-breasted Flatbill from Ecuador. 15 April: Long-tailed Tyrant from Ecuador. 15 April: Rufous-tailed Tyrant from Ecuador. 15 April: Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch from Ecuador. 15 April: Chestnut-crested Cotinga from Ecuador. 15 April: Black-headed Hemispingus from Ecuador. 15 April: Mouse-colored Thistletail from Ecuador. 15 April: Orange-banded Flycatcher from Ecuador. 15 April: Rufous Wren from Ecuador. 15 April: Torrent Duck from Ecuador. 15 April: Black-chested Fruiteater from Ecuador. 15 April: Blue-and-white Swallow from Ecuador. 15 April: Blue-browed Tanager from Ecuador. 15 April: Pale-edged Flycatcher from Ecuador. 15 April: Spectacled Prickletail from Ecuador. 15 April: Thrush-like Wren from Ecuador. 2 April: Buff-breasted Earthcreeper from Argentina. 2 April: American Kestrel from Argentina. 2 April: Common Diuca-Finch from Argentina. 1 April: Humboldt Penguin from Peru. 1 April: Magellanic Penguin from Argentina. 1 April: White-tipped Plantcutter from Argentina. 1 April: Gray-hooded Parakeet from Argentina. 1 April: Silvery Grebe from Argentina. 1 April: White-tufted Grebe from Argentina. 1 April: Red-gartered Coot from Argentina. 1 April: White-winged Coot from Argentina. 1 April: Red-fronted Coot from Argentina. 1 April: Slate-colored Coot from Argentina.

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