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I'm still hunting the Oahu Amakihi for that "best shot". Finally this morning got photo of the female. The biggest news is that I found a nest - they are building it right now (almost done as far as I can see it - extremely well camouflaged!). Can't wait for the fledglings!

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ISv, bhf3737, Maximilian and Jack,

Beautiful shots. Well done, guys.
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Today should have been our first outing in Peru and Amazon, having planned to arrive at Lima last night. This is the first of two trips to South America we are missing this year. So what I have decided to do is to revisit our trip to the Galapagos and Ecuadorian Amazon by posting each day. Most of the shots we took were never posted.
Day 1. We arrived in Guayaquil. And what do you see there? Quite a bit, especially herons, starting for us with a Pre-Columbian, a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron and a Green Heron.

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We're supposedly free, living in a democracy with individual rights. Within the constraints of the law and my own conscience I do as I please and afford others the same right. ;) For general public consumption, I think disclosure is the key. A certain certain person was shooting wolves in a glorified zoo and accepting honours as if they were in the wild and concealing the truth when questioned. That I didn't find so very palatable.

Jack


Me either. To me that's a huge difference, but I agree with you.
 
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Today should have been our first outing in Peru and Amazon, having planned to arrive at Lima last night. This is the first of two trips to South America we are missing this year. So what I have decided to do is to revisit our trip to the Galapagos and Ecuadorian Amazon by posting each day. Most of the shots we took were never posted.
Day 1. We arrived in Guayaquil. And what do you see there? Quite a bit, especially herons, starting for us with a Pre-Columbian, a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron and a Green Heron.

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Nice shots Alan! Me thinks the first one was easiest;)
 
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Looking at the last pages of the treat: There was an Eurasian Coot (Maximilian) and now American Coot (this page, bhf3737).
Here are the two forms of the Hawaiian Coot. For the white shielded form look at the reach of the feathers at the base of the bill (to separate from the Eurasian). For the red shielded look for the size of the red spot and the overall size/form of the shield. BTW these two birds on my photos are family (the red-shielded is the female). The ratio white -shielded to red-shielded birds of this species is probably (no matter of the sex) 95:5.
Another interesting fact: when feeding the chick with an insect (or larva?) mom is serving directly into the bill. When it's an algae she is always holding the opposite part of the treat!
I didn't manipulate the colors of the last shot of the Coot: if you underexpose to put the highlights "in normal" and then lift the shades in PP you will get this result (but depend on the light/light angle you may get much more interesting results - especially if the object is mostly in shade with some low angle light just touching the water!!! See the last, much older shot!)


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