PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

Recent entries july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04 the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03 Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01 lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30 wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24 Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more. By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets. A bibliography of my published books and stories. Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List. HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.

part 8 of the great bolivian parrot tour: riding around the pantanal where i find more hyacinth macaw and also get a ferruginous pygmy-owl serenade 2011-05-02 - 8:26 a.m. all photos � 2011 by elaine radford hyacinth macaw feeding, you can see the green palm nuts they use in the picture Monday, April 18, 2011, San Matias Reserve, Bolivia You have reached Part 8 of the incredible Bolivian parrot tour. To start at the beginning, you may want to follow these links: Part #1: Peach-Front Conure Joins the Bird List Part #2: Blockades Can't Block Us Part #3: I Am the Seed-Eater King Part #4: Blue-Throated Macaw with photos, Can Your Bird List Do That? Part #5: You Didn't Expect Sand-Dunes in Bolivia, Didja Part #6: The One Where I Lease a Cessna and Find the Hyacinth Macaw Part #7: Hyacinth Macaws Get Naughty riding along in the pantanal, me and my passive-aggressive horsie Yesterday was, I suppose, the trial run to see if the tourist freaked out on the horse. Today, since I hadn't tumbled on my rear end or broken my neck, we all agreed that it was safe to tackle a journey of two or three hours each way to visit another ranch that was being visited by the Hyacinth Macaws. I thought the cowboys placed my stirrups a little too high up, but I guess I figured out why, when I saw how deep the water was. I was the only person who didn't end the day with soaking wet shoes. I don't think we got any life birds today, but we got some good birds for the trip list, including those old time favorites Pearl Kite and Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we got to these fine raptors or to the other Hyacinth Macaw couple, we rode on horseback for a long way through the wetlands, passing Jabiru on and off the nest, Plumbeous Ibis mostly on their nests, Roseate Spoonbills here and there, a couple of flocks of Green-Cheeked Parakeets with their startling maroon tails, and more. The Pearl Kite allowed us to get some nice views, but the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl actually sneaked up on us. Well, he didn't do the "sneaking in" part too sneakily. S. played a recording very briefly, to an immediate response. The little Owl flew up and began to sing. Despite keeping himself surprisingly well hidden in the foliage -- his intent was to be heard, not to be seen -- every scrap of feathers in the forest immediately stood up and took note. You haven't seen hilarious until you've seen a gathering of Masked Gnatcatchers (exactly as big as they sound), random small sparrows, and at least four Gilded Hummingbirds gather around to mob a Pygmy-Owl. He simply ignored them as a pesky cloud of mosquitoes and continued to sing. whooo, me? come on, bunky, do you believe everything you hear from a masked gnatchatcher? By the way, I did not consider my Kodak Easy Share -- about the same as a cell phone camera and obsoleted because all America has a cell phone camera now -- to be a digiscope camera, but PG used it to get a decent shot of the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, and, after that, S. and I had to try it on everything. It didn't always work, but it's how we got all of the Hyacinth Macaw photos and how I got my best Collared Macaw photo for this trip. The Peach-Fronts were cooperative enough to let me snag their photos with the big camera. Speaking of Peach-Fronts, as I examined my last pair, PG warned me to enjoy them now, because they didn't occur in the Andean Dry Valleys, which would be my next destination. I mentioned how charmed I was by the way they went two by two, and he told me this little story that I call the Parable of the Peachfronts: They mate for life, and scientists used to be believe that they were faithful, or that the males were the ones who might step out on the side, but now we know from DNA studies that it works the other way. They are mated, and the first two eggs are usually from her mate, but at some point the female often slips out and gets the third egg fertilized by an outsider. Just in case her mate is a dud, I guess. I'm sure that this is a deep parable with many layers of meaning, but I'll take a simple moral from the story: Peachfront Say, Always Have a Back-Up Plan. After some wandering around, we actually found a lone Hyacinth Macaw merrily chewing his (her?) way through the palm tree forest. Now I had to wonder if I saw any normally two-by-two bird without her mate. But it wasn't long before she got the squawk and, with an answering cry, she flew to join her mate. Or maybe she flew to join her backdoor man. Or maybe Hyacinth Macaws don't operate under the same rules of morality as the naughty Peach-Fronts. Hmmm. and don't forget the golden-collared macaw... The trip out took 3 hours but it was shorter going back because, I think, horsies are lazy beasts, and they're reluctant to go out to work but eager to return. I should mention somewhere that we got a couple of mammals today, the Brown Agouti (common, I think) and the Amazon Red Squirrel (rare). I got the Agouti from horseback and the Squirrel not long after we descended from our horses at the high ground of the other ranch. Back at our ranch, after nightfall, I also tried to photograph the gargantuan Cane Toad next to my flip-flop -- the critter is as big as my foot, if not quite as long -- but it wasn't particularly excited to be in the same photo as a day-glo green flip-flip so what do you do? As we neared the ranch, the leader turned to me, grinned, and gestured, and I grinned and gave the thumbs-up, for we'd both just spotted the Cessna back on the airstrip. "What have you got?" called Parrot Guy, who was somewhat behind on his balky horse. "The big bird that brings beer," I said. "Don't get your hopes up," he said darkly. However, although we all tried to manage our expectations, we were pleased to discover that the boss had, indeed, authorized a few cans of beer to make their way back to the premises. Yay. cliff parakeet, close relative to monks but I don't know if cliffs have ever been kept as pets While we still had some daylight left, S. and I puttered around the grounds. We enjoyed the two young Rufescent Tiger-Herons, and their parent, who were hanging out on the fence, but we were truly focused on observing a pair of lovely Hyacinth Macaws just one last time. To our delight, right before they left for the night, they came over and flew around us in a circle. I'm sure they were just curious, because we'd been here a few days now, and we weren't their usual ranch-hands, but it was so charming. "Mary, they have come to tell you good-bye!" S. exclaimed, and it really did seem that way. An amazing experience. The List: Blue-Throated Piping-Guan Black-Bellied Whistling-Duck Rufescent Tiger-Heron Black-Crowned Night-Heron Striated Heron Cocoi Heron Great Egret Whistling Heron Snowy Egret Bare-Faced Ibis Plumbeous Ibis Buff-Necked Ibis Roseate Spoonbill Jabiru Wood Stork Limpkin Turkey Vulture Black Vulture Pearl Kite Snail Kite Savanna Hawk Southern Caracara Wattled Jacana Southern Lapwing Picazuro Pigeon Ruddy Ground-Dove Picui Ground-DOve Scaled Ground-Dove Hyacinth Macaw Golden-Collared Macaw Peach-Fronted Parakeet Green-Cheeked Parakeet Monk Parakeet Yellow Chevroned Parakeet Scaly-Headed Parrot Blue-Fronted Parrot Smooth-Billed Ani Guira Cuckoo Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl Gilded Hummingbird Green Kingfisher Toco Toucan White Woodpecker Yellow-Tufted WOodpecker White-Fronted Woodpecker Little Woodpecker Campo Flicker Pale-Crested Woodpecker Buff-Throated Woodcreeper Narrow-Billed Woodcreeper Red-BIlled Scythebill Rufous Hornero Rufous Cacholote Great Antshrike Vermilion Flycatcher Cattle Tyrant Great Kiskadee Boat-Billed Flycatcher Tropical Kingbird Purplish Jay Thrushlike Wren Masked Gnatcatcher Chalk-Browed Mockingbird Grassland Yellow-Finch Red-Crested Cardinal Yellow-Billed Cardinal Grayish Saltator Crested Oropendula Troupial Epaulet Oriole Chopi Blackbird Bay-Winged Cowbird Shiny Cowbird You have just read part 8 of my amazing parrot tour. In Part 9, I'll depart the Bolivian Pantanal, land of the Hyacinth Macaws, for the Andean dry valleys, home of the endangered Red-Fronted Macaw. this particular hyacinth was the one who proved most tolerant of our digiscoping experiment, while the bird's mate always managed to be around the tree trunks and behind the barn when we got a halfway decent photo back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford