Field Trip to Banos

Chinese  Goose

I went to a serpitariam in Baños (look on a map to find it) and most of it was birds. Some of my favorites were the pheasants. But I had to choose just two to blog about. Here they are.

          

Lady Amherst Pheasant

First up is the lady Amherst pheasant. It’s endemic to southern china and northern Burma. They live in forest areas and bamboo thickets. They are thought to be uncommon but are not endangered.

It depends on the climate but normally May is when they breed. They usually have 6-12 eggs. It takes 23-24 days to incubate the eggs. They can breed with Golden Pheasants in captivity. They have no subspecies so you won’t get mixed up, and the golden pheasant is smaller and has very different plumage. They are very docile and can be kept with doves, small hook bills, and finches.

Silver Pheasant

      The next up is the silver pheasant. It lives in southwestern china, eastern  Burma, southern Vietnam, southwestern Thailand, northern Laos and the island of Hainan (common isn’t it?).

They live in grasslands, bamboo, evergreen and evergreen forests. I don’t know what their breeding season is but I know it’s the earliest. They lay 6-15 eggs. It takes 26-27 days to incubate the eggs. There are 15 subspecies so I don’t know what kind it was.

 Many pheasants live on the earth but I only did two of all the birds in the world. Like you they are special in their own way. I hope you liked them.             

5 Species of Tanagers In Shell

The 5 species of tanagers in Shell

                Of all the birds that live in Shell, there are 5 species of tanagers (in Spanish its tangara ). They are very frequent.

The  first tanager is the Blue-and-gray tanager. This bird has different plumages  in the west than in the east. In the west they are light gray with blue wings. But in the east they have white patches on their wings. They travel in flocks.

          The second tanager is the Palm  tanager. These  birds are greenish-gray, and half of their wings are black and the other is white. Its head is yellow green and its tail is black. These birds are very social.

          The next one is the Thick -Billed Euphonia. I know what you’re thinking, this isn’t a tanager but there are a lot of names under the tanagers. The male and female are very different. The male has a yellow belly and a blue back. A streak of blue goes through its eye and it has a yellow cap. The female is greenish gray with dark gray wings. They usually follow with other thick billed euphonia.

          The next up is the Silver]  beaked tanager is a very loud bird. The male is dark brown with a white blotch on its lower side of its beak. The female is a reddish brown color without the white splotch. These birds travel in large groups.

          And last but certainly not least, the Blue  necked tanager. It has a blue head with a black body (don’t ask me why it’s called blue necked), and dark blue lower belly. Its wings are yellow. It travels in small groups or flocks.

          There are many more tanagers in Ecuador but I only see five where I live. I have seen other birds before. Tanagers are very special.

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We had a request yesterday from someone to use the Katydid picture. If you are that person, please email Sebastiao's mom (tmartin@hcjb.org.ec) so we can get the details on your paper. You are free to use the photos, just please give us credit.

Now Thats a Seed Pod

This is a gigantic seed pod that I found left on a sidewalk. It is enormously huge! This was from a tree, but we do not know what or where it came from. I got scraped on the nose on the front porch of another house, but my nose is fine now!

Bats

This is a picture of a fruit bat. The way you can tell between a vampire bat and a fruit bat is that vampire bats are very freaky and fruit bats are very cute. Fruit bats are also completely black and vampire bats are kind of tan. We found this next to our house one afternoon. Something cool- it has 5 fingers just like humans. When my mom started taking pictures of this bat, it started crawling. I wasn't really scared, but my mom was!


Field Notes: For an very interesting article on Bats in the Ecuadorian rain forest read HERE

Catepillars

This is a picture of clear-winged butterfly caterpillars. Sometimes the butterflies are yellow. Some of these are caterpillars that have just hatched. The little bits that are in my hand are poop from the caterpillars. I found them in the garden at a neighbors house.
Field Notes:
For More information on Clear- winged butterflies look here.

We have not been able to positivly identify this caterpillar as that of the clear-winged butterfly. The boys around here have named it as such. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

Metallic Bug

This is another kind of metallic bug. It is green and if you look very close you can see some yellow shiny sparkling on it. This is a very small bug. This is a kind of beetle and it can fly. When it walks on you it feels very weird.