Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

Observing a male Painted Bunting has been a life long birding dream of mine. They are the most colorful bird in North America and I've been staring at them in bird books since grade school.

Orange-Breasted Sunbird

The orange-breasted sunbird is a small passerine sunbird endemic to South Africa, and is found in shrubland or heathland vegetations called fynbos. Orange-breasted sunbird males average 17 cm long and females 13 cm long. The male's head, throat, and mantle are bright metallic green and the rest of the upper parts are olive green. The upper breast is metallic violet and the rest of the under-side is shades of orange. The female is olive-green on the top-side and olive-yellow on the under-side. These birds have long down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues. Both of these are adaptations for nectar feeding, the orange-breasted sunbird's primary food source. However, the bird also feeds on insects.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

The red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) is a medium-sized woodpecker of the Picidae family. It breeds in southern Canada and the northeastern United States, ranging as far south as Florida and as far west as Texas. Its common name is somewhat misleading, as the most prominent red part of its plumage is on the head; the red-headed woodpecker, however, is another species that is a rather close relative but looks quite different. It was first described in Linnaeus' Systema Naturae, as Picus carolinus. The type locality is given simply as "America septentrionalis" (North America)

Crimson Breasted Shrike

The crimson-breasted shrike (Laniarius atrococcineus) or the crimson-breasted gonolek, ('gonolek' - supposedly imitative of its call),is a southern African bird. The species is closely related to two other bushshrikes, the yellow-crowned gonolek (Laniarius barbarus) and the black-headed gonolek (Laniarius erythrogaster) of East Africa.

Broadbill

The broadbills are a clade of small passerine birds, Eurylaimidae. The Smithornis and Pseudocalyptomena species occur in sub-Saharan Africa; the rest extend from the eastern Himalayas to Indonesia and the Philippines.

Regent Bower Bird

The regent bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus) is a medium-sized, up to 25 cm long, sexually dimorphic bowerbird. The male bird is black with a golden orange-yellow crown, mantle and black-tipped wing feathers. It has yellow bill, black feet and yellow iris. The female is a brown bird with whitish or fawn markings, grey bill, black feet and crown.

Flame Robin

The flame robin is a small passerine bird native to Australia. It is a moderately common resident of the coolest parts of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Like the other two red-breasted Petroica robins—the scarlet robin and the red-capped robin—it is often simply called the robin redbreast. Like many brightly coloured robins of the Petroicidae, it is sexually dimorphic. Measuring 12–14 cm long, the flame robin has dark brown eyes and a small thin black bill. The male has a brilliant orange-red chest and throat, and a white patch on the forehead above the bill. Its upper parts are iron-grey with white bars, and its tail black with white tips. The female is a nondescript grey-brown. Its song has been described as the most musical of its genus.

Hawk Headed Parrot

Hawk-heads have been described as endearing, mischievous, adventuresome, and fearless. This bird is intelligent and its personality has many facets. A wonderfully entertaining bird, the Hawk-Headed parrot will forever amuse you with new antics; a clown in its play. Some behaviors and movements are so bizarre it is mesmerizing.

Diamond Firetail

The diamond firetail is a species of estrildid finch that is endemic to Australia. The diamond firetail is a finch that has a fiery red bill, eyes, and rump. Just below the throat, it has a thick black band that extends horizontally until it reaches the lower part of the wings which are also black with white spots. There is also a black eye band that starts at the beak and ends right at the eye. The bird's tail is also black. The rest of the wings are a slightly tan, light brown colour. Its head and back is light grey and its belly and chin are white. The colour of the egg is also white. This bird is considered one of the smallest of the finches
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Scientific name: Stagonopleura guttata
Rank: Species
Higher classification: Stagonopleura

Turquoise-browed Motmot (Eumomota superciliosa)

A colourful, medium-sized bird of the motmot family, Momotidae. It inhabits Central America from south-east Mexico (mostly the Yucatán Peninsula), to Costa Rica, where it is common and not considered threatened. It lives in fairly open habitats such as forest edge, gallery forest and scrubland. It is more conspicuous than other motmots, often perching in the open on wires and fences. From these perches it scans for prey, such as insects and small reptiles. White eggs (3–6) are laid in a long tunnel nest in an earth bank or sometimes in a quarry or fresh-water well. Its name originates from the turquoise color of its brow.

Smooth-Billed Ani

I finally found this bird, the Smooth-billed Ani at ARM-Lox where I spent a few unsuccessful days searching. It was very hot and humid and I couldn't stay for too long. When we lived in Honduras, there were Anis all over the place but then I wasn't into wildlife photography yet.

Photo Credit: Jake Paredes  

Striped Manakin

The striped manakin is a small South American species of bird in the Pipridae family. Its distribution is highly disjunct: The nominate subspecies is found in Atlantic Forest in eastern Brazil, while ... the striolatus group is found in forests in western Brazil, northeastern Peru, eastern Ecuador, Colombia, and western and southern Venezuela. Males of the former group have redder underparts than males of the latter, and the two are sometimes treated as separate species, the eastern striped manakin (M. regulus) and the western striped manakin (M. striolatus). In both, the males have a bright red crown, which the female lack.

Like many other manakins, the males cluster in a leks to attract females. After mating, the females rear the chicks on without the help of the males.

Scientific name: Machaeropterus regulus
Rank: Species
Higher classification: Machaeropterus

Yellow-Fronted Woodpecker

The yellow-fronted woodpecker is a species of bird in the Picidae family. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and heavily degraded former forest.

Scientific name: Melanerpes flavifrons
Rank: Species
Higher classification: Melanerpes

Rufous-backed Kingfisher

The rufous-backed kingfisher is a species of bird in the Alcedinidae family. It is found in Brunei, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand in tropical lowland forests near lakeshores and streamsides. The small bird is solitary and hunts from a low perch over the water by diving for insects and frogs. It is sometimes considered a subspecies of the Oriental dwarf kingfisher.

The Yellow Finch

The yellow finch, or Spinus tristis, is also known as the American goldfinch because this bright yellow and black-trimmed bird is found in North America. Like most finches, it prefers open spaces over the heavily wooded forest, but makes its home wherever temperatures are amenable and food is readily available.