Saturday, June 30, 2007

Birds!










In honour my friend in Montreal who is an avid birder, I went through and found some more pictures of birds that I haven't put on my blog yet. It's been fun down here as there is now a couple of folks from Harvard working on evolutionary development stuff on birds here. They were originally going to work with Galapagos finches, but apparently obtaining permits has become incredibly difficult, so they are now working here in Barbados. So, one of them is working on the bullfinch, and the other is working on the bananaquit. The first two pictures are the bullfinch, and the thirds is the bananaquit.

Next up is the Gray Kingbird (thank to Cameron Rutt for the positive ID!). The bananaquit, loggerhead and one of the finches pictures were taken during the course in May at Gay's Cove on the east side of the island. The other finch pictures is an overzealous finch who enjoys finding the crumbs in the dining area.

Lastly are egrets (cattle I think). About a five minute walk from the institute is a large tree that the egrets go to to roost for the evening. As the sun sets more and more and more egrets come flying in. It's a spectacular sight, and gives my zoom lens a good workout.