Ecuador: Mother Potoo

One of my favorite afternoons in Ecuador earlier this month was spent at Tony and Barbara’s place in the upper Tandayapa Valley. Their hummingbird feeders were going great guns, with Mountain Velvetbreasts and Green-tailed Trainbearers a common sight right at the house, and small tanager flocks worked the edges while we watched from the comfortable porch.

Tony took a few of us around to see their resident star, a female Common Potoo brooding a chick atop a snag.

The eerie light, the awkward angle, and the abundant vegetation made it difficult to get clear pictures of this amazing sight, but that oddly placed white bump to the right beneath the adult’s belly plumage was the chick. Tony told me that both mother and child will occupy the snag until the youngster has grown large enough to displace the parent, at which point the adult will seek a new roost, leaving the old one to the fledgling.