Today started out with a question from a dear friend and former colleague at Princeton University’s Index of Christian Art: just what, she wanted to know, is “bird liming” exactly? (If you don’t know, you probably don’t want to know.)

And on returning from lunch I found an e-mail from the Antiques Roadshow asking for the identification of a bird painted by a famous American bird artist. You’ll have to watch the show to find out yourself, but I was able to pass on the bird’s identity–and, with a little e-sniffing around, the year the painting was likely produced.

An Amazon Kingfisher suns in Guyana, closely approximating the posture of a limed bird.

It’s not quite what I had in mind when I started the “Birds and Art” tours here at WINGS (Provence this year, Tuscany and Provence in 2010, Provence and Portugal in 2011…), but it’s terrific fun!

Quite a bird, as sharp at one end as at the other!

One of my photos, though, offered up a surprise–and a mystery.

In flagrant violation of Rule 2 for Successful Birding, I was looking at the stupid viewfinder when something flashed across the background.  What is it?

Is it really blue? I’m at a loss, never having seen a Cotinga cotinga fly.

If I’ve given the impression that Guyana is a place filled with “the mostest and the bestest,” it’s only because it’s true. This is Kaieteur Falls, the highest single-drop waterfall in the world, and a place to look for (and often to find, I’m told) Orange-breasted Falcon.

These b-log entries have been a little jumbled, but a fuller and more coherent account of my trip in November 2007 will be published late this spring. And of course, keep an eye out at the WINGS website for an announcement of a new trip to this exciting South American destination!

Guyana has a wonderful diversity of bucconids, and we had good experiences with most of them, from the flashy Black Nunbird, which we saw several times, to the subtly and intricately patterned Spotted Puffbird, encountered only in the damp woods at Surama.

This is a Guianan Puffbird, distinguished from the White-necked Puffbird sensu novo strictoque by the restricted white on the forehead, just visible in this distant shot, and the somewhat smaller (!) bill than the great honking honker of White-necked.

My favorite among the bucconids was the species we ran across most often; we could count on multiple sightings every day, usually of pairs perched and feeding together.

Swallow-winged Puffbirds were much more acrobatic and much more active than the other puffbirds we saw. They perch high in dead twigs, on the alert for passing insects, which they dart up to chase like pudgy swallows. In flight, they are unmistakable and odd, with rather short triangular wings and essentially no tail, reminding me of tiny Bateleurs in silhouette. There are many reasons to visit Guyana, but this funny bird is worth the trip all by itself.

Our last chance was to walk out towards the back savannah through a small patch of forest, where a slender creek wound its way and Sunbitterns had been seen in the past. So we did. No Sunbittern. After desperately scanning the wooded edges of the water, we continued on to open country, where we salved our wounds with other, more cooperative birds.

Our really last chance was the walk back to the lodge. This time, too, scanning the banks of the creek produced nothing. But the muddy path we’d taken was somehow different this time.

Tracks! The Sunbittern had crossed the path while we were out on the grasslands.

Ah well, one more reason to return to Guyana!

Striated Heron is the southern counterpart of “our” Green Heron, and in fact the two have been considered conspecific at various times. Striated, which occurs in widely in both the Old World and New World tropics, differs from Green Heron in adult plumage by, most notably, the neck color: rich chestnut in Green, lovely dove-gray in Striated. The juveniles are much more similar, as I would discover to my dismay in Panama a few weeks later….

Cocoi Heron, known alternatively (and preferably, to my mind) as “White-necked Heron” is a large and gangly Ardea, a congener of such familiar northern species as Great Blue and Gray Herons. I’d never seen this species until my Guyana trip, and was delighted to find it common along the large rivers we visited. It is superficially similar to Great Blue, as expected, but the neck and bill are longer and the plumage, of course, much whiter, without the rufous highlights of its northern counterpart; notice, too, the lovely head pattern, with the black cap coming down low on the cheek setting off the whitish supraloral.

The photo shows a typical view of the bird half-concealed in the foliage; I don’t think I ever saw the entire bird at once except in flight!

We did not find the ominously decreasing Maguari, but Wood Storks were common and readily found, looking like pterodactyls as they flew over us everywhere from urban parks to wilderness swamps.

(This picture is especially for Alex, who discovered and sketched a Wood Stork in Nebraska, of all places, last year!)

The other stork species, Jabiru, was, of course, much less common, but we managed to see this amazing bird on several days. The closest views were to be had early in the morning on the airstrip at Karanambu, where one or two could be found stalking through the grass in the fog when we arose.

Like King Vultures, Jabirus were easy to pick out from the small planes we took between destinations; but the most exciting views were of a pair on a nest.

Like the apparently reliable Crimson Fruitcrows just outside of Iwokrama, these birds could prove a real boon to ornithotourism in Guyana. Local guides take note!

Moss-clad rocks and shady clefts are this species’ preferred habitat; their fondness for rocks extends even to the placement of their well-camouflaged nests, a large mud jug on a vertical cave wall. This one had been inactive for some time, we were told, but seemed still quite usable.

And just around the corner we found a product of this nest, a bright male glowing in the low shady bushes, his strange crest curled forward to cover the bill.

Like the male we would see a couple of days later at Kaietur Falls, this bird remained silent, leaving us all good excuse to return during the lekking season.

Purple-throated Fruitcrow has a wide range in southern Central and South America, and for a trpoical bird, it’s fairly easy to see. I was interested to find them mostly fairly high in the trees in Guyana, while in Panama I’ve several times enjoyed them at eye level.

Clear out at the other end of the scale is the apparently rare, and certainly little known, Crimson Fruitcrow. Males such as this one certainly live up to the name; this is a big, bright bird. We eventually saw two, both males; the females are duller and probably even easier to overlook.

The males are said to have a parachuting display in which they rise 10 meters above the canopy. More significantly to Guyana’s burgeoning ornithotourism industry, they are also rumored to be creatures of habit, often using the same perch for long periods of time. If individuals like this turn out to be reliably findable by tours, the species will be a major draw to visiting birders from around the world.

My early November trip to Guyana took us to several sites where the locals had seen jaguars occasionally, and we kept our eyes peeled for any sign of the king of the forest. On our way out from Iwokrama one day, our sharp-eyed driver spied drag marks across the road. We stopped to investigate, and a little bit of forensic reconstruction led us to an astonishing scene.

A giant armadillo, still bleeding and just a few feet away from the large mounded hole it had attempted to escape into. The locals decided that the jaguar, whose tracks were plainly visible on the roadside, had seized the armadillo and dragged it across the road, where it broke free and sought shelter in a hole; the cat managed to grab it again and dispatch it, leaving the carcass probably when we got out of the vehicles. The consensus was that the jaguar was still in the area, no doubt watching its cache–and thus watching us.

I thought for a moment that that last bit was added only for the frisson, a bit of spice thrown into the adventure for the tourists. But as we got back to the vehicles, there was an unpleasant aroma in the air, a musty, stale smell that I couldn’t place. “The jaguar,” our driver said, and off we drove. Close, very close!