The Amazon is the kingdom of birds, home to thousands of species of birds, many of which are colorful, exotic and full of fun. During my ecological research and expeditions in the Amazon rainforest, I "got to know" many members of this bird kingdom whose stories are still fresh in my mind.
<h1>hummingbird</h1>
There are about 600 species of hummingbirds worldwide, most of which live in the rainforests of South America. I don't know which naturalist gave these little elves such an appropriate name, the small hummingbird really shrunk like a bee, and its wings buzzed when it flew.
In addition, hummingbirds' unparalleled "stunts" are that they can both fly forward and backward, left and right, and hover in the air. Their superior abilities benefit from their special muscular tissue and wing structure: hummingbirds have a relatively large pectoral muscle, the crown of birds, and are highly capable of vibrating wings; and the average bird can only move the muscles of the proximal end of the wings but cannot manipulate its distal parts, but in hummingbirds it is used both.
Most members of the hummingbird family are draped in beautiful feathers that glow in the sunlight. Some hummingbirds drag their long tails, and the tail feathers keep drawing circles when they fly, and some have feathers embedded under their jaws, as if they are tied with flowing ribbons. One of the most common hummingbirds near our ecological stations is blue in body with a jewel green on the front chest that sparkles in the sunlight.
However, it is also true that some species are dull in color, such hummingbirds generally live in the lower layers of the forest, in a dark environment, these hummingbirds are not easy to be detected by predators.
Taking pictures of hummingbirds can sometimes take a lot of thought. At one point, my flash suddenly "went on strike," which meant I could no longer use a telephoto lens in the dim forest. In order to capture the long-beaked hummingbird nesting, I made an adventurous attempt: I put up a tripod in front of the nest of two young chicks and used standard lenses to capture the moment when the hummingbird entered the nest.
Everything was ready, and I waited patiently. Finally, the hummingbird flew in, and it found that a strange "behemoth" appeared in front of the "home", screamed in horror, circled around the camera and me twice, and flew away with a smoke.
I continued to "wait for the rabbit", and after about ten minutes, the hummingbird returned, and it was still a repeat of the old drama. After another 6-7 minutes, it flew again, circled around me and the camera twice, and landed on the branches near the nest, seemingly slowly and methodically feathering. I held my breath and clutched the shutter line with my right hand. Suddenly, the hummingbird flew away again, and I was just about to breathe a sigh of relief, but who knew that it had never appeared in front of the nest like lightning from somewhere. Without hesitation, I slammed the shutter. As soon as "Carla" sounded, hummingbirds screamed and jumped into the dense forest.
I prayed silently that it would not be gone forever. After a while, the hummingbird hung in front of the nest again. I pressed the shutter again, and it flew again, but in an instant it flew again, and this time it flew desperately to the nest. I pressed the shutter again, and it flapped its wings in horror, but it didn't fly away after all.
I stopped moving, stopped breathing, and watched silently with my eyes blinking as it spit food into the chick's mouth. It is risking its own life to feed young chicks! Finally, the mother bird flew away briskly after feeding, and I quietly left. The next morning, I went to see the nest again, and the two young chicks lay safely in the nest, and I breathed a long sigh of relief.
<h1>macaw</h1>
In China and around the world, artificially fed parrots are called caged pets because of their beautiful plumage and tongue-learning mouth. Parrots in the rainforests of South America live in a free world: they either soar proudly in the blue sky or dexterously walk through the dense forests. The first time I saw these colorful birds in the jungle, I couldn't believe my eyes: how the Creator had shaped them one by one so brilliantly and immaculately!
Among the parrot families, macaws are the largest genus and include three species, with the red macaw having the widest distribution range. The parrot is red in color, with a white beak and cheeks, and a sky blue leading edge of its wings, which looks like a flame burning from a distance.
Legend has it that macaws live up to 50 years and have a beak that is extremely powerful. Many palm trees in the forest have huge fruits hanging from them, and usually the seed coats of these fruits are extremely hard and difficult for people to smash with a hammer, while macaws can easily crush their skins with their mouths and eat seeds.
The local indigenous Salamakans once told me a story: when white Europeans invaded South America, a soldier shot a pair of macaws, one of which slammed to the ground and the other flew away; after a while, just as the soldier was carrying his prey and getting complacent, the fleeing macaw suddenly fell from the sky, first pecking at the shooter's eyes, and then using his beak to twist the double-barreled shotgun that had fallen to the ground into an iron twist.
I generally do not dare to believe the legends of the indigenous people, because they are often mixed with the good wishes of these good peoples. However, this story shows from the side that the macaw is a Hercules in the minds of the indigenous people.
<h1>partridge</h1>
Darwin founded the theory of sexual selection by observing differences in the shape and plumage of many species of birds. This difference between the sexes is vividly reflected in the stone chicken, the male of which is brilliant orange-yellow with fan-shaped crown feathers on the head; the female is dull gray-purple, with no special modification.
Like many hermaphroditic birds, stone chickens have courtship and show off. Every morning and evening, a dozen or even dozens of male stone chickens gather in a few clean, clear open spaces fixed in the rainforest, which ecologists call "marriage grounds." If there is no female near the wedding field, the male perches on the branches and waits patiently, occasionally making a shrill call, as if calling out to the female.
Once a female bird came to visit, the male screamed and scrambled to the clearing, his eyes were fixed on the female, flapping his wings at once, while slowly turning the crown feathers sideways to the female so that she could see her silhouette and beautiful feathers; I don't know whether it was worried that the female's attention was not concentrated enough or the clearing could not accommodate all the competitors, the male landed a few seconds later and then leaped up, two feet across the stem of the small tree next to the clearing, the body hanging horizontally, the eyes still staring at the female, and then jumped into the clearing again. So you come and go, jumping and jumping. The female seems to be less impressed, carelessly combing its feathers on the branches, and sometimes saying goodbye for no reason, leaving behind the obsessive male.
Generally speaking, the female bird needs to fly to the marriage field many times to finally select the love bird, and once the love bird becomes a dependent, the two stone chickens fly to the secret place to "start a family". The nests of stone chickens are built on the inner walls of stone caves with mud mixed grass stalks, and their name is derived from this.
It can be said that human beings have not yet fully understood the marriage system and breeding behavior of stone chickens, such as whether females patronize different marriage fields and whether females always use the same marriage field, and so on. However, the latest research shows that the courtship behavior of stone chickens is directly related to light: females always fly to the marriage field when the light is at its best, and in this light intensity, the brilliance of male feathers is reflected most fully.
<h1>Musical birds</h1>
There is a bird in the Amazon jungle called the Musical Bird, which is about the size of a sparrow, but also brown, and looks nothing out of the ordinary. But the incomparable thing about this bird is that it has a good voice with natural beauty, and the singing is lingering and melodious.
I have amateurly marked them with a score, roughly 5113165655132 in C. However, I don't know whether it is too modest or too timid, these "singers" refuse to accept the "fans" to approach, as long as someone is slightly closer, the musical birds will rush away and fly high, so we often only hear its voice, it is difficult to see it.
According to Darwin's theory of sexual selection, many of the "surprising" features of birds, such as brilliant plumage or characteristic body structures, are the result of long-term directional selection by the opposite sex. I thought that if the beautiful singing voice of the musical bird had evolved in this way, then they might also have the "same stage performance" when the male courtship showed off, and if this is the case, then the male musical bird's "ring match" should undoubtedly be the most wonderful nature concert in the world.
Unfortunately, I have heard many animal choruses in the forest: such as the rough howler monkey chorus, the harsh noise cicada chorus, the endless frog chorus, but I have not been able to hear the long-awaited musical bird chorus.
<h1>toucan</h1>
There is a class of birds in South America called toucans, there are dozens of species, and their common characteristic is that the beak length of the bird is equivalent to one-third of the body. Many readers must think that such mouths are bulky, but they are not, they are very dexterous when flying between trees and eating fruit with their large mouths.
This is because the toucan's beak bone is specially constructed, it is not a dense entity: the outside of the mouth is just a thin hard shell, with a very thin, porous spongy bone tissue running through the middle, filled with air, so it does not cause pressure on the toucan's life.
Most species of toucans are brilliant in color, which is reflected not only in their colorful plumage, but also in their colorful large beaks. There is a species of toucan whose beak is indistinguishishish with a yellow upper part of the large beak and azure blue in the lower part. Coupled with the orange-yellow chest, the pitch-black back, and a circle of feathers in the sky blue around the eyes, it really constitutes a colorful and coordinated ink painting.
Toucans feed mainly on fruits, seeds and insects. Someone once described the toucan's peculiar eating habits this way: when it eats, it first pecks the food together with the tip of its mouth, then throws the food upwards with its neck up, and then opens its mouth to accurately enter the throat. But in the primeval jungle, I had never seen this kind of game eating behavior.
According to my observation, every time the toucan eats fruit, the tip of the beak is always cocked high, presumably to make the fruit roll into the throat, otherwise, I really don't know how they swallow the fruit that enters their mouths into their stomachs.
Toucans eat a lot of food, swallowing many fruits every day and then excreting seeds to where they fly, so they can be considered to be experts in the transmission of plant seeds.
<h1>vulture</h1>
Vultures are the largest family of birds of prey and are often referred to as the "King of birds". The Emperor Vulture, which is distributed in South America, has a wingspan of up to 3-4 meters, which can be described as a giant of birds of prey. The Emperor Vultures have an ugly appearance: their heads and stems are bare and covered only with golden feathers, and the male vultures have bright red crowns and flesh hangings.
The Emperor Vulture can hover in the sky for long periods of time, flying at altitudes of several kilometers. Because of their ugly appearance, large size and strong feet, the locals have imagined many legendary stories, such as vultures catching children. In fact, such birds of prey usually only eat carrion and do not actively attack live animals.
A young ornithologist at our ecological station once did an interesting experiment: he first lay naked on a naked mountain under the scorching sun, and two hours passed, and not a single vulture appeared in view. He then opened a few cans of beef and poured them around his body, and then lay down again; in a few moments several vultures began to circle in the sky, and gradually flew lower and lower, and the number increased; finally, several vultures landed on the rocks not far from him and walked toward him step by step. Fearing that something really shouldn't have happened, he sat up and waved his arms, and the vulture flew away in a hurry.
Whenever I saw all kinds of birds in the Amazon forest, I thought endlessly that if life in nature was indeed created by God, then God must be a genius painter who depicted the birds in his pen in a colorful way; second, "he" should be a genius composer, giving different birds their own unique singing voices; of course, "he" must also be a genius imaginer, designing behaviors for each bird that represent its species characteristics, including predation and anti-predation countermeasures, and field utilization patterns , methods of breeding offspring, and so on. In a word, God must be an all-rounder.
If that's the case, God is hard enough!
Zhang Shuyi
China was the first ecologist to conduct field research and investigation in the Amazon rainforest of South America. From 1990 to 1994, during his study at the University of Curie in France, he worked for 19 months at the Nouragues Ecological Station of the French National Research Center in the virgin forest of French Guiana, and achieved fruitful scientific research results. This article is a personal experience in the Amazon rainforest narrated by Professor Zhang Shuyi.
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<h1>Past recommendations:</h1>
Wild Amazon: Snake Fun
Wild Amazon: Dragon's Eye Chicken, Giant Spider, Poison Dart Frog
Wild Amazon (IV): Magical Mimesis
Wild Amazon (III): Ants of all kinds
Wild Amazon (II): The Colorful Plant Kingdom
Wild Amazon (I): The "Nurig" ecological station in the jungle