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Jacana jacana
Beautiful water bird with long toes able to walk across weeds beds where it feeds and lays eggs and raises young. The female of this species, mates, lays eggs, then abandons the eggs and the male (who tends the eggs and the young on his own) --- she goes off and finds another male and repeats the process. The males show spectacular wing patterns and beautiful red wattle at the top of the beak. Above you can see the mottled and striped eggs laid in an open nest on floating weed-bed, well camophlauged from all angles.
Oxbow lakes and other weedy slow moving relatively shallow waters.
This male worked to distract us as our canoe came close to his nest.
9 Comments
great series
The male tried to draw us away from the nest by flying short distances away. Did not make any moves to drive us off. we were 3 persons in dugout canoe on an oxbow lake covered with weeds and moved extremely slowly so we likely didn't trigger the most aggressive responses.
Awesome series! Did the male not attack on approaching the nest?
Great photos! I've worked on a research project in that area of Loreto, what tour company did you travel with, if you don't mind me asking? Also, consider adding your spottings to the Birds of Peru Mission: http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/1251...
The eggs are gorgeous!
Please consider adding this lovely spotting to the Animal Architecture mission at http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8082...
Wonderful. Those are beautiful eggs!
Beautiful spotting! Love the image with the eggs
great series! Welcome to Project Noah