This week, it's time for the little guys to shine on the Show Me A Photo Contest. As always, I've selected a few shots taken in different countries; there's no such thing as too many bird photos! 馃槈
I chose to include only passerines on this post. For a little bit of bird knowledge: passerines belong to the order Passeriformes, wich is the biggest order of the avian class. More than half of the birds in the world belong to this order; and probably most of the birds you see on a daily basies are passerines. Although some passerines are pretty big, such as the crow, most of them are tiny! Sparrows, finches, hummingbirds, all are passerines. So they fit perfectly in this week's theme!
Moving on the the contest submission, a photo from one of my favourite countries in the world: Costa Rica! This little guy was photographed near Arenal volcano, after a heavy rain, 100 meters from my hostel.
This is one of the species I'm yet to identify! As you've probably noticed if you read my posts, I like to identify EVERYTHING! So if you happen to know any species that I can't identify, please do leave a comment!
In the hummingbirds and unidentified section, another small critter, this time from Cuba:
It's a bigger hummingbird than the Costa Rican one, but still tiny!
As a curiosity, Cuba is home to the smallest bird in the world, a hummingbird that weights less than 2 grams! Would love to see one in the wild.
Moving on to... Indonesia. Two little birds belonging to the Lonchura genus. They are small finches, that feed on seeds. They were having a blast in the rice fields near Ubud.
This was probably the most common, but I've seen this next one in pretty decent numbers too.
More species of munias exist, but they all have same constitution, although a good variety of colour patterns; and as all the birds in this post, they are tiny, averaging only 10-12cm!
Finishing with a couple of species from Portugal! First, a species very well known, that we normally associate with the arrival of Spring! They are migratory birds, that arrive in spring to Portugal and migrate to warmer temperatures in the end of Summer. They come back to the same nests every year, and the nests are quite characteristic as well, very common in urban areas. Have you guessed which birds am I talking about?
The common house martin is a common sighting in urban areas. And I was lucky enough to find the babies peaking from the nests, waiting for the parents to bring their lunch!
Since this a small birds post, I didn't want to leave these last ones out. After all.. they're the most common small birds of them all, at least in this country!
This one doesn't need presentations, right? Males and females are simple to distinguish, the males have that dark patch coming from the neck to the breast. They're everywhere, even in the middle of the cities, but these ones were photographed in the middle of nature, in a rural area. And so there won't be discrimination.... here's the female!
Curious to see what the next theme will be. Happy birding everyone!
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