Rick Simpson Birding Services

This photo of a Ruddy Quail-Dove was taken by our friend Elsie in her ‘magic garden’ (it has already turned up a couple of firsts for Ubatuba). Two of these birds flew into the window of her house on the same day. Now, her house is in a fairly well wooded neighbourhood, but this species has never to our knowledge been seen or heard there before, so it seems likely that these birds were on the move, migrating or possibly fleeing some disturbing event in their usual forest home.

Sadly one of the birds died, this one however recovered from the shock and flew strongly away. Interestingly, during a storm at night a few days earlier Elsie had a bird of about this size crash into her window. It is possible that it was one of these same birds and that they had been around for a number of days having come down in the storm.

Ruddy Quail-Dove © Elsie Rotenberg.

Busy? Busy? That doesn’t say the half of it! I have been neglecting my duties here as a blogger for some time.

Feeble excuses being; the NGO, which is called DACNIS in case you are interested, is in the final stages of being formalised, this bureaucracy takes up a disproportionate amount of time; the UBWC is looking for a new home, there are so many good places but finding just the right one is hard and also time consuming; translating bird books (Portuguese to English); preparing lectures for the local schools (more on this another day) and then there are those pesky clients that keep insisting on coming to look at birds (without whom of course I’d be in big trouble… so only joking OK?).

However, the other day I was sitting here working away when I heard a Chestnut-bellied Euphonia calling outside so I leapt into action. With playback I managed to attract the female up to the balcony, but it showed no interest in the fruit there, presumably looking for the handsome chap that was calling her. There was another bird calling but I didn’t see it, I assume it was her mate as these birds usually move around in pairs.

So the list slides surreptitiously onto a magnificent 87.

Female Chestnut-bellied Euphonia, this of course is not the actual bird we saw... © Elsie Rotenberg.

... and here's the male, although I didn't see him this seemed like an opportune moment to display another magnificent photo taken by my faithful client and good friend Tommy Pedersen ©.