Jean-Jacques Rabin + The Trogon Family

Jean-Jacques Rabin, better known as John James Audubon, was born on April 26, 1785 in Les Cayes, Saint-Dominigue, now known as Haiti. His name graces the National Audubon Society, founded to protect waterbird populations. Audubon was both a naturalist and an artist. He painted birds in beautiful color plates; his book The Birds of America is one of the finest and most detailed ornithological works ever completed. According to the Aubudon Organization, “[p]rinted between 1827 and 1838, it contains 435 life-size watercolors of North American birds (Havell edition), all reproduced from hand-engraved plates, and is considered to be the archetype of wildlife illustration.” My parents owned this gorgeous book and we’d leaf through the pages as we watched birds at the feeder on the balcony.

In his honor I am reprinting the post I wrote after Uwe and I visited Costa Rica and had the great luck to spot the magical, elusive quetzal. – Jadi

What’s quetzal, anyway? A symptom brought on in quarantine for the corona virus?

Glad you asked. The quetzal is a legend, a myth, a member of the trogon family, and one really cool bird. It’s also very, very elusive.

Okay. And what the hell is a trogon?

Let’s start at the top. Until just now, I didn’t know. Trogon comes from the Greek and means ‘nibbling’, because quetzals carve through rotting wood to make their nests in tree trunks. The trogon family of birds is an exclusive club: they are the only animal with a heterodactyl toe arrangement. [1] The resplendent quetzal lives only in a narrow range of cloud forests at high elevations in Central America. They don’t migrate, and like altitudes of 4,000–10,000 ft (1,200–3,000 m).

A lot of people think it’s the most beautiful bird in the world. The quetzal was sacred to the Aztecs and Mayans. The Aztecs associated the bird with the snake god, Quetzalcoatl. Kings and nobles wore quetzal feather headdresses for special ceremonies.

And oh my god, those feathers…. The head and back of the bird are a brilliant green, the belly feathers are bright red. The female has more gray on her chest, and black and white in her tail, while the male has incredibly long streaming tail feathers that trail up to three feet (!) behind him. These don’t grow until the bird is at least three years old.

The quetzal’s big, about 36-40 cm or 14-16 inches long. But its brilliant green feathers are iridescent and blend perfectly into the cloud forest foliage. For a large bird, the quetzal is surprisingly hard to spot.

So when we planned our trip to Costa Rica (I wrote this in March 2020, after two weeks of the virus lock down, and already our trip felt like a different life time rather than just a few weeks earlier), we hoped we’d get lucky enough to spot a quetzal. We went to the Monteverde cloud forest region. One day we joined a tour to the smaller and less crowded Curi Cancha Reserve. Amazingly enough we saw a pair of quetzals! Quetzals are monogamous – and there they were, male and female! Thank god for the guides that day, because there’s no way we would have sighted the birds on our own. They’re just too perfectly camouflaged. I only have one photo for you, but hopefully it was worth reading this post to get to it.

We present to you in all its shy glory: THE QUETZAL! This is the female, a brilliant emerald that dazzles the eye. Believe it or not her partner is much, much gaudier

It was magic to see a quetzal pair. We got lucky that day.

In memory of John James Audubon, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851

NOTES: [1] Dictionary.com explains heterodactyl is “having the first and fourth toes directed backward, and the second and third forward, as in trogons”. Well, what do you know. This is my second new word for the week. Trogon was the first. Resplendent quetzal © Jadi Campbell 2020. Previously published as Quetzal. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out.

The Trail Back Out was honored as 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist for the Independent Author Network and with a Red Ribbon by the 2021 Wishing Shelf Book Awards of England. In addition, The Trail Back Out was an American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was a semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts, as well as a Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book Awards. Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The Animal Kingdom: 38

And we have another fine offering, just in time for the Halloween Blue Moon! I give you Installment #38 of my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. Once the weather turns cold, this rush rushes off.
  2. A wing on the wing casts one big shadow!
  3. A rake is hardly rakish,
  4. And a wisp isn’t wispy.
  5. But does a bellowing bellow?
  6. I doubt the flink will flink this link!
Rush member in no rush, Alsace, France
  1. Rush of migrating birds
  2. Wing of dragons
  3. Rake of colts [1]
  4. Wisp of snipe [2]
  5. Bellowing of bullfinches [3]
  6. Flink of cows [4]
Flink, Sardinia, Italy
This herd may contain a rake… northern Thailand

NOTES: [1] Everything you ever wanted to know about horses but were afraid to ask….: “In horse racing, particularly for Thoroughbreds in the United Kingdom, a colt is defined as an uncastrated male from the age of 2 up to and including the age of 4.” Wild 1 to 2-year colts are driven from their herds by the herd stallion. Once driven out, they usually form a bachelor herd. “They stay with this band until they are mature enough to form their own herd of mares.” A foal is a horse of either sex less than 1 year old. A yearling is either sex, aged 1-2. A filly is a young female horse. A mare is an adult female horse. A stallion is an uncastrated adult male horse. A gelding is a castrated male. A rig or ridgling is an incompletely castrated male horse. Wikipedia.org [2] A snipe is a slender-billed bird from the sandpiper family. [3] The name bullfinch comes from its stocky shape and thick neck. [4] Flink refers to 12 cows or more. And, according to the Urban Dictionary, to flink is the act of forwarding a web link or address to someone electronically.

 © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from en.wiktionary.orgwww.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

The Trail Back Out is finished and available for purchase! In my new collection of short stories, two strangers meet in the woods. Children wear masks. A gambler hides in the cellar during a Category Five hurricane. A wife considers a hit-man’s offer. Princess Rain Clouds searches for happiness. An entire village flees, a life is saved, and a tourist in Venice is melting. Everyone keeps trying to make sense of strange events far in the past or about to occur. Let these characters be your guides. Join them on the trail back out – to a familiar world, now unexpectedly changed.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

 

The Animal Kingdom: 36

Flurry at Wilhelma Zoo, Stuttgart, Germany

Hard to believe, but today I give you Installment #36 of my epic blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. A glide glitters as it glides.
  2. The salon took over the salon.
  3. The warren warrants another look.
  4. The flurry’s flurry reflected on the pool.
  5. A huddle has no need to huddle!
  6. The dappled dopping dipped and dived.
  1. Glide of flying fish
  2. Salon of poodles
  3.  Warren of wombats [1]
  4. Flurry of flamingos
  5. Huddle of hippos [2]
  6. Dopping of ducks (diving)
Warrenless
Diving dopping, Tokyo, Japan

NOTES: [1] With a tiny range, wombats are critically endangered. Only 200 Northern hairy-nosed wombats remain. wombatfoundation.com [2] The ‘river horse’ is endangered. worldwildlife.org © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from en.wiktionary.orgwww.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

The Trail Back Out is finished and available for purchase! In this collection of short stories, two strangers meet in the woods. Children wear masks. A gambler hides in the cellar during a Category Five hurricane. A wife considers a hit-man’s offer. Princess Rain Clouds searches for happiness. An entire village flees, a life is saved, and a tourist in Venice is melting. Everyone keeps trying to make sense of strange events far in the past or about to occur. Let these characters be your guides. Join them on the trail back out – to a familiar world, now unexpectedly changed.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and order my books.

 

Quetzal

Happy April Fool’s Day! What’s quetzal, anyway? A noun, a verb, a symptom brought on in quarantine for the corona virus?

Glad you asked. The quetzal is a legend, a myth, a member of the trogon family, and one really cool bird. It’s also very, very elusive.

And what the hell is a trogon? Let’s start at the top. Until just now, I didn’t know. The term comes from the Greek and means ‘nibbling’, because quetzals carve through rotting wood to make their nests in tree trunks. The trogon family of birds is an exclusive club: they are the only animal with a heterodactyl toe arrangement. [1] The resplendent quetzal lives only in a narrow range of cloud forests at high elevations in Central America. They don’t migrate, and like altitudes of 4,000–10,000 ft (1,200–3,000 m).

A lot of people think it’s the most beautiful bird in the world. The quetzal was sacred to the Aztecs and Mayans. The Aztecs associated the bird with the snake god, Quetzalcoatl. Kings and nobles wore quetzal feather headdresses for special ceremonies.

And oh my god, those feathers…. The head and back of the bird are a brilliant green, the belly feathers are bright red. The female has more gray on her chest, and black and white in her tail, while the male has incredibly long streaming tail feathers that trail up to three feet (!) behind him. These don’t grow until the bird is at least three years old.

The quetzal’s big, about 36-40 cm or 14-16 inches long. But its brilliant green feathers are iridescent and blend perfectly into the cloud forest foliage. For a large bird, the quetzal is surprisingly hard to spot.

So when we planned our trip to Costa Rica (I write this in March, after two weeks of the virus lockdown, and it feels like a different life time that we took that trip, not just a few weeks ago), we hoped we’d get lucky enough to spot a quetzal. We went to the Monteverde cloud forest region. One day we joined a tour to the smaller and less crowded Curi Cancha Reserve. Amazingly enough we saw a pair of quetzals! Quetzals are monogamous – and there they were, male and female! Thank god for the guides that day, because there’s no way we would have sighted the birds on our own. They’re just too perfectly camouflaged. I only have one photo for you, but hopefully it was worth reading this post to get to it.

We present to you in all its shy glory: THE QUETZAL! This is the female, a brilliant emerald that dazzles the eye. Believe it or not her partner is much, much gaudier

It was magic to see a quetzal pair. We got lucky that day.

NOTES: [1] Dictionary.com explains heterodactyl is “having the first and fourth toes directed backward, and the second and third forward, as in trogons”. Well, what do you know. This is my second new word for the week. Trogon was the first. PS: This post is not an April Fool’s joke! Resplendent quetzal © Jadi Campbell 2020. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you try to comment in the wordpress.com reader and get the message “Sorry – there was a problem posting your comment”, click on the title of this post to get to jadicampbell.com and post your comment there. Sorry for the ongoing problem.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

The Animal Kingdom: 27

I present installment #27 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. If you agitate the pandemonium you’ll create pandemonium!
  2. He cast the cast free.
  3. The murder murdered the afternoon quiet.
  4. A memory has very long memories.
  5. What a shock to find this nest nestled in the rocks.
  6. A mischievous mischief causes so much mischief.
Memory, Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Answers:

  1. Pandemonium of parrots
  2. Cast of falcons [1]
  3. Murder of crows
  4. Memory of elephants
  5. Nest of snakes [2]
  6. Mischief of mice
Nest member, Wilhelma Zoo, Stuttgart, Germany
A critter this smart could definitely cause pandemonium…. Loro Parque, Tenerifa

NOTES: [1] Cast is used for both bird and crustacean families [2] see The Animal Kingdom: 6 © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.  Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

The Animal Kingdom: 17

It’s time for yet another post on animals for your reading amusement: installment #17 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. You won’t find this crèche in a crèche.
  2. The dissimulation’s dissimulation about what kind of animals they were didn’t last long.
  3. This herd must have heard – it has ears to hear.
  4. How the scold scolded!
  5. The mob wasn’t big enough to mob the fields.
  6. We heard the crash crash through the brush.

Answers:

Mob, South Island, New Zealand
  1. Crèche of penguins
  2. Dissimulation of birds
  3. Herd of rabbits (domestic only)
  4. Scold of jays
  5. Mob of sheep
  6. Crash of rhinos
Crèche, South Africa
Dissimulation, Inle Lake, Myanmar

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.  Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

The Animal Kingdom: 2

This is the second installment from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. “Double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and caldron bubble,” she cackled. Then the witch threw another cauldron into the caldron. [1]
  2. The prickle prickled no one that day.
  3. And the clutch clutched at the edges of the baskets.
  4. Exaltation exalted the evening with the complex songs of the family Alaudidae.
  5. A smack smacks into goo on the rocks.
  6. The romping romp are some of my favorite critters.
Prickle, Laos

Answers:

  1. Cauldron of bats [2]
  2. Prickle of porcupines
  3. Clutch of birds
  4. Exaltation of larks
  5. Smack of jellyfish
  6. Romp of otters [3]
Smack, Loro Parque, Tenerifa
Cauldron, Khao Yai National Park, Thailand

NOTES: [1] Shakespeare Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1. [2] Currently 77 bats are listed as Endangered and Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Bat Conservation International batcon.org  [3] Sea otters are Endangered IUCN © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.  Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

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