Alphabetical list

New Zealand will be presented in the same way as Australia is (the subject of the introductory text about Australia was Australian Bustard). The landscape and flora of New Zealand is included in the Countries gallery. The short introduction to the fauna presented in greater detail in the galleries features particular species is also included there. Why is the introductory text included in the gallery of Kea? The reason is that I was unable to photograph the species of birds that are more characteristic of New Zealand.

As in case of hummingbirds, the text linked to toucans describing those taken on the trip to Costa Rica will be common for them all. Also with this group of birds fate turned out to be favorable in terms of pictures as I was able to photograph 4 of 7 species of toucans that occur there in Costa Rica. As usual the result was at different level of success. It happened twice that collared aracari and black-mandibled toucan approached so close to the place where food was laid that to adjust them in the frame in the whole I had to back a few meters away.

Sexual dimorphism within the species of the kelp goose is manifested the exact opposite of that within the paradise shelduck. Among paradise shelducks a “white-headed” bird is a female. Among kelp geese males are snowy-white, and the female has camouflage coloration, grayish brown. They were not common in Patagonia, but it happened to me to meet some pairs of kelp geese several times, in the port of Ushuaia also. Its weight is less than 3 kg, while males can reach more than 3.5 kilograms. Kelp geese can be found only in the southern part of South America.

In the environment depicted in the description of the spoon-billed sandpiper there were thousands of birds which would fly in enormous flocks of hundreds of specimens between shallow water reservoirs.   The same was with great knots, Eurasian curlews and the three species of plovers. Sometimes there were so many of them that it was hard to choose what to photograph. The birds, sitting peacefully on dams, often cut the distance to us significantly.