Birds Of The Tropics - Part I - Tropical Birds

The naturalist finds his paradise in the tropics, for in this broad zone that girdles the earth, there is a rich profusion of plant and animal life. It is an enormous territory, stretching almost fifty degrees of latitude from north to south. It includes hot, steamy jungles and dry, lofty plateaus, desert and tundra, sea-level areas and snow-capped mountains, and islands set like gems in blue waters.

Bird life in the tropics is varied. Here are birds in all the colors of the rainbow, birds of all sizes, shy birds and aggressive ones, birds of curious habits.

Some are found only in the tropics. Some, in fact, are found only within very restricted areas -- on a single island, for example. Others, or their close relatives, are at home over a wide range, even in temperate zones; while still others nest in cooler lands but migrate to the tropics to spend the winter.

Hummingbirds, swifts, kingfishers, todies, toucans, trogons, motmots, rollers and hoopoes are among the common birds of the tropics. Others are bee eaters, colies, jacamars, puffbirds, barbets, honey guides, woodpeckers and wrynecks.

Toucans are birds of the American tropics, found nowhere else int he world. They are often seen, in small family groups, on the top branches of fruit trees, for they feed exclusively on fruits. They are very conspicuous big birds two feet or more long, with highly colored long beaks, out of all proportion to the rest of the body, and brilliant plumage with many colors nicely blended.

They build their nests in deep hollows in the trunks of trees. They are gregarious -- that is, they feed, live and breed in colonies. They flit across the forest in small parties, emitting at intervals their peculiar call notes.

"Dios te de, Dios te de, Dios te de."

Many species of toucans are known in the highlands of tropical America, where dense woodlands cover the slopes. Here the temperature is low, humidity very high, and trunks and branches of trees are covered with thick carpets of mosses and lichens heavily saturated with water.

The White Throated Toucanet lives int he western Andes of Venezuela, extending its range to the eastern Andes of Colombia. The plumage is light green throughout, much lighter in under parts. The throat is whitish fading into grayish. The beak is black and reddish.

The Toco Toucan lives in the dense, humid forests of Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and south to northern Argentina, extending its range through the forested lowlands of the Orinco basin in Venezuela and tropical Colombia.

The Sulfur and White-breasted Toucan, beautifully painted in white, yellow, and red, lives in Guiana, Venezuela, northeastern Brazil and the island of Trinidad.

It's long, think beak is sulfur yellow and glossy black. The Piaroa Indians in the upper Orinoco sometimes tame these gaily colored birds and keep them as pets.

The Trogons, related to the Toucans, are natives of tropical America, Asia, and Africa. they are just as gorgeously colored as their cousins and are better fliers than the Toucans, but on the whole they are dull, sluggish birds, content to mope on boughs until an insect zooms by.

Then they wake up instantly, dash after the little creature, capture it, bring it back to the perch and eat it. Unlike toucans, which are vegetarians, the Trogons relish a tasty insect.

One of the most beautiful of all Trogons is the Quetzal that dwells in the mountains of Mexico and Central America.

The male bird, hardly larger than a dove, has a train of marvelous green-gold plumes more than three feet long. The bird itself is scarlet and green and gold.

When the Spaniards came to Mexico and Central America, they learned that among Maya and Aztec and other native peoples no one was allowed to kill the bird.

Only the priests and nobles were allowed to wear its feathers which the male molts each year.

In far distant antiquity the Quetzal and the serpent became combined in worship and the Quetzalcoatl (or plumed serpent) was a device carved on many temples and palaces.

Hummingbirds and swifts, at home almost everywhere in the tropics are classed in the order Micropodiformes -- creatures with tiny feet. Hummingbirds, those flying gems with iridescent plumage, are native to the New World, where they abound.

They live from the humid lowlands, where temperature is exceedingly high, up to the magnificent subtropical and temperate rain forests of the mountain ranges. Some of them migrate to quite cool lands to breed.

These little creatures are the smallest members of the bird world, some only three inches from beak to tail. Without feathers or beak, these tiniest ones are hardly bigger than a bee.

Their food consists mainly of small insects, but they love the nectar of flowers. Though generally preferring a solitary life, they may sometimes be seen in numbers hovering above the sweet blossoms of a favorite bush.

The Hummingbird generally builds a shallow nest of soft plant materials and lines it inside with down, such as wild cotton. the nest is a curious structure, well woven inside and out and glued together with saliva and bits of spider web so as to form a solid mass.

The female takes care of building the nest, brooding and rearing the young. Generally, two tiny eggs are laid. The eggs of most species are less than half an inch long.

The courtship of Hummingbirds is a curious spectacle. Male birds perform all kinds of acrobatics to show off. With terrific velocity a male will dive straight down from considerable altitudes, passing with astonishing celerity close to his chosen mate, which watches motionless, perched on a limb of a tree.

After the eggs are laid, however, the father bird deserts the family. the males are pugnacious at times, appearing to enjoy a good fight. Sometimes a pair will stage a mock battle just for their own amusement.

Hummingbirds can fly forward or backward, or stop still in the air, beating their wings with a tremendous rapidity of motion -- about eighty times a second.

This ability to hang in the air was studied for centuries by men who longed to imitate it. Finally the helicopter was invented. It performs some of the feats of the Hummingbird.

The Emerald Hummingbird, with bright metal-green feathers, is one of the largest of its tribe -- four inches.

It lives in the densely forested highlands of South America, especially along small rivers and ravines, where it sucks the nectar of Heliconia, a plant with thick red flowers.

• The Chilean Giant Hummingbird, giant of the family (up to eight and a half inches) dwells in the highlands of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. The birds frequent the humid woodlands of the mountains, where they feed almost exclusively on small insects.
• The Swainson's Hummingbird is the only known form living in the tropical jungles of the Guiana's, Venezuela, and northeastern Brazil.
• The Red-billed Streamer-tail is a resident of Jamaica. Males of this variety display a beautiful bronze green color in upper parts and a lovely, shiny metallic green in breast and abdomen and a conspicuous cherry-red bill.
• The Emerald-throated Hummingbird is a resident of the Caribbean isles, including Puerto Rico and adjacent islands.
• The Anna's Hummingbird summers in the United States. It has a red crown and throat.
• The Black-chinned and Rufous Hummingbirds also nest in North America. The most beautiful eastern species is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, the only one that breeds in Canada. It is a hardy little fellow, traveling as far north as Labrador.