Yellow-throated Toucan

If you sit on the dinning hall deck above the feeders at Selva Verde Lodge on the Sarapiqui River in Costa Rica long enough on any given day, the Toucans will come. Yellow-throated Toucans. They were, until recently the Chestnut-mandibled, or maybe Black-mandibled Toucans, but the bird name gods have been at work, and somehow decided that Yellow-throated was better…despite the fact that the other big toucan in Central America, the Keel-billed Toucan, also has a bright yellow throat…as do several other South American species. Yellow-throated actually lumps both Chestnut and Black-mandibled into a single species with two races, divided north and south. These big, bright birds are emblematic of the tropics. Seeing them in flight it is hard to imagine how they manage to carry that bill out in front…but I am told that it is very thin and light. Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent. Anti-motion Blur mode (due the very dim light at the feeders). Processed in Polarr and assembled in FrameMagic.

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