Green Backed Heron - Bird photography and identification
Common Potoo (Nyctibius griseus)
Common Potoo (Nyctibius griseus)
Photo description
There are several hiking trails in the Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad. This bird was roosting along one of them. Potoos are a small, uniquely Neotropical family of solitary and nocturnal birds. Their diet is made up mostly or entirely of insects, mainly large night flying ones such as moths. Most are so poorly known they seem more fiction than substance. (When I first saw this vertically roosting species in Costa Rica several years ago on a moonlit night and got a good look at its large amber eye it seemed very fictional to me!) f/7.1, iso 1600, exp comp plus 2.0, 1/400.
Uploaded Apr 13, 2006 | Flickr URL
Tags for this photo
Trinidad Asa Wright Nature Centre Common Potoo Nyctibius griseus
3 comments have been posted about this photo

This is amazing! I'm not even sure how you could tell it was there.
Posted on Apr 13, 2006
Wow!! Perfect camouflage! Is it of the nightjar family?
Posted on Apr 16, 2006
Thanks! I got this from 'Birds of Venezuela' by Steven Hilty. Potoos have enormous eyes and mouths and in general resemble nightjars, as they have very cryptic plumage, but they differ from them in, among other things, their vertical perching posture, larger size, and absence of rictal bristles. They are in the order Caprimulgiforme with Nighthawks and Nightjars but are in the Nyctibiidae family whereas the Nighthawks and Nightjars are in the Aguaitacaminos family.
Posted on Apr 17, 2006
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