Tropical Kingbird

I am linking up with Wild Bird Wednesday and Nature Notes

 For this week's wild bird, I am sharing the Tropical Kingbird  seen in Belize.

The Tropical Kingbird was not a Belize lifer, I have seen them in different places during my travels.
 Here is another one of my post sharing the Tropical Kingbird seen in Panama.
This bird is a large tyrant flycatcher. It breeds from southern Arizona to South America

This is not the best shot taken from a great distance and on a cloudy day. But it shows the bird well and their colors. Their head are a pale grey with a darker eye mask. They have a heavy bill and the they have yellow underparts.  They eat insects and some fruits.

I hope you enjoyed my Belize bird.. Thanks for stopping by my post and for all the nice comments.

Join in and post your birdies and to see more beautiful and wonderful bird photos please visit:
 Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday and Michelle's  Nature Notes.  Thanks to our host Michelle our host Stewart.  Happy Birding and have a wonderful week!

Panama highlights

I am linking up with Mosaic Monday  and Our World Tuesday

I wish everyone a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

In these mosiacs are some of the highlights from the first two days of our Panama vacation.

Seeing 7 new hummingbirds was also a treat for me the first day, the Violet-Bellied Hummingbird had the prettiest colors.

In the two previous posts I showed some more of my first day birding the Rainforest Discovery Center and the Pipeline Rd.

The second day included Panama Viejo (Old Panama) ruins and visitors center.

On our city tour I was still looking for birds, you never know when you might see a new bird.

And I did see a new bird as we were leaving the ruins. It is called the Saffron Finch. A pretty yellow bird and another lifer for me.

The Tropical Kingbirds were all over the place.

We also visited the San Jose Church with the gold alter and had  lunch at the Panama Canal's Miraflores Locks. The lunch banquet room at the locks included our own viewing area to watch the ships pass thru the locks. My blog Travel with Eileen has a little more info and photos on the Panama Viejo visitor's center and the ruins.

San Jose Church, we were told a story that in the old days the alter was painted black to hide the gold.

Right now they let ships go thru the locks in one direction for 12 hours and then they switch the directions for the other 12 hours. Ships have to wait in line for their turn either at the entrance of the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans. Additional locks are being built to handle even larger size ships than the ones we saw, so there is construction work constantly happening at the Panama Canal.

The brown pelicans seem to like fishing at the Canal locks. Other birds seen near the locks were the Magnificent Frigatebirds, Swallows, Black Vultures and Turkey Vultures and Laughing Gulls .


Please check out all the mosaic and photos at Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday.  Thanks to Mary for hosting Mosaic Monday and to all the hosts of Our World Tuesday: Arija, Sylvia, Gattina, Lafy Fi and Sandy. Thanks also for stopping by to see my post, I hope everyone has a safe and happy week ahead.