Coral Reef Photos » Pelicans + Tropic Birds

Caribbean Brown Throated Parakeets, Aratinga pertinax

barry — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:26:11 +0000

Good evening Earthlings, I come in Peace!! Today was a great day of diving for once, it seems like it’s been forever since the water has been clear but today it was!! I first did one dive with two lucky guys in the sub and a second dive later to clean up the invasive Lionfish that are currently attacking Curacao!

So tonight for your viewing pleasure I have not one but two very sexy and super beautiful Parakeets! These are called Caribbean or Brown-throated Parakeet’s, Aratinga pertinax and are very common here on the island but VERY hard to get close to! I always tell our visitors, if loudly screaming bright green birds fly by in a colorful flash, they are most likely parakeets! One of the coolest things about these birds is that there are three different species and each species live on their own island, Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire. On Aruba, the Parakeet has a greenish brown head with at the most a little yellow near the eye. On Curacao the whole head with the exception of the crown, is yellow, while on Bonaire the crown and sometimes the neck is yellow too. Unfortunately there has been some mixing between the races because of caged birds from Curacao being released onto the other islands which as you can imagine disturbs the natural evolutionary process. The parakeets eat seeds from Wabi, DiviDivi and Indju trees and of course all kinds of fruits.

Have a great day all!! Barry

Blue-tailed Emerald Hummingbird, Chlorostilbon mellisugus

barry — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:55:28 +0000

Good evening readers, this morning as Aimee and I left the house our next door neighbor pulls up in her car and says, “I just saw the cutest thing ever”!! She said there is hummingbird in her yard laying on two tiny little eggs in a small yucca bush and that we just had to see it!! We quickly ran over and quietly peeked into the plant and sure enough there it was, a tiny little nest with two eggs the size of jelly beans, but no hummingbird? Since we were running late and we had to go I told our neighbor and Aimee I will go back later today and check again and try to get a few photos. So after doing a sub dive I took off back to the house for lunch and to let the dogs and to go check on the hummingbird. I grabbed my camera and tripod and took off and immediately saw from a distance that the female hummingbird was now home and sitting on the nest. I ever so quietly moved in and was shocked at how trusting this bird was, it never really moved at all! I honestly sat about two feet away from the nest for around 30 minutes and never once did this small little bird show any signs off stress, really amazing. This is a Common or Blue-tailed Emerald Hummingbird, Chlorostilbon mellisugus. The male is a glittering green (emerald) color while the female (seen here) is duller with grey under parts. I will keep you posted on new developments, so stay tuned!

At 5:00 Stijn and I took off on our weekly Tuesday night ride. About 15 minutes into our ride we passed two nice local dogs on the beach and we figured the owner must be here somewhere just out of view. My gut feeling told me to stop and to make sure that there was a person here so I yelled at Stijn to hold-up and lets see if we can find some owners!! I called the dogs over and Stijn went to look for a human but sure enough these were two lost dogs! I immediately called Aimee and told her to grab some leashes and get down here to the beach ASAP and help me get these dogs back to the car, I figured at least they would be safe at our house. Well, as we were holding them and petting them we noticed they both had a phone number written on their collars! I grabbed my phone and called and prayed someone would answer! The phone rang and I said, “are you missing two dogs”?? A woman’s voice came on and said YES, where are you?? Turns out the dogs were a long ways from home and had been gone for days! Aimee showed up and put them on a leash and we all went back to the car where the dogs owner was waiting! It was a great reunion, talk about a happy ending, those two dogs will sleep good tonight!

It’s off to bed, still raining here!! See ya, Barry

Baby Caribbean Flamingo Rescue in Curacao

barry — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:59:21 +0000

Hello again, Aimee here with your “Anna the flamingo” update. Anna arrived on our doorstep one week ago today and is really making great progress. At almost every break we are doing something with her, tube feeding or some flamingo physical therapy. This is Eline once again, showing you the walking hammock she made for Anna so that she can be supported, but still get those thin legs moving! Anna is getting better, but was very uncoordinated, weak and had no stamina at all. We try to get her out and moving 4-5 times a day, and bit by bit she is getting better. Yesterday evening I was letting her rest after a walking session, when she began trying to get up all by herself. Yea! Today was even better, with me mostly supporting her with one hand, no longer using the hammock and she even ate some brine shrimp on her own. Things are looking great! Wish us luck and stay tuned for the next fun update.

Ok, cool stuff, Barry here now, you get us both tonight, it’s a two for one special!! I had a typical crazy-fast paced Sunday and can hardly wait to get to bed! My day started with finding a beautiful hermit crab in a super cool fossil shell. I then spent the next hour following him around the beach and trying hard to take his photo, not as easy as it sounds and I promise to send the photo this week. So after an hour and a half out in the jungle and playing on the beach I then raced to meet Aimee at Dolphin Academy to photograph her holding the baby flamingo. After that I went home and got my bike ready and headed out for a three hour/40 mile ride. I left the house at 11:00 with five large water bottles, food, long sleeve jersey, all my camera gear and my medical kit and took off for the North coast. My goal was to find and photograph some of the worst trash areas along the North coast and yes I will be sending you one or two of those photos as well this week, you can’t believe the junk I found! While rumaging thru one of the big messes I found a cool piece of driftwood that looks like a seahorse but unfortunatly I had to leave it there, no room to carry it! I did hide it well and will go back ASAP to retrive it and give it a good home. For those of you who don’t know all the gigantic windmills at Canoa are gone!! Yep, every single one of them! We had these giant windmills on the North coast but “poof” they are gone! I had a great ride today, it was long and super hot but what a beautiful day to be out in the middle of nowhere! That’s kind of my weekend, I did photograph a bunch of new flowers tonight as well, this was really a big photo weekend for me!

Have a great Monday, I will be underwater with the sub and the fish!

Barry and Aimee

Baby, Juvenile Flamingo, Caribbean Flamingo, Curacao

barry — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:13:20 +0000

Good morning everyone, Aimee here. Well, as you can see by the photo we have a new, fun project at the Curacao Sea Aquarium. Her name is Anna and she is a baby flamingo! On the first of January a lady by the name of Anna found this little flamingo on the beach at the Hilton Hotel. We are guessing because of the crazy “New Years Eve fireworks” she somehow ended up flying in the wrong direction or got scared during the night and ended up here. Anna immediately brought it to the Sea Aquarium knowing someone there would know how to help her. Well, our veterinarian, Tom, has had a lot of experience with hand-raising young flamingos, so he and our vet assistant, Eline got right to work making a fluid diet, consisting of water, shrimps, fish, egg yolks, vitamins and minerals, and making a hammock support system for her. We believe she is a fledgling, and would have been newly separated from her mother. She was mostly underweight, and weak. In the photo you can see the set-up that Eline made, it allows Anna to stand, which flamingos do the majority of the time, and get circulation through their body and to have correct thermoregulation. Eline will tube feed Anne four times a day, and we also give her some walking exercise, which is a riot. For this she is taken out of her home and gently placed in another hammock-type system that can be held by strings making her look very much like a little toy flamingo puppet. We give her slight support, wanting to build up her strength, coordination and stamina. She is mostly wobbly and weaving, but is getting stronger each day. So, you never know what kind of project will walk in our front door. I just have a great big “thank you” and “great job” for our animal care staff. They go above and beyond every day and this is just one more example.

Barry is off and is heading out to work on trails which are getting worse by the day because of all the rain. At 12:15 he will come over and photograph our new flamingo baby getting it’s exercise, will send that photo out next!

Have a wonderful weekend, Aimee

Scarlet Macaw Named Rufo in Curacao, Colorful Birds

barry — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:52:43 +0000

Good morning one and all, how are you all doing?? Many out there on my daily e-mail list still don’t know about my “DELL computer crashing and that there won’t be any more daily blogs sent out as an e-mail any more but one by one they are checking in. Yesterday we were super busy at the Substation and this Friday and Saturday are completely full as well which means I will be in the water a lot! Our guests took off yesterday on a tour of the island led by my buddy Stijn who is now out of school because of Christmas and is able to hang out with the crazy Americans. He ended up taking them to Puerto Mari and from the sound of it they all had a wonderful time! Puerto Mari is our “Best Family Beach” that we have in Curacao, it’s clean, safe and has great diving, snorkeling and food, what more do you need?? Scott and Tammi who own a dive shop in the States have been trying hard to get their nine year old daughter Hannah to go diving. So far she has not gone under the water but has again promised that if they take her back to Puerto Mari again she will do it, so lets cross our fingers!!

The fireworks have started here already which has poor Inca scared to death! It’s looking like one of us will have to stay home with the dogs New Years Eve and comfort them from the noise, if that is even possible. We were invited by Dutch to go on a boat and watch the island attempt to blow itself up from the safety of the water so that’s sounding pretty good!!

This morning the whole gang including Stijn are going to Saint Joris for a walk along the coast to collect driftwood and treasures. It rained again last night so it will be a muddy mess but like I say, “if you can see thru the mud and trash, it’s a treasure trove”!

Well, that’s about it for today. We are still eating my moms homemade fudge and cookies (which I even took to work) and loving the Highlander Groog coffee and all the fun gifts we just got for Christmas, thank you all once again!!

I had a request for a photo of our bird RUFO that resides at Dolphin Academy. He is doing well as you can see and continues to entertain the guests on a daily basis! We Love him!

Time to go for a walk, the dogs are so excited, Barry

Caribbean Hummingbirds, Curacao Hummingbirds

barry — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:28:46 +0000

Good morning from the Caribbean wet-lands! It sounded like it rained most of the night, the good side to that is finally we have some cool sleeping weather and for once don’t have the AC running all night. Everything is blooming once again here in Curacao and I keep telling myself I need to get out and shoot some new flowers but so far it hasn’t happened. I did find this beautiful hummingbird feeding on the flowers of a Brasilwood Tree or Haematoxylon brasiletto the other day and stopped for awhile to take a few photos. I looked and looked this morning online for the name of the hummingbird but couldn’t find this particular species and I know it’s a common one as we see them all the time. My Curacao bird book is so limited, it has a Ruby-Topaz and a Blue-Tailed emerald Hummingbird and that’s it, if any of you know the name please let me know and I will update this blog immediately. And since we are on the hummingbird subject, my aunt in Florida sent me this incredible link you have to see; http://www.youtube.com/v/xHkq1edcbk4?version=3%20%20%20%20 It’s a video with Hummingbirds, bees, bats, flowers and other creatures filmed in slow motion, it’s super cool!

Today we are attempting to get into the “Guinness Book of World Records” by doing the deepest radio broadcast with the sub. I am not sure how deep they plan on going but will let you know more about it tonight. For those of you on the island this will be broadcast over Dolfijn FM throughout the day. We also hid a bunch of free sub ride tickets on the island but I believe all of those have been found, but others will be given away again thru Dolfijn FM.

Time to make the coffee and feed the pups, have a wonderful day out there! Barry

Eared Dove, Zenaida auriculata, Curacao Birds

barry — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:20:22 +0000

Good evening readers, it’s Monday evening and I just drove back to work because the internet is still out at our house, thus the reason for no “Daily Blogs via e-mail”. Our little island is getting pounded by rain again! Saturday and Sunday were two boring days inside for yours truly! Saturday was spent just observing the National Geographic crew as they filmed the sub doing it’s thing inside and out which left me just sitting by the side and observing. I tried to take some photos but they asked me to not use flash and if they were filming they didn’t even want to hear the sound of a camera clicking in the background, so I just went home! Sunday they filmed again all day but I stayed home in the rain! I did have a chance to finally work on a few indoor photo projects like a fun Birthday photo for my Mom and I even got our Christmas card finished, so even though it was raining outside I managed to keep busy inside! Today, Monday the NG film crew finished up with last minute interviews and left the island at 1:00. The film is one of six in a series about the aquarium fish trade, I will for sure give you all a heads up when I hear more. Tomorrow we have a sub dive at 9:00 and the rest of the week is fairly busy as well with paying customers.

I took this photo yesterday again out our top floor window right after the rain stopped. All the birds were “fluffed Up” and looked very cold, they are not used to days of rain and cold, cloudy weather. This is called an Eared Dove or Zenaida auriculata. All the other doves and birds had flown away to seek some kind of shelter but not this guy he sat there just as happy as could be. The black spots on the wings and behind the eyes make identification easy and the neck often shows an iridescent purplish color. These doves are most at home in the desert and I always see them when walking the trails. When startled or disturbed they fly straight up like they were shot from a rocket disappearing almost immediately. This behavior has earned them the name “Jumpy Dove”. Like all doves it is a seed eater and is quite common on all three islands. Nests are built in bushes, cacti and low trees.

Ok, I better get back home and get some dinner, cheers, Barry

Flying Caribbean Flamingo’s, Pink Flamingo’s

barry — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:24:36 +0000

Good morning friends, I really don’t have much for you all this morning, everything in the Brown household has been fairly quiet. Last Sunday I took the camera and tripod for a walk down to the still flooded salt pans in hopes of getting some nice flamingo shots but in the end this is all I got. The area I went to is still all under water and the only way in is to get real muddy and make your way thru a desert of thorns with no trail. At one point I was in a good position after crawling on my hands and knees for thirty minutes but thanks to a tree full of loud mouthed squawking parakeets, I was discovered and all the flamingos took off at top speed! I quickly got up off the ground and raced out of the bush to the waters edge and blindly shot away hoping to get something. I almost cried after all the effort it took to get here and then watching as all 200 plus beautiful pink birds all landed safely on the other side!?? Ahhhh the joys of wildlife photography, brings back a lot of memories from our trips to Yellowstone! Normally these birds are somewhat used to seeing people but this year there has been zero foot traffic along the shores due to the flooding so they are way more scared than normal. For anyone really wanting to see this large flock you should just bring a good pair of binoculars and trust me when I say don’t bother trying to get close to them, it just isn’t worth the trouble.

Yesterday we did emergency training with the sub all day. In short what we do is take the sub down to 500 feet and turn off all the power and let the sub slowly rise to the surface “dead in the water”. We then send out our small boat that ties onto the sub and pulls it back in backwards, we did this over and over. My job was to help get the sub into the dock by pulling it with a large rope, let me tell you, that thing is heavy! We do this kind of training every few months just so everyone is on the same page in case something happens. I did go down and clean the underwater camera as well yesterday, check it out this morning, I have it really aimed nice into the reef, I will be down there sometime today. www.seesubmarine.com

Have a great day, Barry

Caribbean Flamingo’s, Chogogo, Caribische Flamingo

barry — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:44:14 +0000

Good morning Amigo’s, it’s time to wake up, get your coffee and get moving, daylight is burning! I have a Caribbean Flamingo shot for you all today that was taken last week with our friends Sal and Patty near Porto Mari. I had requested that Sal stop the car if there were flamingos present, which there were but turns out there were only a few. Patty and I quietly walked as close as we could towards them but it seemed like every step we took they took three away from us, so once again I am in need of a bigger lens! Every time I see these birds it really puts in perspective where we are living and how lucky we are to be able to see such sights on a daily basis. The local people of Curacao call these birds Chogogo and in Dutch it’s Caribische Flamingo. Our Curacao Flamingo’s are actually a deeper reddish orange version of the African Greater flamingo. Baby flamingo’s are born as grey chicks and have grey and brown plumage with only traces of pink. The beta-carotene in their diets which comes mostly from algae and shrimps gives their feathers that famous pink or orange color. They eat by dipping their beak upside down into mud and water and then filtering out the mud and water until just the food is left. Flamingos and pigeons feed their young a milk-like substance that is formed in their digestive tract. Flamingos have good hearing but basically no sense of smell and like other birds can’t taste things very well. When flying as a flock, flamingos will fly at up to 37 mph (60 km) and they’ve been witnessed traveling over 300 miles (500 km) a night. Flamingos may group together by the thousands. In Africa, more than a million lesser flamingos (a species of flamingo – not a “lesser” animal) will group together in one place! This is the biggest flock of birds anywhere. For centuries Bonaire has been the principal breeding site for the Flamingo population in this area which is currently estimated at around 20,000 birds, that’s pretty incredible!

Well friends, it’s off to the sea for me, I will be out in front of the underwater video camera with the sub at 12:15, so please tune in and watch, here is the link again. www.seesubmarine.com

Have a wonderful day!! Barry

Trupial Painting at Boca Tabla in Curacao, Local Birds

barry — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:15:10 +0000

Good morning readers, I for once had a fairly uneventful weekend and managed to get a tad bit more rest than usual. Saturday I went into work and dove with the sub at 11:00 and got home at 1:00. Then I took Sal and Patty for a two hour beach combing session and by the time we got home the day was almost gone. I did stick to my promise and took the dogs for a two hour walk to Saint Joris at 4:30, it was for once a bit overcast so we ended up getting a real long walk in on a new trail. On Sunday, yesterday I first guided our two wonderful house guests back to the airport as they had to be on a plane to Bonaire at 10:30. They will now stay there for a week of serious diving with friends and be back to Curacao on Friday. Once home my buddy Stijn came over and we both went for a dive in search of the new Pipefish that Patty found this week but it was no where to be found, or at least I didn’t see it!! The dive was very quiet, we really didn’t see much that needed to be photographed and on our way back Stijn’s mask broke. At one point he had it off underwater trying to fix the strap but in the end just put it back on his face and had to hold it in place, that’s hard to do! It rained here off and on the whole weekend, this is the first year I can remember our island being green all year! The rest of my day was filled with beach combing and working on the computer. That’s kind of my weekend, what did you guys do??

This is one of the many new freshly painted creatures that now lives on the side of the new “Welcome Snack” at Boca Tabla, the artist is amazing! This is by far the most popular bird on the island, the colorful Trupial but is so often confused with the Yellow Oriole that looks almost identical from a distance.

Running behind already, have a wonderful day, Barry