I remember first hearing about and seeing these birds on David Attenborough's Life of Birds. I was amazed at how much they could look like a broken-off stump of a tree, that they have huge eyes, and the fact that their eye-lids have a small hitch in them that allows them to see (to some degree) while keeping their eye's closed in order to maintain their camouflage. This was certainly a bird I was very excited to see in Trinidad, and we were quite lucky, as this one on the grounds of the Asa Wright Nature Center was pretty easy to see. I'd often heard stories of people looking directly at these birds at a very close range, without being able to really see or distinguish them from the branch they were on. Thankfully it wasn't the case for us. (Although who knows how many others I might have looked at without seeing!)
More info on these fascinating birds can be found here.
Sadly, I think this might be one of my last BPWs with photos from our trip to Trinidad & Tobago. I fear that I am beginning to become a bit redundant with ones I'd already posted in other parts of this blog. The good thing is that spring is finally starting to poke it's head out of the ground here in New England, and hopefully I start getting more shots of our birds in New England as the come in and through.
