My favorite find at Finca El Pilar near Antigua, Guatemala, or actually several miles before it in a residential area, was the bushy-crested jay. My guide, Bobby, pulled the car over to the side of the street and pointed several of them out in a heavily vegetated lot with lots of trees. Several of these beautiful, loud jays were flitting about among the trees. I had several failed attempts to photograph them and thought I'd blown it, until another came into view just as we were getting ready to leave.
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| I love the yellow on the chin that matches the yellow and orange flower it is standing on. |
The head, neck, breast and upper mantle are black and the remaining upperparts are dark blue with a sheen of green or violet. The underparts are greenish-blue, the undersides of the wings are gray and the underside of the tail is blackish. The head has a stubble-like erectile crown of feathers and the iris is yellow. There are two subspecies. I saw the nominate ssp. melanocyaneus, found in Guatemala and southern El Salvador. It is limited in range to just a portion of Central America.
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| Illustration of ssp. melanocyaneus from Birds of the World. |
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| Range from Birds of the World. |
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