Pelican Yoga

Aspects of Colombia (#13 in teaser series: Sunbittern)

Published July 17, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#13 in teaser series: Sunbittern)

Just about everything about the sunbittern is misleading, including its name.

It is not a bittern.

Being wary/ “shy” – & predatory – this elusive bird generally favours shaded rather than sunny places – usually, near riverbanks in warm, humid South & Central American forests.

Eurypyga helias is the only member of its genus & of its family.

It is neither a heron nor a rail, but looks as if it just might be closely-related; it is not.

When undisturbed & engaged in hunting, or tending to its young, a sunbittern has a “well-camouflaged” appearance.

Its interesting but subdued plumage does bear a vague resemblance to a bittern’s.

However, when alarmed/threatened – or when basking in sunlight – this species spreads its wings…& suddenly reveals some of the most spectacular plumage of any bird species!

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Aspects of Colombia (#12 in teaser series: very leggy)

Published July 15, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#12 in teaser series: very leggy)

Colombia is a global “hotspot” for spider species.

More than 580 of those identified there are believed to be endemic; they have only been seen in Colombia…knowingly, at least, by human eyes.

I do not know the pictured spider’s species, nor its particular specialty/niche.

My hunch is that it is semi-aquatic; I suspect that it actively hunts its prey, rather than “trapping” them in a web or pit.

I can confirm that its legs were very long; they spanned a considerable portion of the relevant rock, which was not merely a pebble

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Aspects of Colombia (#11 in teaser series: one of many monkeys)

Published July 12, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#11 in teaser series: one of many monkeys)

With circa 150 living species, Brazil is – hands-down – the world’s most primate-diverse nation.

Colombia is also unusually primate-diverse.

You are looking at a small, arboreal, diurnal, monogamous monkey.

It eats fruits (& thereby distributes their seeds) & leaves (thereby, helping to “open up” the rainforest’s canopy, thus increasing the amount of light that reaches the forest floor) and insects. (it probably eats arachnids too)

Plecturocebus discolor has a number of “common” names; it is most commonly known as the white-tailed titi.

It is one of 41 New World monkey species that currently survive in Colombia.

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Aspects of Colombia (#10 in teaser series: wet)

Published July 10, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#10 in teaser series: wet)

A portion – a very small portion – of Colombia is desert.

More generally, as measured by annual rainfall statistics, Colombia is the world’s wettest nation.

From #6 on – & for the next several posts in this series – all locations are within “cattle country” near the city of Villavicencio.

Here, one is only circa 100 kilometres from Bogotá, but in an utterly different “world”.

Having headed southeast of the national capital – & crossed the easternmost of the Andes’ three Colombian cordilleras – one reaches a locale which is very much lower, hotter & wetter.

Average annual rainfall in Villavicencio: 4,450 mm.

Darwin is (by far) Australia’s wettest capital city; its annual average is 1,723 mm.

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Aspects of Colombia (#9 in teaser series: an atypical owl)

Published July 7, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#9 in teaser series: an atypical owl)

This petite owl is mostly-terrestrial; it can fly, but rarely does so.

It is diurnal, not nocturnal.

Its “home sweet home” is not high up in a tree, cave, cliff-face or barn.

Burrowing owls dwell underground.

Their common name, however, is misleading; so-called “burrowing” owls prefer to take advantage of actually-burrowing animals.

They move into those other animals’ “abandoned” burrows.

I suspect that some owner-excavators’ “abandonment” of their homes would have been lethally “assisted” by members of the pictured species, Athene cunicularia.

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Aspects of Colombia (#8 in teaser series: yes, this reptile does eat capybara)

Published July 5, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#8 in teaser series: yes, this reptile does eat capybara)

It was rather obvious that the capybaras pictured in #7 of this series were all looking in the same direction, intently.

Probably, their eyes were keenly focused on this post’s hero, who was basking on the wetland’s opposite bank.

S/he is a spectacled caiman – one of six living caiman species. (or three species – caimans’ classification is a contested/confusing field)

Caimans are South & Central America’s crocodilians.

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Aspects of Colombia (#7 in teaser series: semi-aquatic giants in “cattle country”)

Published July 2, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#7 in teaser series: semi-aquatic giants in “cattle country”)

You are looking at very large, highly sociable rodents.

There are just two capybara species; pictured is the more widespread, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, the greater capybara.

It is – handsomely – the world’s largest living rodent.

A “typical” adult weighs between 35 & 66 kilograms; females are bigger than males.

The heaviest-recorded wild capybara weighed 91 kilograms!

An adult’s body length usually exceeds 1 metre.

These very adaptable herbivores inhabit every South American nation, bar Chile.

They thrive in both grassland & forest, & quite happily share habitat with humans & their livestock.

Capybaras mate and give birth only in water, so convenient access to a river, lake or wetland is a “must”.

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Aspects of Colombia (#6 in teaser series: wild giant in “beef cattle country”

Published June 30, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#6 in teaser series: wild giant in “beef cattle country”

The pictured location’s altitude is very much lower (circa 450 metres ASL, rather than 3,500 metres) than was #5’s in this single-image series.

The climate here is very much hotter & the terrain is flat.

If it had been left in its natural state you would be looking at a photo of dense tropical rainforest, unfenced, with absolutely no cattle.

Assuredly, we are not the first visitors to be amazed that this “much-degraded” countryside is still inhabited by the largest of “our” globe’s four “anteater” species.

Myrmecophaga tridactyla – the giant anteater – can coexist with beef cattle…and it is not much-troubled by fences – non-electrified ones, at least.

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Aspects of Colombia (#5 in teaser series: flourishing in a “degraded” environment)

Published June 28, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#5 in teaser series: flourishing in a “degraded” environment)

At 11.22 am on the 4th of March this year, we were at least several hundred metres closer to sea level than where I had taken the previous post’s photo

However, we were still at high altitude – probably, circa 3,500 metres ASL – & still on the flanks of Nevado del Ruiz.

The air was still deliciously cool and clean.

Very obviously, we were still in a very high-rainfall zone.

I think we were no longer within Los Nevados National Park.

You may – or may not – recognise exactly what provided the pictured lichens and mosses with an obviously-ideal home.

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Aspects of Colombia (#4 in teaser series: naturally-abstract @ 4,300 metres)

Published June 26, 2026 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Colombia (#4 in teaser series: naturally-abstract @ 4,300 metres)

The “big monks” (frailejones) are páramo‘s signature plants, & also this tropical tundra’s tallest.

Its “little guys” are also striking…& there are many different kinds.

Páramo is, I think, the most species-diverse of any seriously-high altitude ecosystem.

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