
Whooping Motmots – Two of three that visit at the end of the day….
“I can write best in the silence and solitude of the night, when everyone has retired.”- Zane Gray
Poza Honda – Manabi Province – Ecuador
Thank you all for your great response to the recent painting of the Green Kingfisher; it was painted over a series of nights, and the final session lasted until 5 in the morning! True to most any ‘laborer’ who signs out after a day’s work, I have no problems falling into a deep restorative sleep after those painting sessions.
Mornings are almost always silent, aside from the random sounds from my neighbors the birds. The Whooping Motmots get their name from a very-low ‘Whoop-whoop-whoop’ sound that might frighten skittish people walking through the woods in the twilight! They are most vocal in the first hours of the morning, and at the end of the day.

End of Day – all is calm. Whooping Motmot
When the habitat is almost void of other sounds, one can hear the Motmot’s ‘other’ ultra-quiet whisperings. Barely-audible to my range of hearing, they utter, “Cluck. Cluck. Cluck.”
Only a few yards from one of the birds, the camera video records the subtle movements but the extracted audio is barely perceived.

Gartered Trogon
The Trogons add their own unique sound to this quiet area of the bosque; it’s hard to draw or paint in the daytime when this sound echoes outside my window: Continue reading