| White Bellbird Procnias albus | ||||
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Carajás, Pará, Brazil October 2005 The White Bellbird is distributed in the Guianan Shield area of Venezuela, the Guianas and north Brazil but there are populations recorded in odd spots north of the Amazon and east of the rio Negro. See the distribution map at Birdlife International. |
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These photos were taken south of the Amazon where there is a population, apparently isolated, at Carajás. This is a different sub-species, P.a. wallacei which was described as recently as 1985. One of the curious differences of this race compared to the nominate is that the wattle, which grows from the base of the upper mandible, hangs down the left of the bill whereas nominate birds are right-wattled. | |||
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You can see this quite clearly in photo 1 which also shows
the short white feathers growing out of the wattle. The White Bellbird is one of the very few completely white land birds. The female is totally
different being olive green above and olive with yellow streaks below.
The bird gets its English name from the loud bell-like call that it makes while perched on the top of a tree. |
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Photos 3 to 6 are a sequence taken in the space of 3 seconds. The bird begins his call by gulping air and puffing out its throat. It then opens its mouth extremely wide and lets out a very loud "ding-ding" call. He can call like this every minute or so for quite a time. | |||
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