This is a white whiskered puffbird. Puffbirds are little guys with rather large heads that can be found in the tropics from Mexico to Brazil. I came across this one in Panama. As the name suggests they are often seen “puffing” out all their feathers as they perch motionless. They are silent assassins, sitting quietly without moving before attacking their prey — which includes insects, spiders, frogs and lizards.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/80th of a second

If you’re going to be a simple black bird, might as well have really cool hair. This is the tawny-crested tanager. The males get the orange top whereas the females are a dark olive brown throughout. I only saw two of these birds on my recent trip to Panama. This will be my last post until next Monday as I’ll be taking a few days off this week.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/200th of a second

I love the way these little glass frogs always look like they’re doing push ups. It’s hard to distinguish between all the different species of glass frog in Panama and other parts of Central and South America, but I believe this guy is the Fleischmann’s glass frog.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 105mm macro lens, ISO 250, f/16 at 1/250th of a second, two Nikon SB-900 flash units

Here’s another for the bird fans. A pretty little bird with a great big name, the violaceous euphonia. These guys were fairly common up in the canopy of the rainforest on my recent Panama trip. I also photographed them in Trinidad last year. This one was eating the fruits of the the cecropia tree (those sausage like things to the right).
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/1000th of a second

Smoky jungle frogs are a common sight when hiking in tropical rainforests at night. They are very large frogs, about 7 inches long and very robust. They are strictly nocturnal and also have a noxious skin secretion. If picked up they make a high pitched scream (not that I recommend picking up a frog with noxious skin, or any frogs for that matter).
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 200, f/9 at 1/160th of a second, two Nikon SB-900 flash units

The blue dacnis is a small bird in the tanager family, and one of rare species of bird where the female plumage gives the male a run for its money. The males are turquoise blue and black while the females are mostly green with a blue head. They range from mid-Central America down to northern Argentina. I photographed this one in Soberania National Park in Panama.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/5000th of a second

I previously posted a canal zone tree frog and an hourglass tree frog from my trip to Panama. But not in the same photo on the same leaf. These two completely unrelated frogs seemed perfectly content to be sharing the same real estate. This one goes out to the other frog lover in my family, my sister Mo, in honor of her birthday on Sunday — a double shot of the Friday frog.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 105mm macro lens, ISO 200, f/25 at 1/60th of a second, two Nikon SB-900 flash units

Here’s the other sloth species that I saw in Panama. I really wanted better photos of these guys but they just didn’t give me that many good looks. They are generally more nocturnal than three-toed sloths, so there was that, but they also had a habit of either hiding behind foliage, or showing me their backside. They actually look quite a bit different from three-toed sloths, other than the obvious difference of having one less toe. They are lighter and more blonde in color, with longer, softer looking, less matted fur. And they have a different shaped face, with more of a pinkish nose. This one was doing his/her sloth-y thing at night in the rain.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 310mm) ISO 800, f/6.3 at 1/160th of a second

Here’s another of the four species of motmot that I photographed on this most recent trip to Panama. A few weeks ago I posted the tody motmot. This is the broad-billed motmot. You can see the classic racket-tip of the tail.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/320th of a second

I took quite a few photos of keel-billed toucans in good early morning light, but there was something about this particular exposure that I liked, captured in very dim, pre-sunrise conditions. The light in the forest was still quite blue when I spotted the toucan through a window in the cecropia trees. I was shooting at only 1/15th of a second but was able to get a few shots when the bird was completely still.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/15th of a second