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Dan | all galleries >> Nicaragua Living and Retirement Galleries >> A Little Bit Of Nicaragua > Oropendola
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07-JAN-2009 Dan Polley © 2009

Oropendola

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

Montezuma Oropendola (Psarocolius montezuma), a large bird related to orioles and blackbirds. The sexes are very different in size, with males being 50cm long and weighing 500g, while the females are only 36cm long and weigh 200g. Despite this huge size difference the plumage is the same except for the pink wattles under the chin which is larger on males.
They are a colonial species, with groups range from half a dozen to over 20. Each group has a dominant male, who mates with all the females!! Their nests are very complex, elongated hanging baskets that can be 1.8m (6ft) long. The females build the nests and do all of the incubating.
They are distributed through Central America, mostly on the Caribbean side.





Canon EOS 40D ,Sigma 80-400mm F4.5-5.6 APO EX DG OS
1/400s f/7.1 at 400.0mm iso640 IMG_0177bird.JPG full exif

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