Purple Honeycreeper male, Asa Wright Nature Centre, Trinidad

Tonight, 5 June 2017, I had hoped to edit and post the photos leading up as far as seeing an actual Oilbird. However, I have run out of time and mental energy, and still have maybe half a dozen images I want to add before I can post a shot of one of these very special birds. Not that my photos of them are very good, especially as one is not allowed to use flash in the cave. Hopefully, I can get that far in the next day or two.

Meanwhile, here is a photo of one of my favourite birds to see and photograph on the island of Trinidad - a little Purple Honeycreeper male. I had seen photos of them before six friends and I went on this adventure, and I was hoping so much that we would see one. I need not have worried, as there were so many of these small, purple/blue birds each day. Just love their bright, yellow legs and feet.

"The purple honeycreeper (Cyanerpes caeruleus) is a small bird in the tanager family. It is found in the tropical New World from Colombia and Venezuela south to Brazil, and on Trinidad. A few, possibly introduced birds have been recorded on Tobago.

The purple honeycreeper is 4.5 in (11.5 cm) long, weighs 0.42 oz (12 g) and has a long black decurved bill. The male is purple with black wings, tail and belly, and bright yellow legs. Females and immatures have green upperparts, and green-streaked yellowish-buff underparts. The throat is cinnamon, and there is a blue moustachial stripe. The call of purple honeycreeper is a thin high-pitched zree.

This is a forest canopy species, but also occurs in cocoa and citrus plantations. At the upper limit of its altitudinal range, it frequents premontane rainforest, usually rather low-growing (33–50 ft/10–15 m) and full of epiphytes and mosses.

The purple honeycreeper is often found in small groups. It feeds on nectar (particularly from bromeliad and similar flowers, to which its bill shape is adapted), berries and insects, mainly in the canopy. It is a bold and inquisitive bird, responding readily to the call of the ferruginous pygmy owl (Glaucidium brasilianum) by coming out of cover and searching for the presumed predator to mob it. The female purple honeycreeper builds a small cup nest in a tree, and incubates the clutch of two brown-blotched white eggs." From Wikippedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_honeycreeper