We’ve been fortunate enough to get into nature in many different places and there are certainly some colorful and interesting birds in the jungles of South America as well as the forests of North America. Birds, however, can be found almost everyplace. Although birds like pigeons and black birds are the most common, it doesn’t mean that you won’t find some more unique ones wherever you live. Like many people, we have a birdfeeder in our back yard to attract different varieties of birds and we enjoy watching them throughout the year.

We aren’t necessarily bird watchers, but we do keep our eyes out for birds whenever we are out and about, especially hiking. During our trip to Ecuador, we had two specific opportunities to go in search of birds. The first was our trip the top of the canopy of the Amazon Jungle where we saw macaws and several other colorful birds. On the following day, we took a boat out to a “clay lick” where different varieties of parrots flocked to enjoy the minerals that are found in the clay.

As we mentioned, though, you don’t have to be in the jungle or forest to see interesting birds. We have seen birds in the trees of Budapest, found them in parks of the city, and sometimes in the trees of our hotel. We have so many hawks where we live in Colorado that we consider them to be as common as the black birds and pigeons that we see wherever we travel. We aren’t sure what the most unique bird that we have seen would be, but we certainly enjoy all of the various varieties. It isn’t always easy to capture a photograph of them as they often fly away just as you pull out your camera to catch their image. What is the most unique bird you have seen and were you able to capture it in a photograph?