About the Image(s)

This is another image from my trip to the Amazon rainforest near Manaus Brazil. Shot from a small boat as we searched for birds along the banks of the Rio Negro River. The Hoatzin (WHAT-sin) are large birds with an unusual appearance. Their call is loud. Groups of them move clumsily through the rainforest causing considerable commotion. Hoatzins are ruminators. Like cows, goats, and sheep, Hoatzins digest their food with the help of bacterial fermentation. Those ruminating mammals have specialized sacs in their gut called a ‘rumen’, whereas Hoatzins have an enlarged esophagus and crop. The Hoatzin is the only bird in the world that uses these foregut compartments instead of a stomach to digest food. Its diet consists almost entirely of leaves, which pass into the bird’s crop, where the process of bacterial fermentation gets fired up. Now isn't that cool! Image shot with a Nikon Z8 with Z400mm f4.5 lens. Processed in Lightroom Classic and Topaz Photo AI. Cropped in LR and run through Topaz AI to upscale, denoise and sharpen. Finished up in LR, making minor adjustments to highlights, shadows, exposure and clarity. I've included the original.