28 January 2010, El Valle, Cocle Province, Panama

These large birds have very long tails with racket-shaped tips. The tail is
often twitched back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. Legend says
that motmots pluck their tail feathers to produce the racket shape, but
this is not true. Young birds lack the rackets which form as weakly
attached feather barbs fall out naturally. In fact, the tail is so long
that I suspect it would be near impossible for a motmot to reach the tip of
its tail with its bill.

It was very difficult to get the whole bird in the field of view. This was
my best attempt. A couple of Blue-gray Tanagers may be seen at a feeder
near the bottom.

Digiscoped with Panasonic DMC-LZ5 | Nikon FieldScope 3 | 30X WA | hand-held
(no adapter)