Less chirping, more eating!

Off we go to another cool SMAP, with one of the funniest themes: birds with open beak!

My "open beaks portfolio" needs some tweaking, but still found enough of them to give it a go (mental note: take photos of birds in a ton of different situations to have material for these contests 😁):

^{Hooded crow - Corvus cornix}

One of my favourite crows, but unfortunately they don't exist in Portugal. Nevertheless, it's quite easy to see them where they exist; this one was seen in Budapest, chirpin about the weather in an urban park somewhere in the city.

What does exist in Portugal are these cute guys:

^{Black winged stilt - Himantopus himantopus}

They were all over the place, in some salt flats, south of the country. And extremely vocal as well! If I had to guess, this one was probably saying some like "I'm gonna break that camera if you take on more photo, you &##""#$""!

Apart from swearing, there's another great reason to open the beak: feeding time!

^{Eurasian hoopoe - Upupa epops}

This hoopoe was having a blast, drilling the lawn for bugs. And judjing by the time she spent there, she definitely was getting her belly full!

And now, a rarity!

^{Azorean blackbird - Turdus merula azorensis}

A blackbird! But not any blackbird: this one was photographed in São Jorge island, in Açores. Is it different from the common blackbird? Well, not really... but it truly is a different subspecies, endemic to these islands! So still counts as a rarity!

Speaking of rarities, these next ones are seen in the hundreds when they come... but they only spend a few months in Portugal.

^{Common crane - Grus grus}

This couple was arguing loudly, probably something about the travel they done until here. Either that, or to warn the other ones there was a small group of papparazzis nearby, trying to take decent crane photos (failed miserably).

And to the end, another rarity!

^{Wingless crocobird - Crocus deceivus}

Wide open er... beak; this elusive species can't fly, and his feathers evolved to scale-like structures, resembling a complete different animal, that wouldn't have a place in this post. A magnificent animal! 😉

Happy birding everyone!

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