Gratitude 17

I am grateful for the Resplendent Quetzal, that rock star of birds in Central America.  To my surprise, I once heard someone, Central American by birth, tell me that they don't like quetzals, saying they look gaudy and pretentious.  Well, I did call them rock stars, didn't I?   Here's an image if you would like to make up your own mind:





Let's see....David Bowie?  How about Freddy Mercury?  Maybe even Robert Plant and Jimmy Page with feathers?  How glam can you get?

If the iridescent tail feathers, which are moulted annually, look familiar, you might have seen them on Montezuma's headdress.  I believe there are tat least such feathers adorning it.  Perhaps more:


I don't know if this is the original or the copy.  The original I believe to be in a museum in Vienna.  The copy, believe it or not, is in the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.  When I first saw it I thought it was the original.  I am sure the feathers are authentically quetzal as they would be very difficult, if not impossible to imitate.  There are doubts about its provenance and there is no way of authenticating even the original, though Mexico still wants it back.  Only the priests and nobility in the Aztec and Mayan nations were allowed to wear the plumes of the quetzal which was held sacred as a personification of the god Quetzalcoatl.  The Maya would capture the birds live, pluck of their tail feathers and set them free.  Killing one of these birds was punished by death.



I also enjoy painting them.



The challenge of painting them well is worth every little brushstroke.

I a small group of quetzals live, once in Costa Rica, at the edge of a clearing next to the cloud forest of Monteverde.

The quetzal is a trogon, an order of Neotropical birds with a few representatives in Africa and Southeast Asia:


If you wish to see what trogons look like, Gentle Reader, then you will have to click this link.  None of the images I have tried are safe for my computer. 

https://www.google.ca/search?q=trogons+images&biw=1438&bih=685&tbm=isch&imgil=ZvxJzq_-HKSdaM%253A%253B5bDTo14st1feaM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fantpitta.com%25252Fimages%25252Fphotos%25252Ftrogons%25252Fgallery_trogons.htm&source=iu&pf=m&fir=ZvxJzq_-HKSdaM%253A%252C5bDTo14st1feaM%252C_&usg=__MgZgC4pf0nZF1DyeT9F905A76NU%3D&ved=0ahUKEwjJha323JjSAhUCqVQKHYw5BCUQyjcIPQ&ei=csKnWMmELYLS0gKM85CoAg#imgrc=-DsT0yO-RAmNXM: