It's a bird! It's a plane! No, actually, it's a bird.

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This is a motmot. In Spanish, it's called a pájaro bobo, which I don't think is very nice, since it pretty much means "dumb-ass bird."

We see them around the neighborhood sometimes. Not as much as the little sparrow things and the clay-colored robins that come and steal pieces of dog food, but if you take a walk around and look up into the trees, they're out there.

There was one sitting on our front gate yesterday morning. Right at dog nose level too, but the dogs were busy lying around the front steps and didn't notice.

I got to hold one once. It hit our front window and fell to the ground, where it was scooped up by Emily (that's the dog). Fortunately, I heard the crash and went outside in time to remove it from her mouth.

It was limp, but breathing, so I took it inside and held it for a while. After 10 or 15 minutes, it seemed to have recovered, so I took it down to the gate, put it through the bars, and opened my hand. It looked around for a second and then flew away, swooping a little toward the street and then lifting effortlessly up and over the wall on the other side.