Trinidad - Channel-billed Toucan

The Channel-billed Toucan doesn't like to fly, preferring to hop along in the tree-tops, so no surprise that after reaching Trinidad the species didn't make the hop to Tobago. The tree here may be the "Toucan Tree" at Asa Wright, as this is a favored foraging and roosting spot. Toucans nest in tree cavities and eat mainly fruit, but will opportunistically take insects, frogs and baby birds. They really don't need the huge bill to eat fruit of course, so the evolution of this feature is speculative. Some think it might play a role in thermoregulation. (http://asawright.org/creature-features/channel-billed-toucan/).

The Channel-billed Toucan is mostly black, but the blue at the base of the bill and on the unfeathered face can be seen even at a distance, as well as yellow on the breast. We can barely see a bit of red at the base of the tail, and the photos don't show the red at the bottom of the breast band. These birds nest in tree cavities, and the young don't fledge until about 7 weeks. Big birds (20") with remarkable bills.

For the taxonomy-minded:
Order: Picaformes - Woodpeckers, Jacamars, Puffbirds, Barbets, and Honey-guides.
Family: Ramphastidae - The Toucans. 40 species here, in 6 genera. Included here are 19 species of Toucanets (smaller, I guess), 4 Mountain-Toucans, 10 Aracari's, and 7 Toucans. These birds are tropical New World species, seen from Mexico to South America.
Genus: Ramphastos - Toucans (all seven are in this genus).
Species: Ramphastos vitellinus - Channel-billed Toucan. About 6 sub-species are currently recognized, and Trinidad has the nomiate ssp. - R. v. vitellinus. Birders who like to keep life lists were perhaps disappointed when some similar Toucan species (Ariel, Yellow-ridged, Citron-throated) were found to freely interbreed where their ranges overlapped, and all were "lumped" under the Channel-billed Toucan rubric. Currently there are 6 named subspecies of the Channel-billed Toucan.