During a night walk in a lowland rain forest in northern Costa Rica, we came across this sleeping Great Tinamou / Großer Tinamu (Tinamus major) in a tree, around 5 meters off the ground. Since I hadn’t brought my flash equipment, I used two small headlamps to illuminate the bird a bit. A very long shutter speed finally made the Tinamou visible in the photos (200 mm, f5.6, ISO 1000, 8 sec).
„The larger members of the sub-family, and in particular Tinamus members roost in trees. They do so on fairly horizontal branches and will pick out branches that are 2–5 metres (6.6–16.4 ft) off the ground. They will fly to the branch with a noisy burst of flying while expending amounts of energy that they prefer not to. To make this an easier task, they will attempt to approach the branch from an uphill location so as to not need to gain as much altitude in flight. (…) When roosting they will not grip the branch with their toes, but rest on their folded legs. This is the reason the back of their tarsus is rough, and for their choice of branches being thick. They will use the same roost for an extended period of time, moving away from the roost to defecate so as to not plant easy evidence of their sleeping location to potential predators.“ – Wikipedia