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MEXICO

29 July - 20 August 2002

by Sandy Ayer

Prairie Boy Does Mexico

I need to apologize at the outset for the too-frequent personal asides and other non-birding references that make this an overly long report, but this is the closest thing I have to a diary of the trip, and I’m simply too pressed for time to do any more editing on it. I should also say that this was not primarily a birding trip, but rather a family vacation. My wife Diane and children Adam (17) and Hannah (14) spent our time in Mexico (July 29-Aug. 20, 2002) visiting the families of our “homestay daughters” Gaby, Leo, and Brenda—three young women who’d boarded with over the past five years us while studying English at the University of Regina. My family and I spent our time shopping, visiting archaeological sites, traveling, doing assorted touristy things, and hanging out with our friends—so there was little time for sustained birding: I only got to three spots mentioned in Steve Howell’s A Bird-Finding Guide to Mexico and I only managed to have one sortie in a birdy location in the early morning. Hence the results—51 life birds and103 total species—far less than I’d hoped for, but I did see some unforgettably beautiful birds.
 
Preparation:

Thanks to the advice I received from a number of contributors to Birdchat and Mex-Birds, I did the following by way of preparation: Prior to the trip my Mexico list consisted of a Rock Dove and House Sparrow seen during a three-hour cross-border shopping spree in Nogales while visiting Arizona in 2000. Our itinerary was to include extended times with our homestay daughters and their families in Mexico City and Puebla as well as an extended trip to Palenque, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Sumidero Canyon (while based in Tuxtla Gutiérrez), Oaxaca, and other market towns and archaeological sites. Palenque was chosen partly in deference to my birding interests (170 potential life birds, of which I hoped to see at least 30. I could hardly wait to get there!

July 30  Teotihuacán.

The day after our gruelling fourteen-hour flight(s) Luis, the father of our homestay daughter Gaby, drove us to this stunning archaeological site (the most impressive of the four that we visited). It’s situated in the state of Mexico about two hours northeast of Mexico City. Great-tailed Grackles showed up almost as soon as we left the house, and if any bird could be said to characterize the country this, along with House Finches, and the Black Vultures that always seemed to be overhead (often in flocks of over 100), was surely it. The site itself yielded what I first thought to be one of the half-dozen varieties of large thrush I’d hoped to see, but turned out to be another widespread and tame bird, the Canyon Towhee.

This was characteristic of my observations: I often got the identification wrong the first time, but I’d spent enough hours poring over Howell and Webb to know what the other one or two possibilities (one of them usually the correct one) were.

Northern Mockingbird, Inca and Rock Doves, and a Song Sparrow also fed among the ruins, while Barn Swallows gyrated overhead. Nothing much else showed itself (or if it had I wasn’t about to go off in pursuit, in deference to our friends and the earnest and passionate guide we’d hired). At the last stop on the tour, after admiring some stunning precolumbian friezes featuring stylized parrots, I happened to glance over a wall and notice some avian motion on a nearby tree trunk. It was a large wren, brown, with white supercilium, and spotted belly. This described about half of the large wrens in the plates of Howlin’ Webb, and I hadn’t got a good look at the throat to tell whether it was spotted or unspotted. However, this was semiarid oak-dominated country, the habitat of the SPOTTED WREN (although the maps in Howell and Webb indicate no large wren species in this part of Mexico).

July 31  Las Arboledas (on the outskirts of Mexico City).

The next morning I hung out in the living room overlooking Luis’s tiny back yard, hoping to see one of the hummingbirds that (according to Luis and his wife) frequent the bougainvillea that overhang the barbed wire on the back wall. After a number of frustrating encounters with a large nondescript female hummingbird I finally caught sight of the small white corners of her tail as she turned her back to me—Magnificent Hummingbird, a bird I’d seen a couple of years ago in Arizona, but was delighted to see again. I’d also seen what appeared to be a House Wren hanging around the yard, but its voice was different somehow (it seemed to have a three-note introductory phrase), and I eventually concluded that it was a subspecies, the Brown-throated Wren. My final sighting was breathtaking: motion in the distant tree tops resolved itself into a large Amazon parrot, green overall with a yellow face, a red patch just above the bill, and a small red patch about halfway down the leading edge of each wing. I still don’t know what it was (anybody have any ideas?) but it was undoubtedly an escapee.

Aug. 1

I got Luis’s wife Lulu to unlock the front door and the front gate so that I could bird the nearby jogging trail that adjoins a street called Paseo de los Gigantes (Giants’ Walk). The giants in question are the thirty-meter eucalyptus trees that line the path and help give the neighborhood its name, Las Arboledas, although the tiny woman who brushed by two-meter me—under my elbow, in fact—may have wanted to expand the definition. Actually, I always felt somewhat out of place everywhere I went in Mexico. Not only was I head and shoulders above my hosts, but I was also one of the few bearded men, it seemed, in the entire country. Add to that a pony tail and binoculars (I encountered no other birders during the entire trip) and you can understand why I felt like conspicuousness personified.

At any rate, I started scanning the treetops hoping to find something other than House Sparrows and House Finches. An American Robin made an appearance, and then something that looked like a robin but had a grayish throat; as it turned its head just enough to reveal a ruddy back, I recognized my first-ever RUFOUS-BACKED THRUSH. Further scans of the treetops revealed a Least Goldfinch and a flock of Bushtits.

Aug. 2

After a brutal night with little sleep, the five of us squeezed into Luis’s Nissan Maxima for the 1000 km. drive to Palenque. As we left the last squalid barrios of Mexico City and climbed the pine-forested pass into the state of Puebla, I was expecting to see bird after bird flying over the highway. Nothing. Nor was there anything other than a flock of House Finches at our first treed stop. In fact, that morning the only “life” anything I saw was Popocatepetl, my first-ever active volcano.

Avian activity began to pick up that afternoon after we made the 1000 meter descent into the state of Veracruz. A circling flock of Black Vultures, at least a hundred of them, opened things up. As we moved south through lowlands reminiscent of African savannah, Snowy and Great Egrets, along with Neotropic Cormorants, became the “default” birds.  Raptors began to appear. Some perched by the side of the road; one I caught a glimpse of was actually perched on wires directly overhead. It had a long-legged look to it, and when I hauled out Howlin’ Webb my initial impression was confirmed: ROADSIDE HAWK. A short while later, just after entering the state of Tabasco, I saw a long, thin raptor with a distinctive head fly into a tree. I knew instinctively that it was a CRESTED CARACARA. My last bird of the day was an Ibis—odds are that it was a White-faced Ibis—that narrowly avoided flying into our windshield in Villahermosa.    

It was still light when we arrived in Palenque. Luis, who had been here before, joked that if I failed to see a toucan he knew of a local hotel that had a really lively specimen in a cage. I thanked him, but inwardly dismissed the offer, certain that I’d see one at the archaeological site the next day.

We then made our way through ranchland that had once been jungle to Edcabanas (edcabanas@yahoo.com), part of the El Panchán cooperative situated just outside the park entrance. In our e-mail correspondence Ed, a trained ornithologist and herpetologist, mentioned that there’s an observation deck on the top of his mini-hotel from which all sorts of birds and butterflies can be seen, so I was eager to unpack and get down to business.

We had the only two air-conditioned rooms, and they were brand new, well furnished, and the price was right. I made my way eagerly up to the roof, but despite the seemingly ideal habitat, that included a creek, huge ceiba trees, and flowering bird of paradise plants, my time on the observation deck yielded nothing in the way of birds. The grounds were, however, full of butterflies of every size and color, and I began to wonder whether it might be time to switch passions.

Aug. 3

After a fitful sleep, thanks to the all-night rooster and Luis’s snoring, I woke up at 7:15—too late to do any birding; everyone else was up and ready for breakfast. I took my binoculars along to the open-air restaurant, but again there was zip, nada, zedro (as we Prairie boys are wont to say) in the way of birds. Glimpsing motion in the foliage across from our table, I grabbed by binoculars, and saw my first of several SCRUB EUPHONIAS. Another small mostly yellow warbler-like bird accompanied it, but I couldn’t see enough field marks to identify it. In hindsight, it was probably a Bananaquit.
After breakfast a commotion in the tree revealed a small flock of large white and brown birds. I hauled out Howlin’ Webb. Funny, I hadn’t expected BROWN JAYS to look like that.

We reached the archaeological site just after 9:00 a.m. and pulled into the last available spot in the parking lot. The place was swarming with Mexican and European tourists. So much for my chances of seeing a Bat Falcon on top of the tower of El Palacio. Just around the corner from the entrance I spotted a small flock of MASKED TITYRAS, but they spooked before I could hear their “distinctive buzzy or fart-like calls” (Howell and Webb, p. 522). I didn’t get a second chance. A small parakeet with a long pointed tail flew shrieking by, but I didn’t have a clue at this point what it might be.

I joined the others, who were somewhat frustrated that the Temple of the Inscriptions was closed, and we headed over to El Templo de la Cruz.  From the top of the temple I caught sight of two apparent falcons soaring in the distance, one of which seemed smaller than the other. This bird turned, revealing a buff rump, but when I looked in the field guide this didn’t turn out to be a field mark, and I listed the birds simply as falcon sp. Had the overflights of ultralight aircraft forced them to keep their distance from the ruins?

I decided to join Luis at El Templo del Sol. A few minutes later, my two teenagers, Adam and Hannah and I headed back to El Templo de la Cruz via a path through the jungle. This brief jaunt provided me with my best birding of the day. A small, slender, white-bellied, long-billed bird alighted on a branch overhead. “Rufous-tailed Jacamar!” I thought at first, but the bird was too placid, drab, and small to be anything but the other option: LONG-BILLED GNATWREN. Next to show up was a small blue bird with red legs; this was an easier call: RED-LEGGED HONEYCREEPER.  At the foot of the path a woodpecker darted into a nearby tree. Heart in mouth, I prayed “O God let me see this one!” He obliged with the bird of the day: CHESTNUT-COLORED WOODPECKER.

On to El Palacio, where Adam collided with a cornice and went sprawling. Once he recovered we went out onto the battlement. Birds were circling overhead. One was not a vulture. It had the jizz of a kite, was light-phased, brownish, and had a number of narrow dark bands on the underwing. Confused, I left it at “kite sp.” But I later realized that part of my confusion lay in trying to decide among three morphs of the same bird, HOOK-BILLED KITE.

We headed southeast, stopping in a clearing so the kids could barter with some children selling pendants. The only tree in the clearing seemed to be harboring birds. A very small female hummingbird was feeding near the crown. It was quite nondescript: white below, green above, dark around the eye, had a fairly straight bill, WHITE-BELLIED EMERALD. There was another very cooperative tiny bird in the tree, one I’d been expecting to see, but I was surprised at how small the WHITE-COLLARED SEEDEATER turned out to be. A much larger bird flew into a tree at the opposite end of the clearing. Another breathed prayer and a look at Howlin’ Webb to see which robin-like bird it was—CLAY-COLORED THRUSH .

Down the hill we went towards the Grupo del Norte. A woodpecker in a tree served to delay a promised neck massage to still-smarting Adam—this species would turn up quite often throughout the trip—GOLDEN-FRONTED WOODPECKER. It was now well past eleven, and as the others headed for the car I caught sight of a large flycatcher making barely audible vocalizations from midstorey. It looked like a Great Kiskadee, but the absence of brown in the wings and the subdued voice meant that it was a BOAT-BILLED FLYCATCHER.
 
At this point Diane suggested that I spend the rest of the afternoon (until 4:00 p.m.) birding. Weakened by the heat (which was somehow made all the more oppressive by the earsplitting “z-z-zing” of the cicadas), the humidity, dehydration, and hunger, and feeling discouraged by what I thought was a relatively unproductive morning (about as many species as our team usually gets in Regina’s Christmas bird count) I had to summon the will to accept her gracious offer. I bought another 1.5 liter bottle of water, showed my ticket stub, and headed back into the ruins to find the Temple of the Inscriptions Trail, which Howell describes as being “famous among birders.” As the only birder present, I had to take his word for that, but when I reached El Templo del Jaguar there was a yellow ribbon across the trail with “prohibido el paso” written on it. Likewise blocked and guarded was the creekbed below.

Doubly discouraged, I headed back to the main ruins. As I climbed a set of stone steps I heard a couple of little boys who were sitting nearby joking about “cuarenta” (40) (presumably their estimate of my metric shoe size). I was too tired and dull-witted to tell them that they had had the good fortune to mock someone whose age and metric shoe size just happened to coincide at “cincuenta” (50).

Pressing on, I heard a raucous wren-like sound coming from a tree just north of El Palacio, and sure enough, what turned out to be a most obliging BAND-BACKED WREN emerged and kept re-emerging over the next five minutes. Nearer the Grupo del Norte I spied a smaller wren, hoping that it was one of the three possible life bird possibilities from that subgroup. It turned out to be a Southern House Wren, so I had to settle for a subspecies. Overhead some White-Collared Seedeaters were cavorting on a low branch, but there was something small and yellow and warbler-like with them. I didn’t get a good look at the head, but it had a thin bill and a small white wing check. BANANAQUIT was the only bird answering that description.

I then found a maintenance road and followed it for awhile, since it was one of the few places that wasn’t crawling with people. Some loud, raucous sounds coming from a nearby tree caught my attention, and my quick draw with the binoculars was rewarded with a sighting of a large Saltator. But which one? Try as I might over the next five seconds, I couldn’t get a definitive view of the throat, but the large size, noisiness, and the fact that there seemed to be at least two of the things present convinced me that I’d just seen a BLACK-HEADED SALTATOR. Great, I’d been hoping to see at least one of that family.

It was getting on for 2:30, and I would still have to walk 4 km. back to our lodgings, so I bought another 1.5 liter bottle of purified water (I had yet to relieve myself, which gives you some idea of how much I was sweating) and headed down the steep hill to the valley floor. At the foot of the hill, by some fluke, I happened to glance into shaded grove and saw a bird that had a white bill that contrasted with an otherwise black body and a red chest. CRIMSON-COLLARED TANAGER. Yes! The tanagers were one family I wanted to see a lot of.

I walked on, swigging water as I went, down into the ranch country. A commotion across the road revealed two more saltators that seemed smaller than the first, but they were farther away, and, try as I might, I couldn’t get a good enough look at their throats to tell if they were Buff-throated Saltators. A few hundred meters farther along I noticed a small black bird on a wire. “A very short song, weezit, given as the bird jumps a foot or two above perch and returns” says Peterson of the BLUE-BLACK GRASSQUIT. And that’s exactly what this bird did, much to my delight. A couple of those noisy pointy-tailed parakeets flew over, too fast for me to make an identification. Switching to the shady side of the road, I spied a large, very vocal hummingbird in such poor light that I couldn’t pick out any field marks. It flew into a tree and scolded me for the next five minutes as I tried in vain to get a decent look at it.

Aug. 4

I awoke three times during the night with turista (must’ve been the salad), falling off the bed and banging my head on the cinder block wall the third time. I did manage to get up early, though, but when I left the room I encountered Diane, who informed me that Hannah was sick and would I please go to the farmácia with Luis to pick up some over-the-counter antibiotics. Thus ended my birding at Palenque. Well, almost. I heard those raucous parakeets in the nearby trees and then heard the same sound coming from the two caged parakeets in the compound (Diane and Luis had been on me to add them to my life list). I hauled out Howlin’ Webb and found that they were AZTEC PARAKEETS, something I could’ve figured out from the long pointy tails on their wild cousins if I’d been more observant.

With Hannah stabilized, and Luis (who’d also picked up turista) and me plugged up with Immodium, we headed off to San Cristobal. But first Luis wanted to show us the nearby attractions of Misol Ha and Agua Azul. At the former, a waterfall of about 30 m. in height, I let the others take the trail under the falls. I scanned the pools downstream. There was a kingfisher perched on a log! It was about the size of a Belted but it was green and white with a cinnamon chest patch, an AMAZON KINGFISHER, another species near the top of my desiderata list. A couple of large passerines flew across the river to a branch about 20 m. away. The facial patterns suggested Green Jay, but the colors were wrong. Could they be juveniles? Howell’s bird-finding guide didn’t show Green Jay as a possibility in this neck of the woods. Finally I put two and two and the yellow tail and chestnut belly together and came up with MONTEZUMA OROPENDOLA, a bird that Howell and Webb describe as “unmistakable”! A Red-legged Honeycreeper rounded out my birding experience at the falls. The cascades at Agua Azul were breathtaking, but produced nothing in the way of birds.

Now for the 200 km. five-hour trip to San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Ed of Edcabanas had told me about the first leg of the journey, the Ocosingo Road: “keep your eyes open. A few years back I saw something big soaring up there, and I said ‘What’s a hang glider doing up here?’ Turned out to be a Harpy Eagle.” Well, the tortuous road revealed little besides spectacular mountain jungle, but a couple of hours into our trip, after Luis had slowed down for yet another village—call it Santa Maria de los Topes—I saw a black bird with a red rump perched  out in the open alongside the road, a SCARLET-RUMPED TANAGER, another bird high on my wish list.

I kept just missing definitive looks at birds until about 30 km. east of San Cristóbal, when an all-blue jay that wasn’t either a Blue or a Steller’s Jay alighted on a fence post. This one was a UNICOLORED JAY, and I rejoiced that my apparent non-day had still produced some good sightings. On reaching our hotel, I heard a vaguely familiar avian sound from a rooftop. It was a truncated version of the song of the Rufous-collared Sparrow, a bird I remember vividly from a brief stay in Bogotá, Colombia in March 1990. There the abundant Rufous-collared is the “default” sparrow, as common as the House Sparrow is in North America.

Aug. 5

San Cristóbal de las Casas. Howell’s bird-finding guide mentions that both Black-capped and Cave Swallows can be found in the zócalo and adjacent areas of San Cristóbal. As it turned out, BLACK-CAPPED SWALLOW was about the first bird I saw as we crossed the square. I had no trouble seeing the strongly forked tail (Howell lists no Barn Swallows for this location), and I later got a good look at the head as well. Cave Swallows were another matter. I was simply too busy translating at the local markets for my bargain-hunting kids to do the detailed observation necessary to separate the Cave from Cliff Swallows, so they were all Cliffs as far as I was concerned.

Later that morning the five of us climbed to the top of a nearby hill. I could see across the valley the microwave tower on Cerro Huitepec, a site mentioned in Howell which has 46 life bird possibilities. So near, but yet so far! Later that day our landlady at La Media Luna, having learned from Diane that I was interested in nature, arranged for us to visit and dine at the home of Suzanne, an Englishwoman who’d lived in Mexico for 42 years, 14 of those at the foot of Cerro Huitepec. While Suzanne cooked a Thai meal for us in her wok, I was scampering around her phenomenal English garden in pursuit of hummingbirds. I got great looks at both WHITE-EARED HUMMINGBIRD and GREEN VIOLET-EAR and also managed to see an Eastern Bluebird in a nearby field. Then the five of us flagged down a taxi about the size of a Ford Focus, piled in (stacked vertically!) and headed off at high speed through the narrow winding streets to our hotel.

Aug. 6  Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

At about noon we headed off “downhill” on a two-hour trip to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of the state of Chiapas. The home in which we were staying was situated in an exclusive guardhouse-controlled colonia and featured lime, coconut, and tangerine trees in its large back yard. As we were getting settled, a butterfly the size of a bat flitted through the living room.

Aug. 7

Next morning I discovered that there were also quite a few birds around: a noisy Great Kiskadee was perched in a nearby palm tree, and when I by chance trained my binoculars on a pair of apparent Great-tailed Grackles they turned out to be GROOVE-BILLED ANIS. A pair of small noisy parrots with yellowish bill and face and red spots on the leading edge of each wing flew low over the house. WHITE-FRONTED PARROT was the only local bird matching that description. Golden-fronted Woodpecker and Clay-colored Thrush also put in an appearance.

Our hosts decided to take us to see the miradores above Sumidero Canyon before taking us to Chiapa del Corzo for the guided boat tour of the canyon itself. No time for sustained birding here, though it was a thrill to be above the vultures for once, and we could even see Brown Pelicans cruising just above the water 300 m. below. Luis explained that Chiapan warriors had dived off these cliffs to their deaths rather than surrender to the conquistadores. During our conversation I heard what I thought was a Red-eyed Vireo, except that there are no Red-eyed’s here at this time of year. I consulted Peterson and concluded that I could safely add YELLOW-GREEN VIREO to my “heard only” list. As we emerged from the last mirador, Luis gleefully pointed out Pea Fowl and Turkeys that were just dying to be observed, but I was trying to find the source of a “squeaky toy” sound coming from overhead. Victor, one of our hosts, located the bird, which, as you may have guessed, was a SULPHUR-BELLIED FLYCATCHER.

“Boat trips offer spectacular views of the canyon, but not too much in the way of birds” says Howell (p. 246), but I found it more productive than the highlands (with their potential of 93 life birds!) because of the sustained time I had for observation. While we were waiting for our lancha at the embarcadero I noticed what I thought was a pair of BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCKS alighting in the middle of the Río Grijalva, which a quick glance at Howlin’ Webb served to confirm. One of our first stops featured crocodiles, impressive toothy five-meter specimens; but while others were clicking away with their cameras I was focussing on the lone TRICOLORED HERON among the egrets and cormorants. A calling Canyon Wren confirmed that we were indeed entering the canyon, and just beyond “the Christmas Tree” rock formation an Amazon Kingfisher flew low over the water. A lengthy stop near the power station at the far end of the canyon provided me with a chance for a closer look at—yes indeed those were MANGROVE SWALLOWS that had been accompanying us for the last couple of kilometers.

Aug. 8  To Oaxaca.

While we were stopped at a stop light on highway 190 heading west, I got a look at a flycatcher that was about the size of a Western, but seemed a deeper yellow. A glance at Howlin’ Webb informed me that I’d better look at the extent of the forking in the tail next time if I wanted a chance at my first-ever Tropical Kingbird. The rest of our trip through Chiapas yielded little other than lush vegetation, although we did come upon an overturned semi-trailer on the first hairpin curve we encountered. “We are, after all crossing the Sierra Madre Accidental!” I kidded Luis.

Once we entered the state of Oaxaca I couldn’t help but notice the variety of bird habitat. I long to bird this neck of the woods one day. A Red-tailed Hawk, the only buteo of the trip, was soaring overhead in the hill country just across the border from Chiapas. As we passed through Juchitán I saw a large passerine from below as it flew overhead. It looked like a dove with an extended ribbed tail. Later I saw a large pale jay flying low into the bush. It took me awhile to put these two images together and realize that I’d been watching WHITE-THROATED MAGPIE-JAYS. Awhile later, as we were driving along near La Ventosa (it was indeed windy) I happened to catch a flock of WHITE IBIS sitting out the gale. Oaxaca (city), our next stop, produced nothing but some Cassin’s Kingbirds.

Aug. 10

Back at Las Arboledas, I decided to get up and try the jogging path again. I spent a lot of time observing a small perched mostly green hummingbird with a bill that in good light proved to be red with a black tip. This Broad-billed Hummingbird or one of its rellies later also showed up in Luis’s bougainvilleas. I also saw a female oriole, which I took to be a Bullock’s, high up in one of the eucalyptus trees. Then a pair of cowbirds flew low into some trees a short distance away. They were slightly larger and stockier than Brown-headed Cowbirds, and as light caught their eyes they glowed red. Finally, a BRONZED COWBIRD, a bird my friends and I had searched for in vain all over Brawley, CA a couple of years ago.

Aug. 12  Near Coajomulco.

Another set of friends drove us to their place in southern Mexico City and thence to Tres Marías (or, as the locals, who’ve experienced the unsanitary local market, call it, “Tres Diareas”). We then climbed a mountain road to St. Moritz, a collection of luxury weekend cottages 3300 meters above sea level, situated about three km. from Coajomulco, a prime birding site mentioned in Howell.

As soon as we got out of the car, I spotted a noisy and conspicuous black and white heavily striped bird, “zorzal azteca,” I exclaimed to our host; but it turned out, on closer examination, not to be an Aztec Thrush, but a wren, and a GREY-BARRED WREN at that. The thirty-meter-high pines and thick underbrush (including pomegranite vines) made this prime bird habitat. Eastern Towhees, Yellow-eyed Juncos, Mexican Jays, Acorn Woodpeckers, Canyon Towhees, and even a Swainson’s Thrush showed up in our host’s back yard or in those of his neighbors. We sat down to an exquisite meal of quail, and I caught myself wondering whether I was eating a potential life bird. That evening we went for a walk in the neighborhood. I saw no new trip birds until, toward the end of our excursion something red flashed out of a bush and into a nearby tree. Could it be? Time for another “O God, let me see it!” prayer. Request granted: it was tiny and red and had a white cheek patch, the bird I’d most wanted to see: RED WARBLER.  

Aug. 13

Next morning I rose early, tried to open the front door, but couldn’t. “Foiled again by a Mexican security system!” I fumed. My fumbling awoke Brenda, our host, who explained the workings of Mexican deadbolts, and I was free for the first time ever in Mexico to bird a birdy location at morning feeding time.   

Things started off slowly, those birds that were active turned out to be either birds I’d seen back home, such as White-breasted Nuthatch, or birds that I’d seen yesterday. About 20 minutes into my excursion I stopped at a crossroads, trying to figure out which road to take, and one bird after another started to show up: Grey-barred Wrens feeding on small white moths, followed by an ORANGE-BILLED NIGHTINGALE-THRUSH, and on the top of a nearby shrub a CHESTNUT-SIDED SHRIKE-VIREO, another species I’d been longing to see. After a couple of minutes of observing a White-eared Hummingbird, I headed down one of the two roads and heard a familiar sound, familiar because I’d read about it in Peterson, “Song suggests cranking up of an old-time motor car,” to which I might add “sound of motor has a flutelike ethereal quality.” Then I saw the singer itself, a BROWN-BACKED SOLITAIRE.

It was getting on for nine o’clock, time for about five minutes more birding before heading back. A Brown Creeper edged its way along a limb. “I’d really like to see just one species of Woodcreeper,” I thought. And, as if by magic, the only member of that family in that area, WHITE-STRIPED WOODCREEPER, suddenly appeared! After a number of good looks at it, as well as an unsuccessful attempt at figuring out what species of small, puffy, white-tinged-with-yellow vireo was feeding overhead, I decided to head back to the A-frame.

A large growling Rottweiler appeared at the top of the hill. “God, surely you haven’t brought me out here and given me such a fine morning to end it like this!” I whined, recalling the words of one of our travel guides “rabies exists in Mexico, and the best advice is simply to give dogs a wide berth.” So I hightailed it and tried finding an alternate route back to the cabin. Growls again. Deciding that there was nothing to do but brazen it out, I headed back up the first hill. No dog. I kept going and found myself just a few doors down from our hosts’ cabin. A bird flew onto a nearby roof. It looked like a female Evening Grosbeak, a species that’s found in the area, but it had a tiny pale check on the lower edge of its folded primaries, and, as I found a few minutes later, when it reappeared in our friends’ yard, a head that had a fair bit of black on it. All of which led me to conclude that it was in fact a HOODED GROSBEAK.

While in the yard I also saw the male, along with a male Black-headed Grosbeak, which, like the location itself, reminded me of British Columbia. Just then the Red Warbler showed up again, this time with what appeared to be its mate and one of their offspring. I watched them for about five minutes as they fed in a nearby tree and chased one another around the yard.  An hour or so later, just as we were loading our luggage into the car, I happened to notice a bird with a slaty back and a cinnamon belly alighting on a nearby bush: CINNAMON-BELLIED FLOWER-PIERCER, my final lifer of the day.

Aug.14  Acapulco.

One of our plans for this day had originally included Diane and the rest going shopping for silver in Taxco and me birding one of the locations either Howell or e-mail correspondents had suggested. In particular, I had been looking forward to the possibility of birding, with a local guide, the Ejido San Nicolas, a sort of ecologically-oriented cooperative farm and recreational area (check out their website) south of Mexico City. To this end, I’d prepared a local desiderata list in English and Spanish (Howell and Webb gives both Spanish and English common names) (33 species in all). However, a surfeit of shopping and the irresistible romance of (homestay daughter) Brenda’s suggested alternative, an overnight trip to Acapulco, nixed these hopes.

Even if birds had shown themselves during the spectacular four-hour (600+ pesos in tolls each way) drive, I doubt I would’ve got a good look at them. Brenda had set the cruise control on our Ford Escape at 120 k.p.h., supplementing it manually to the tune of 150 k.p.h. on straight stretches. On arriving at the beach, we parked the suv and headed off to check out hotels. As we walked toward the beach a small yellow-bellied bird a little smaller than a Western Flycatcher flew into a palm tree. I got a good look at its head, which was striped black and white like a Kiskadee’s, rushed to catch up to the others, hauled out Howlin’ Webb when we reached the lobby, and confirmed my suspicions SOCIAL FLYCATCHER, a bird that I had expected to see before now—but particularly enjoyed encountering in this urban plantation of highrise hotels.

That afternoon I noticed what appeared to be swifts overhead, and saw a Clay-colored Thrush fly into the planters at the entrance to the hotel. I spent the rest of the day “tarrying by the stuff” under the beach palapa while the others got tossed around by the breakers. Every half-hour or so a large tern would come by on its rounds, but I wasn’t able to get a good look at its head, although I did notice that the bill was yellowish, indicating Elegant, rather than my hoped for nemesis tern, the Royal. I also got several extended (enough to get sunburnt) looks at the “swifts,” which turned out to be swallows, but which kind? They resembled Northern Rough-wingeds, but their strongly-forked tails convinced me that they were in fact GRAY-BREASTED MARTINS. My biggest avian thrill of the day came while I was lying on my back: a MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRD, a species I didn’t think I’d have a chance at, came gliding by just above the rooftops of the hotels

Aug. 15

We’d stopped at a gas station so that Adam, who’d had an attack of double tourista the night before, could use the washroom. I had a sense that I’d see a life bird here. There it was on a powerline about 50 m. away! Another flycatcher, bill larger and belly a darker yellow than a Western Kingbird, and tail more deeply forked than a Cassin’s, ergo TROPICAL KINGBIRD.

Aug. 16  Oaxaca.

We bussed to Puebla to visit homestay daughter Leo and her family and (once I’d recovered from my second bout of turista) joined them on an overnight visit to Oaxaca, which included a stop to visit the ruins at Monte Albán, which is also a birding site mentioned in Howell. It was too late for much avian activity, and so all I saw in the vicinity of the ruins were Rock Wren, Canyon Towhee, Least Goldfinch, and Vermilion Flycatcher. “Can I have 20 minutes? I’ll meet you back at the museum.” I said to Diane. Off I went to try the trails mentioned in Howell. Densely-vegetated and very birdy-looking, they didn’t produce anything until I came to a clearing and was flashed by a green hummingbird with purply-brown tail feathers, BERYLLINE HUMMINGBIRD, a fitting conclusion to my lifers and the last “trip bird” of our Mexican vacation—even though I tried in vain to manufacture an Ocellated Thrasher from a Curve-billed Thrasher that I saw in the fabulous gardens at the Museo Regional de Oaxaca.


Trip List  (Lifers in Capitals)
 
Brown Pelican
Neotropic Cormorant
MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRD
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
TRICOLORED HERON
Cattle Egret
WHITE IBIS
White-faced? Ibis
BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING-DUCK
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
HOOK-BILLED KITE
ROADSIDE HAWK
Red-tailed Hawk
CRESTED CARACARA
Falcon sp. (2)
Elegant Tern
Rock Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Inca Dove
AZTEC PARAKEET
WHITE-FRONTED PARROT
GROOVE-BILLED ANI
GREEN VIOLET-EAR
Broad-billed Hummingbird
WHITE-EARED HUMMINGBIRD
WHITE-BELLIED EMERALD
BERYLLINE HUMMINGBIRD
Magnificent Hummingbird
AMAZON KINGFISHER
Acorn Woodpecker
GOLDEN-FRONTED WOODPECKER
CHESTNUT-COLORED WOODPECKER
WHITE-STRIPED WOODCREEPER
Vermilion Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
BOAT-BILLED FLYCATCHER
SOCIAL FLYCATCHER
SULPHUR-BELLIED FLYCATCHER
TROPICAL KINGBIRD
Cassin’s Kingbird
MASKED TITYRA
GRAY-BREASTED MARTIN
Tree Swallow
MANGROVE SWALLOW
BLACK-CAPPED SWALLOW
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
WHITE-THROATED MAGPIE-JAY
BROWN JAY
Mexican Jay
UNICOLORED JAY
Common Raven
Bushtit
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
BAND-BACKED WREN
GRAY-BARRED WREN
SPOTTED WREN
Rock Wren
Canyon Wren
Bewick’s Wren
House Wren (i.e., Brown-throated and Southern House Wrens)
LONG-BILLED GNATWREN
Eastern Bluebird
BROWN-BACKED SOLITAIRE
ORANGE-BILLED NIGHTINGALE-THRUSH
Swainson’s Thrush
CLAY-COLORED THRUSH
RUFOUS-BACKED THRUSH
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
Curve-billed Thrasher
Loggerhead Shrike
European Starling
YELLOW-GREEN VIREO (h)
Vireo sp.
CHESTNUT-SIDED SHRIKE-VIREO
RED WARBLER
BANANAQUIT
RED-LEGGED HONEYCREEPER
SCRUB EUPHONIA
Hepatic Tanager
CRIMSON-COLLARED TANAGER
SCARLET-RUMPED TANAGER
BLACK-HEADED SALTATOR
Black-headed Grosbeak
Eastern Towhee
Canyon Towhee
BLUE-BLACK GRASSQUIT
WHITE-COLLARED SEEDEATER
CINNAMON-BELLIED FLOWERPIERCER
Song Sparrow
Yellow-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Great-tailed Grackle
BRONZED COWBIRD
Bullock’s Oriole
MONTEZUMA OROPENDULA
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch
HOODED GROSBEAK
House Sparrow

"Sandy Ayer"
<hdayer@cbccts.sk.ca>