Chiapas: All Great Things Must Come to an End

Here it is, almost a month since I returned from my first birding trip to the tropics to the state of Chiapas, Mexico and I am finally getting around to my last post from this almost overwhelming birding trip.  What is cool, is the fact that it keeps these memories fresh in my mind.  I ended up with 121 new life birds on this trip, which I will probably never attain a number like that again in one trip.  We visited several spots in Chiapas, and there are several of them that I would like to revisit if I could, but the chances of that happening is pretty slim.  Haven't won a lottery and probably never will.  I guess you have to purchase tickets to actually win!

Anyway, Chris and I, were down to our last day in Chiapas as we were to head out on Friday morning for our return to Arizona.  We decided another trip to El Sumidero might be our best choice.  It was an outstanding spot on the first trip with a guide and it was local so we could get a taxi to take us there at a very reasonable price.  We arrived at the front gate and paid our very low priced entry fee and took off on foot, walking up the road.  Interestingly, there had been rain showers in the early morning and our walk was strange.  We had sunshine, then a cloud would move in to give us fog and then it would clear.  This happened off and on during our walk.  I ended up adding 3 more life birds on this final day, the first was a Mangrove Cuckoo that gave us a good view, but took flight before we were able to even raise our cameras.  

Once again, Russet-crowned Motmots were seen and heard  and a couple of them perched out on some dead limbs in order to dry their feathers from the early morning rain.  What a cool bird and one I enjoyed watched and listening to at many of the locations we visited.  

 Russet-crowned Motmot

Early in our walk, we had the pleasure of a Plain Chachalaca landing in a nearby tree.  

Plain Chachalaca

On our first trip here, we had several Streak-backed Orioles, but they were not having anything to do with us, so we were also targeting this bird to hopefully get photos on this trip.  We succeeded but they definitely did not make it easy.

 Streak-backed Oriole

As we worked our way up the road some fog moved in, and was obscuring our vision a bit, but a glance at a curve on the road ahead caught our attention and I immediately knew what it was, even in the fog; a Lesser Roadrunner.  I am very familiar with their close relative in the cuckoo family, the Greater Roadrunner in Arizona.  About that quick it flew off the road into vegetation when a car drove by.  We thought we had seen an all too familiar brief glimpse of this bird.  However, that was not the case as we walked up the road to where it had been and as I was scanning the vegetation, I spied it not 20 feet off the side of the road in a tree.  And it was very cooperative for us and allowed a long look and some photos.  What cool new bird and the 2nd new lifer of the day!

 Lesser Roadrunner

We finally were able to get some better views of the White-lored Gnatcatcher that we had seen on earlier field trips.  One of the benefits of keeping the numbers of people low, is the fact that there is less commotion and sometimes birds are a bit more accommodating to views and photos.

 White-lored Gnatcatcher - Male

 White-lored Gnatcatcher - Female

A bit further up the road we fond a spot where a couple of birds were quite agitated.  By this time we were in the fog again, but it dispersed enough to get some photos of the Banded Wren and the Grey-crowned Yellowthroat.  The yellowthroat was my third life bird of the day and the last one of my trip.

 Banded Wren

Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

Just before we headed back down the road to the entrance of El Sumidero, we encountered a sparrow that was a bit puzzling to us.  The only sparrow we had seen on our earlier trip was many Olive Sparrows along this road.  This was definitely not an Olive Sparrow, in fact it was a juvenile which make an identification a bit more tricky since most field guides only show adults in their illustrations.  But we quickly figured it out, it is a Rusty Sparrow, juvenile.  I had seen one earlier on one of our guided tours, but failed to get any photos, so this was redemption time for me.

 Rusty Sparrow - Juvenile

On the return we also had a Canivet's Emerald female along the road sipping nectar out of some very dark purple (almost black) tubular blossoms.  It was nice to see a female since I had seen a male earlier.

 Canivet's Emerald - Female

Bidding adieu to Mexico was bittersweet.  I was definitely ready to go home and recuperate and then reflect on what an awesome trip this was for me as a birder.  Luckily, Chris had opted to go as well and it was great to have him along with his knowledge of the Spanish language to help guide me and get around.  There is so much more to explore in Mexico and some of it is not far from where I live so I can see some future day or weekend trips.  If finances (and Health) allow, I would love to visit many other spots in the tropics in the future.  I have already decided that a basic course in Spanish is on my agenda in the near future to assist me in getting around. 

With that, I will leave this string of blog posts with one last photo of another butterfly.  I believe this is Variable Cracker butterfly.  What an intricate and beautiful pattern!

 Variable Cracker Butterfly

     

El Sumidero, Part 2

El Sumidero was so special and with better weather, we had many more birds and better photo opportunities.  Probably my most favorite bird of the day was the Barred Antshrike.  It was a bird that I had seen on the color plates of my Mexico bird guide and was fascinated by its erected crest.  It belongs to a large family of birds called Antbirds.  This bird is definitely not the most colorful, but the male's overall black and white barring is still quite spectacular in my opinion.

 Barred Antshrike

Barred Antshrike

Even though the Barred Antshrike was my personal favorite bird of the day, probably the more special bird for everyone in the group including the guide, was a Blue Seedeater.  A fairly uncommon bird who's abundance and distribution is closely tied to seeding bamboo.  The guides had scouted many of these places in advance and knew that one was in the vicinity of one of the trails we explored.  Sure enough, we were able to get it to make an appearance.  Another bird that was definitely not the most colorful, but a great bird to add to my list.

 Blue Seedeater

Blue Seedeater

We were fortunate to find a couple of species of trogons in this area as well.  This a really cool family of birds and the Elegant Trogon that is found in Arizona is probably one of, if not the most, sought after bird in AZ as no other trogons can be found in the United States and the Elegant Trogon is a breeder in southeast AZ.  But on this trip, we had a couple of other species to add to our lists; the Collared Trogon and the Gartered Trogon.  

 Collared Trogon

Gartered Trogon

One of the new hummingbirds that I was able to add to my list was Canivet's Emerald.  Emeralds are small hummingbirds that are mostly a bright emerald green with straight bills that are red, tipped with black, and tails are forked.  Canivet's Emerald male has a deeper forked tail than the female.

Canivet's Emerald

Orioles are sometimes a confusing group of birds and some can be hard to identify.  The Bar-winged Oriole is one such bird.  It reminds me of the Scott's Oriole that we have in Arizona, but there are subtle differences.  The Bar-winged Oriole has only 1 white wing bar and 1 yellow wing bar whereas the Scott's Oriole has 2 white wing bars.  The Bar-winged Oriole also has a shorter and slightly decurved bill compared to a long straight bill on Scott's Oriole.  Ranges are also quite different so it helps to know what to expect in your location.  We were lucky to add this bird to our list as well.

 Bar-winged Oriole

Bar-winged Oriole

And just like my first post on El Sumidero, we have more butterflies to add to this post.  Once again, I identified them to the best of my ability, but could use help if anyone is reading this and cares to comment on them.

 One of the Swallowtail species

 Unknown

 Unknown

 Elf

Guatemalan Patch

 Mexican Silver Spot

 Red Rim

 A species of skipper

 Tropical Checkered Skipper

White-patched Skipper

It is really hard to ignore butterflies when they come in all shapes, colors, and sizes.  And some of them can prove to be a bit tricky to photograph, especially since I only have a fixed 300 mm zoom lens.  Both Chris and I liked El Sumidero so much that once all the planned trips were complete and most had departed for the states, we returned to this spot on our own.  That will be covered in a future blog post.