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

     

Chiapas, Mexico - The Beginning

At last, the long anticipated and planned trip for my very first neo-tropic birding expedition had arrived and I was on my way with birding friend from Tucson, Chris Rohrer.  Our destination was Tuxtla Guitérrez, the capital of the state of Chiapas, in extreme southwestern Mexico.  It required one full day of travel on 3 different flights to arrive.  We were to take part in 5 pre-planned field trips, but we scheduled our arrival a day early and we wasted no time the next morning exploring a bit on our own at the Tuxtla Zoo and were joined by Ernie Welsh from NY.  

I began this journey with 495 life birds and it did not take long to hit number 500 on my life list; a beautiful Altamira Oriole.  What I discovered about birding in the tropics?  Photography is much more challenging, due to dark, shady canopies, low light, heat, and humidity.  And of course some of the birds are less likely to offer great photo opportunities than others.  This oriole's range extends all the way to southern Texas and from what I have been told, they are a bit easier to photograph in TX as they are regular feeder birds there.  Looks like a future trip to TX is definitely in order

 Altamira Oriole

The zoo is a great place to find birds flying and inhabiting the area as many know they are protected there and are used to humans.  Since caged birds do not count on a life list, (at least on my list!) one has to have some knowledge and needs to assess what is natural and what is captive.

My number 499th bird was the Plain Chachalaca.  Just love saying their name! They were quite common throughout the zoo and the surrounding area, including just outside the front entrance.

 Plain Chachalaca

I quickly discovered that the wrens in this area have some awesome songs and the diversity of species was incredible.  The first new wren of the trip was this Banded Wren that serenaded us near the entrance of the zoo.  

 Banded Wren

 Number 501 was one of my target birds before the trip even began; the Russet-crowned Motmot.  It is a fairly common bird and before the trip ended, I was able to view many of these unique birds.  But they are not always so eager to pose for photos.  This one, was probably my closest viewing of this bird even though it was overcast and in the shade.  

 Russet-crowned Motmot

Another, but less common bird that has found sanctuary in and around the zoo grounds is the Crested Guan.  Thankfully, they were accustomed to humans and were comfortable in this location or I might have missed out on this bird during my trip.  This is a large bird at about 34" in length.

 Crested Guan

The Crested Guan above and the next bird; the Great Curassow, along with many others in this family, are extirpated and/or decimated due to habitat loss and over hunting and can be difficult to locate in their native habitat.  The Great Curassow is even listed as 'threatened' by the IUCN, (International Union for Conservation of Nature).  Luckily, this species has found the zoo grounds to be a safe haven and we were lucky enough to even observe a young chick that was being protected by its mother.

 Great Curassow with chick

 Great Curasso - Female

Great Curassow - Male

Another new bird for me that I have always wanted to see is the Green Jay.  What a beautiful bird and it is another bird that is fairly common in southern Texas, so it is one I hope to also see when I make a trip to TX.  What is interesting about this species, is that the birds in Texas have dark eyes, while the ones in southern Mexico have yellow eyes.

 Green Jay

The last two species of birds depicted in photos for this post are birds that I already had on my life list.  However, I was lacking a decent photo of either one.  The Grove-billed Ani, is a bird that occasionally makes an appearance in Arizona, I was able to see this species for the first time at Sweetwater Wetlands in the Tucson area a couple of years ago, but the only photo I was able to get consisted of a black shape behind a bunch of green leaves.  At least now we can see how it got its name with those grooves in the bill.  This bird is fairly common in these parts of Mexico and before the trip was over, I was to see many more.

 Grove-billed Ani

This last bird, is one that I had added to my life list as a 'heard' only bird a few years ago on a trip into Sonora, Mexico.  They are a rather secretive dove and are more often heard than seen.  Their call is reminiscent of blowing across the top of a wine bottle.  Never had photos before, but finally I now have a photo of a White-tipped Dove.

White-tipped dove

This is just the beginning of an incredible journey and an amazing 118 new life birds for me.  I hit the magical number of 500 on my first day and only 5 days later, I hit the more magical number 600 which will appear on a future blog post.  While I was not able to photograph all the new species, I at least got good enough looks at all those that I added to my list to identify them.  There were a few species that some of the guides saw and pointed out or heard, but if I did not see them well, then I did not add them to my list.  Stay tuned for future posts, but it will be time consuming as I have many photos to process.