more Western warbs

While Pink-headed Warbler was the star of the piney Chiapan mountain, there were a bunch of wintering warblers.  Lisa spotted what would have been bird of the day on most days when she announced she'd just photographed a Golden-cheeked Warbler.  Fortunately the bird popped back out.

I knew the bird was possible (actually all of the yellow cheeked warblers were possible on this trip, and this was the 3rd one we'd seen), but given it's rarity I didn't expect to find one.  And technically I didn't! But Lisa did.

Next up, another "yellow-cheeked" warbler, a male Townsend's, a bird I'd also only seen a couple of times.

The Townsend's prefer the humid rainforest of the Pacific coast, but the next two are birds of the arid southwest that I've only seen once apiece in the Chiricahua mountains in SE Arizona.

Finally an honorary warbler (though the kinglets might try to claim it too), Hutton's Vireo.

the coolest warbler

 no better way to ring in a return to blogging!  Not sure why I've been so remiss lately.

But we return to Mexico, this time to the most southeastern state of Chiapas.  We only had 2 days of birding there, but our first full day was in a gorgeous high elevation pine forest.  Warblers were abundant, and the star here was Pink-headed.  It didn't take us long to find a few.

I've never seen a bird patterned quite like this one.  Red is a hard color to capture with a camera and the pics leave a little something to be desired, but it was a really impressive bird.

mangos in the heat

Mexico is hot in the afternoon!  As we worked our way into the state of Chiapas we stopped at a mango plantation.  For as hot as it was, there was a decent amount of activity.

This Golden-fronted Woodpecker though, was panting in the heat.

Alex was able to tape in a few Giant Wrens without too much effort.

There were various kiskadee class flycatchers, anis, caciques, and saltators working the edges of the orchards.  I don't remember if these Orange-chinned Parakeets were in mangos or a different fruiting tree.

A female (or immature male?) Rose-throated Becard teed up pretty nicely.  I've seen males in Costa Rica ... but the race there is gray throated.

We'd seen an immature roadside hawk in the morning, but did see an adult in the afternoon.

Finally a truckload of mangos headed to market.  I may have sampled a few windfalls reachable from the road's shoulder ... they were delicious!  Prior to this trip I'd only had the bigger Peruvian ones, but the yellow Mexican ones, while smaller, are every bit as sweet and easier to eat.

Hide and Seek

 
Following our views of Rosita's Bunting the sun was getting pretty high and the temperature climbing.  But that didn't stop a Lesser Ground-Cuckoo from starting to call from deep in the brush.  This was a unique bird, picture a half sized roadrunner dressed for a carnival.  That being said, it had no intention of going out, being very content to stay deep in the sticky thicket.

How would you give directions for the 1 inch cylinder of visibility for others to see this thing?  You can sort of see the blue and yellow bare skin surrounding the eye.

It would walk slowly on the ground, blending in pretty much perfectly with the leaf litter.

Finally it did tee up, though this window was only about a foot wide.

It was one of the coolest birds of the trip.  This Roadside Hawk was potentially interested in seeing it as well...

though its motivation may have been a little different.

The Orange-fronted Parakeets on the other hand, they didn't give a rip!

Sunrise Rosita

We've all been there.  You see a gorgeous sunrise and try to take a pic ... and you just can't do it justice.  It's super hard for camera sensors to deal with rich cold and rich warm colors at the same time.

Rosita's Bunting is the same way.  It was one of the more striking birds I've ever seen in my life.  There aren't many birds that blend a rich blue somewhere between indigo and sky blue into magenta.  It was easy to see why they're cage bird targets and one of the birds that eBird won't give specific location data for.

The female was maybe not quite as showy as the male...

 

an Oasis

 Day 4 in Mexico found us on the border of the desert state of Oaxaca and the more riparian (and tropical) state of Chiapas.  A small mountain-like escarpment shielded a waterfall from much of the sun.  A bottlebrush tree was in bloom and it attracted my eyes too quickly to remember to take a scenery shot.

Just about the first bird I saw was a Rosita's (Rose-bellied) Bunting.

We'd see some in brighter light later in the morning, but we were happy to see this one.  There were a few hummers, including Canivet's Emerald and Green-fronted Hummingbird, but it was too dark to get pics worth posting.

Streak-backed Orioles were working the bottlebrush as well.

They weren't all brilliantly colored.  One was a bird I was looking forward to, Nutting's Flycatcher.  It's one of the myarchids that all look pretty similar, but the inverse Western Kingbird tail pattern separates it from Ash-throated.

Ok back to colorful ones.  It's been a few years since I've seen White-throated Magpie-Jay.

Finally a view of a female White-lored Gnatcatcher; the gray desert gnatcatchers always surprise me after being so used to Blue-Gray.

Colima Pygmy-Owl

I suppose I could have titled the post My Most Frustrating Great Look at a bird ever.

Evening of Day 3 found us in some dry forest scrub after spending the afternoon driving east towards the border of Oaxaca and Chiapas.  Alex found a couple of Cinnamon-tailed Sparrows, a bird I just could not get a decent look at.  I kept getting an elbow, branch, or head in the way every time I sort of saw the bird.  It didn't help that the little double malar mark, the field mark I'd learned for the bird, was quite a bit harder to see than I expected.

A western type Redtail soared out

I managed to spot a White-tailed Hawk, a bird I thought might be more common than it was.  This individual was the only one we saw.

I don't remember how I managed to lag behind the group a little, I think Alex started playing a tape at a Ferruginous Pygmy Owl that was really far away and I was distracted by something that seemed closer, but when I caught up they were looking at something.  They said it was the pygmy-owl.  It took forever to find the bird, it was quite close but the same color as the dusk lit surroundings and a bit higher than I thought.  Usually I'm pretty good at looking at the angle of people's bins and gauging where to look, but I was failing utterly.  When I eventually found the bird it looked way different that I expected.  Because it wasn't Ferruginous, it was Colima Pygmy-Owl!  Whoops.  Keep up with the group.

We stayed past dark hoping to hear Buff-collared Nightjar, which maybe Alex heard.  Finally a view of one of the Mottled Owls that came in to the Black-and-White track he was playing.

shadows of the ruins

 Day three found us at the base of an uphill climb along the entrance road to the ruins at Monte Alban.  It proved to be a popular place for the locals and we were passed by a lot of joggers and bikers out to enjoy some exercise before the heat of the day built up.

It was pretty birdy.  We heard a couple of mimics, but the Blue Mockingbird stayed buried pretty deep (but backlit nonetheless) in the brush.

An Ocellated Thrasher started singing well upslope and we enjoyed much closer scope views of the regional specialty than we did on day one ... and then we found another one much closer!

A couple of us heard a vireo singing right at the gate while it was still dark.  I wish I'd recorded it.  It was either Dwarf or this next bird, Slaty Vireo, which (true to theme this morning) stayed deep in the thicket!  It's a white-eyed blue gray bird with olive highlights on the cap, wings and tail in case the pic doesn't really reveal that.

Golden Vireo showed a lot better.  I tried to learn the vireo songs, but I didn't recognize this one at all when it started singing.

Even Dusky Hummingbird kept sticks in the way!

I expected these birds to be very widespread; I think this morning was the only time we saw one!

This Rock Wren in the ruins themselves was one of my favorite pics from the trip.

And a sample view of the ruins.  I've always been surprised how much freedom people are given to walk about these sort of sites in Central American, but I wasn't complaining.

We were short on time so I didn't really put the effort into attempting to translate the signs explaining the limited amounts known about this location believed to have been constructed and inhabited by the Zapotecs 1500-2000 years ago.  Even the original name of the site has been lost...