Rosette Spoonbill

they have been putting on a music festival with world class talent of various types, from Opera and Classical to Latin Jazz and rock.  Not to mention the art walks and craft venders and different interesting workshops taking place throughout the 10 days of the festival.    While we are there, we can use the cool mornings to explore some beautiful natural areas where you can find a large variety of tropical birds at their northern limit!  It is the recipe for a wonderful tour, and It was!

Sunday, Jan. 22 – I picked everyone up in Tucson at 7am and we headed for the border right on time.  Not 10 miles from the border my longtime friend and wonderful world traveler Lois informed me that she had forgotten her passport at home in San Diego.  Her immediate reaction was to suggest that I leave her in Nogales and she would figure out a way home.  My immediate reaction was to not worry about it and just stay in the van while the rest of us were in Mexican immigration getting everyone visas, they would never know that you were there!  Of course this didn’t really addres the issue fo getting back into the US after the tour, but I had an idea that we could get her passport down to us in Alamos before the ride back north.  Sure enough my plan at immigration worked flawlessly and we were down the road to points south.

It is a long haul from Tucson to Alamos this will be the last tour that I do it this way.  In the future we will spend a night in the Rio Sonora Valley to break up the drive.

Our first stop was for lunch at top for lunch at Los Arbolitos in Guaymus Sonora, where we were treated to an awesome seafood fest, complete with “Callos de Acha”,  a big scallope that they serve sliced thin and raw with lime juice and Serrano chili’s, amazingly yummy!

After lunch we made a stop at the Empalme causeway for a look around the fishing docks for gulls and terns and we did find a few, including Heerman’s, Yellow-footed, Ring-billed, California and Laughing Gulls.  In the Tern department we had Foresters, Gull-billed, Caspian, Royal and Elegant as well as a number of Black skimmers.  There were also hoards of the usual shore and wading birds plying the mud for goodies.  Then it was off to Alamos and our first night’s dinner at El Pedregal.

Monday, Jan. 23 – I like to start the tour out in Aduana, it is a cool little Mexican town that dates back to the late 1500’s.  it was the town

Sharp-shinned Hawk

where all the silver was mined that made the residents of Alamos so very rich!  It is a good combination of history, culture and birding all 10 minutes from El Pedregal!  We got good looks at a Sharp-shinned hawk right over the road, a big flock of White-fronted parrots pssed by and there were Elegant Quail everywhere.  We had lunch and a much deserved Siesta back at El Pedregal. In the afternoon we took a relaxing trip into the plaza to see all of the art and crafts that were for sale before heading up to dinner at the “El Mirador”.  We had to rush out of dinner to make it down to the performance, and it turned out that I wish we hadn’t!  Ok, so the guy has a lot of obvious talent, but I really felt like I endured about 2 hours berating by a big boring German tenor! Not the most memorable performance I had ever seen, well at least not for good reasons!

Tuesday, Jan. 24 – So this morning I enforced a slightly earlier departure as we were headed to EL Mentidero, the largest drainage off of the sierra de Alamos and an area of permanent water.  Here we had good looks at Common Black Hawk and a couple of Trogons as well as a good long walk! Lunch was once again back at El Pedregal.  Prior to lunch I was feeling pretty lousy and ended up sleeping through the entire affair.  Following lunch a few folks went down to the church for a performance by an Argentine duo that was said to be very good. In the evening, we did dinner at El Pedregal and went to the evening performance of Jamie MacDougall (tenor), Angel Padilla (harpist) and Matthew McAllister (guitarist) what a wonderful surprise it was!  A fantastic animated program!  We got great seats up in the front rows and were totally charmed by the lovely Scotsmen and their Mexican harpist. A great night to be sure, now this was more like it!  What a treat for Susan and Glyn for getting a dose of Scottish classical music here in Alamos!

Purplish-backed Jay

Wednesday, Jan. 25 – this mornings bird trip was to the not so scenic yet terribly birdy area known as “Las Cabras”, it is also known as the Alamos sewage lagoons, which is essentially what they are. Here we had wonderful views of a pair of Gray Hawks and a family of three Crane Hawks passed over and hung around for scope views!  There were Trogons, calling Motmot’s and eventually a small family of Purplish-backed Jays came in to tape.  Once again it was lunch at El Pedregal and some time at the feeders with the Orioles and the Blue Mockingbird.   Like yesterday a few folks went down for the church for the 2pm performance, and as I recall felt as though they had been trapped inside the church, I cant remember if that was a good thing or not?  Tonight’s dinner was at the wonderful restaurant “Charisma”, which even though we were the only ones in there, managed to take every possible minute to get us our food, we ended up running for the evening performance at the Palacio!  An award was given to some performer named ‘el Kennedy’…followed by the Universidad de Sonora young talent, Jael Jimenez (soprano), Diana Gonzalez (soprano) and Guillermo Lopez (tenor). They put on a very impressvie harmonic display that at times I felt moved between strange and fantasticly beautiful, a very unique performance.  We were relieved that one of the young ladies made it back and forth off the stage in her very high heels that appeared to be very hard to walk in! They started out nervous and ended very well.

Thursday, Jan. 26 – Our final day of birding in the Alamos area included a river float trip on the Rio Mayo, the second largest river in Sonora and a great way to get into some areas that few foreigners get to visit!  Not to mention that the birding is fantastic while sitted in the comfortable padded benches of the inflatable rafts.  We had numerous close up looks at Black Hawks, Bare-throated Tiger Herons and numerous Green Kingfishers.  There was the great lunch set up by Armando on the banks fo the river and the wonderful trip to visit my friends In the Mayo Indian Village of Santa Barbara.  A very full and rewarding day.  We got back to town in time for some relaxing time and shower before our last dinner  at El Pedregal, followed by a great Opera Diva show at the Palacio. We were serranaded by the Flashy pianist, Angel Rodriguez accompanying  Leticia de Altamirano (soprano) and Cassandra Ziel (mezzosoprano).   In was a stunning and extremely animated performance by all for a packed house!

Friday, Jan. 27 – Its always a bit difficult to leave Alamos after such a wonderful time, but off we went, for a day of birding along the coast and night in the San Carlos/Guaymas area. We did a lot of birding along the way too.  First there was a stop in Navojoa where we picked Least Grebe and some ducks.  Then birding the road along the agricultural fields got us a few raptors and sparrows.

Once at the coast everyone was maybe a little bit overwhelmed by the outrageous numbers and variety of shore and water birds, but we patiently picked through them making sure that everyone got a look at everything.  We had a nice quick lunch on the causeway and enjoyed the warm weather with the nice ocean breeze.

Playa de Cortez at dawn

We spent the night at the Playa de Cortez, an older historic hotel right on the water and ate dinner at the Fiesta hotel in San Carlos.

Saturday, Jan. 28 – the birding at the Estero El Soldado was good with excellent looks at Mangrove Warbler.  Then it was off to breakfast at the Fiesta and a final shopping trip to “Sagitarrio” before heading on back to the border and Tucson

Yucatan – Birds, Biospheres and Ruins

January 10-19, 2012

More photos of this tour can be seen at this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdgeek/sets/72157629576901914/

One of the beautiful things for me about birding on the Yucatan Peninsula is the subtle shift of habitats as you travel from east to west and then south to north.  Unlike a lot of places where less that subtle changes in geography manipulate the habitat, in the Yucatan it happens nearly without noticing the geography at all! Mostly because the countryside is so flat, it is hardly apparent that you are entering a new and fantastic habitat that is generally only manipulated by oceanic influences.  The following is an account of this past January’s birding tour to the Yucatan Peninsula. This trip was our fourth trip to this great place.

A big mob of Yucatan Jays

Many thanks to everyone for a fun trip and to Rafael for keeping us all together and on time throughout the tour!

Day 1 – Rafa, our driver, and I picked up everyone at the airport except for Paulette who arrived much later in the evening.  We all headed down the beach in Puerto Morelos for dinner at restaurant La Playita, a very small family run place right on the beach where we had an awesome first dinner in the form of a tasty Yucatecan seafood feast!  Then, it was back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for our first morning of birding.  There is nothing like sleeping with the sliding doors open with the cool ocean breezes and the sound of the sea to go to sleep by.

Day 2 – Rafa and I set up a simple breakfast on the outdoor patio of the hotel and without further ado we were heading out to the Jardin Botanico.  The Jardin was nice enough to open early for us and provided us (mandatory for early entry) with a wonderful guide by the name of Dalia who was admittedly not the best with the birds, but wonderful with the plants and a really nice person.  We did see some good birds too!  Highlights were the Yucatan Vireos and a HUGE flock of Yucatan Jays that gave us wonderful looks.  Jim entertained us with some amazing acrobatic skills on the balance benches, and fortunately when he flipped over backwards he didn’t cause too much damage to himself!  Watching him do that trick was a good reason for keeping him off the suspension bridges that were used to train the Flying Wallendas!

In the town of Tulum, we had a wonderful lunch at Charly’s complete with a splattering of the local hippie crowd and a visit to the awesome gift shop.  Then it was off to the seaside ruins of Tulum and a look at what could be the most beautiful of all the Mayan ruins, arguably the most dramatic location of any Mayan ruin.  The birding was a bit slow compared to some of my other visits, but we did get to see an exceptionally large migrating flock of Indigo Buntings, a couple of Palm, Yellow and Yellow-throated  Warblers, which were neat to see.  We also got to experience some of the teaming masses of tourists that made it hard to believe that the world was in economic crisis!  This was actually the case throughout most of the Yucatan this year….it was a thriving and full of tourists everywhere!

A Summer Tanager at Tulum

After having our fill of Tulum, we finished up our travel day by continuing south to Felipe Carrillo Puerto and our home for two nights at the Hotel Casa Regina.  This town is one place in the Yucatan where you are unlikely to see the teaming masses of tourists!  From our point of view, we were the only foreigners in the entire town and the place truly feels Mexican and even Mayan!  It is, after all, the heart and capital of the Mundo Maya. We enjoyed the first of two wonderful Yucatecan meals with dinner at the Faisan Y Venado Restaurant.

Day 3 – The 5:30 a.m. breakfast in the guide’s room was the standard fare and it got us out and on to the Vigia Chica Road nice and early.  I think the Vigia Chica road is one of my favorite birding roads in Mexico.  It is surrounded by great habitat, there are some open areas to get good looks at birds and there are always surprises to be had.  The fog kept things nice and cool and the birding was pretty good most of the morning.  Some of the bigger highlights were Black-headed Trogon, Rose-throated Tanager, Black Catbird, Yellow-billed Cacique, the only White-collared Seedeater of the trip, a quick look at a Yellow-faced Grasquit, a number of Mangrove Vireos were cool to get long looks at, the always exciting Keel-billed Toucan, a White-bellied Emerald nesting and a quick glide by from a Short-tailed Hawk.

After lunch back in town we took a nice siesta before going back out to the Vigia Chica Road for some really good afternoon birding.  Although we did not get a bunch of new stuff, there were hundreds of parrots and parakeets all afternoon and birds were everywhere, and finally we good decent looks at Yucatan Parrots. We had dinner back at the Faisan y Venado, enjoying more Yucatecan food and good service. After dinner, we strolled to the main plaza to enjoy the local dessert, Marquesita’s, a crispy crepe filled with a choice of fillings. Always a highlight!

Day 4 – Going from Felipe Carrillo Puerto to Ria Lagartos was the longest drive of the trip, which amounted to about 3.5 hours total…not bad at all.  Along the way we stopped in Vailladolid for a great lunch at a very unpresumptuous location that I was indirectly turned on to by Rick Bayless, the nearly famous Mexican chef who owns a couple of high-end restaurants in Chicago.  The place was empty as it was the last time I was there, and the taxidermied Occelated Turkey was not looking any younger, but the seemingly endless stream of excellent Yucatecan food that came from the kitchen was fantastic!

We made a stop for birds after lunch at the ruins of Ek Balam, just north of town where we got good looks at Turquoised-browed Motmots and watched Jim and Patty climb up (and then down) the main pyramid!

In the little fishing village of Ria Lagartos, we spent the night at the simple, little hotel called Punto Ponto  right on the edge of the estuary. This

Yucatan Wren

place is made better by our very accommodating host Roger.  We enjoyed a seafood meal at the Isla Contoy Restaurant, run by our friend, Ismael’s family.

Day 5 – This morning we met our guide for the morning and headed out for the ranches and fields to the east of town.  Our big targets were Yucatan Wren and Bobwhite which most of us got some sort of look at.  Here, we also got our first looks at Mexican Sheartail, our only looks at White-tailed Kite, a distant perched Crane Hawk in the scope, and our only Crested Caracara of the trip.  A few Yucatan Bobwhites flew off the road leaving us without satisfied looks, but a couple of people did manage to get on them before they spooked.  The boat trip at Ria Lagartos was great and gave us looks at a myriad of shore and water birds, including Sandwich Terns and lots of Black Skimmers.  We had a nice lunch back at Isla Contoy before heading south and on to the Hacienda Chichen outside the ruins of Chichen Itza.  Pulling into this restored hacienda is always a magical moment. The grounds are so beautiful and the historic hotel and rooms are elegant and comfortable. Not to mention that that the birding here is great! We enjoyed a great dinner at this elegant hotel.

Day 6 – Some folks decided to brave the masses once again and make a visit to the ruins of Chichen Itza, while I took part of the group on a morning birding outing around the grounds of the hotel.  The grounds of the hotel are really an amazing area for birds, and today was no exception.  We had good looks at Yellow-backed Orioles, Green Jays, once again heard Thicket Tinamous, saw lots of Scrub Euphonias and two species of saltators and our only Blue-gray Tanager of the tour. After an all too short stay at the Hacienda, we headed out.

We stopped in Izamal for lunch and a quick tour of the world’s second largest open air atrium, second only in size to the one at St. Peters in Rome.  Izamal, known as the Yellow City, has the pride of being the first Pueblo Magico in Mexico, a designation given to only a handful of towns for their exceptional beauty and cultural attributes.  It is called the Yellow City because all of the homes and buildings are painted the same deep yellow color and it is quite impressive.  We had lunch at the famous Kinich, where we were treated to some of the best Yucatecan food of the tour.  We got to the restaurant just beating the Sunday church crowd which turned the place from empty to packed in about three minutes!  After lunch we walked back to the van and saw the only Swainson’s Hawk of the trip soaring above the parking area.

The cooperative Squirrel Cuckoo

This afternoon, we made our way into the hilly part of the Yucatan Peninsula, known as the Puuc hills, and our home for the night, Hacienda Uxmal. Another beautiful hotel in classic hacienda style and where there serve a bountiful buffet dinner!

Day 7 – Today was a much appreciated layover day at Uxmal that gave us the opportunity to bird and visit what I think are the most impressive ruins on the peninsula.  We were out of the hotel early for some birding on the San Simon Road, on the outside of the ruins where we had our only Gartered Trogon (once called Violacious) and a timid Blue-crowned Motmot.

Inside the ruins it was really more about seeing this impressive ruins site than finding lots of birds, although we got a great show from a very cooperative Squirrel Cuckoo and also good looks at Prothonatory Warbler, Wedge-tailed Sabrewing  and a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. After the ruins we had a big buffet lunch at the Uxmal Lodge before heading back to the hotel for a quick nap.

In the afternoon, we went for a long walk behind the hotel to the old abandoned original hacienda of Uxmal.  Along the way we ran into a Yucatan Flycatcher, Yellow-throated Vireo, Yellow-backed Oriole and few Keel-billed Toucans as well as the only Plain Chachalacas that we actually saw on the trip.  The old hacienda is in rather sorry condition, but it was neat to see the building somewhat reclaimed from the forest.  On the walk back we were being somewhat constantly teased by the calls of a distant, yet ever closer Collared Forest Falcon.  Just as we were about to give up on it, he flew into some closer trees harassed by a mob of Brown Jays!  As a last ditch effort, I put on a little Yucatan Night Jar tape, just for kicks, and low and behold I got a couple of call backs but we never did see the bird.  After a nice layover day in this peaceful area, we enjoyed another buffet dinner and a good night’s rest.

Day 8 – We spent the morning back out to the old hacienda so that folks that hadn’t gone there the previous afternoon could get a look at it.  It was also a good excuse for some more forest birding and a group photo.

We made an early stop at the top of the hill leaving Uxmal to see if the little shop up there had these neat lights that I have at the Pedregal.  Well, he didn’t have them, but he had a lot of other cool stuff made out of gourds and everyone was more than happy to pick up a couple of items.  We then made our way to Celestun on the western side of the peninsula.

Our afternoon outing in Celestun gave us more good looks at Mexican Sheartail and Yucatan Wren, but the Bobwhite once again eluded us.

Gray-necked Wood-rail

There was a rather cooperative White-lored Gnatcatcher that posed for photos, and the evening return of hundreds if not thousands of American Flamingos to their night roost was impressive and beautiful. Dinner that night was at an unassuming farolito taco stand that turned out to be absolutely delicious and our home for the night was the Hotel Manglares.

Day 9 – Our last birding day turned out to be a huge one!  It started out with a trip back out into the short fog forest north of town, where we got more good looks at White-lored Gnatcatchers, Mexican Sheartail and Yucatan Wren.  Maybe the most impressive sighting of the morning was the aerial parade of thousands of flamingos heading out to their daytime feeding grounds from the roosting area that we had seen the night before.

Hoping to have the same kind of luck I had a couple of years previous, I decided that we should do a kamakazi death walk with speeding traffic along the mangrove lined causeway hoping for a look at the difficult to see Rufous-necked Wood-rail.  I was a bit concerned that the tide might be too high for the bird, but it was really our only chance and we had a bit of time before the boat trip.  I know that the participants must think that I am crazy when I suggest that we should walk along this narrow stretch of highway peering down into a rather thin section of trash filled mangrove to find a bird that typically is VERY skulky and shy!  Fortunately, I have only missed the bird in this spot a couple of times or people would be convinced that I was crazy!  Well, this time I thought I might have blown it, as we were nearly to the end of the causeway with no woodrail!  Just as I was about to call it a morning, I saw the flutter of wings below us and got on what was indeed a Rufous-necked Woodrail perched up on a branch!  Then the challenge is trying to get everyone on it, which was only mildly difficult, and fortunately the bird did fly and move, but not too far!

We got really close to the Flamingos

The boat trip was a great way to get rather close to the flamingos, but maybe not as good as the ones we saw in Ria Lagartos.  But the trip into the tall mangrove forest was seriously cool!  While riding in the boat through the canal, we finally bumped into a pair of American Pygmy Kingfishers, a tough bird to get throughout its range.  Then we went to the Ojo de Agua boardwalk and right out of the boat there was what could be considered a rather ‘tame’ Gray-necked Woodrail walking around almost too close for photos.

We had our final lunch under a big palapa on the beach and then headed into the beautiful city of Merida for the last night at the Hotel Mision de Fray Diego and a farewell dinner at the Portico del Peregrino.

Thanks to all for being such great company and making it so much fun on our Yucatan adventure. It was a pleasure!

April 14-22, 2012

Day 1: April 14^th- We woke up to cold and rainy weather in Tucson, a welcome sight after months of dryness! I could only hope the same

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher

was happening in Alamos but unfortunately that was not to be the case.  Once out on the road it became quite obvious that the wind was going to be a factor with the birding today and it might not be a good thing. It was mostly a travel day and I would much rather have the wind blow itself out today in hopes of better weather tomorrow! The border was exceptionally easy to cross today and we had the nicest immigration guy I think I have ever had!  He seemed to be more connected to the tourism department than immigration!  What a nice way to enter Mexico! It makes such a difference and it is so easy to make happen!  Officials from both sides of the border should go through some sort of ‘niceness training’ and this guy probably could teach it!

We made a couple of short stops of the way to Arizpe at different crossings of the Rio Sonora.  I was surprised at how much water was still there considering the lack of rain.  Notable birds were American Pipit, lots of Vermillion Flycatchers and what must have been migrating flocks of Common Yellowthroats which were pretty much the most common bird at every stop!

Restaurant "El Rodeo"

We got to Arizpe to find Ramon’s ‘Open’ sign in the windows of Restaurant El Rodeo, but the door was locked and no one was around.  Even the dogs seemed glad to see us. Although there is another option for lunch down the road, El Rodeo is far better.  Fortunately, we decided to go ahead and visit the church and plaza in town which was cool.  But the best part was that when we returned to the restaurant, the door was open and Ramon was there and very happy to see us!   He made us come into the kitchen and see what he was cooking up…a beautiful red chili with beans and salad.  It looked and smelled wonderful, and it was!  We all munched it down with vigor.  One great thing about Ramon’s restaurant is that he plays fantastic music on his boom box. Today it was Orchestra Otoño from Mapatachi and Hermosillo, Sonora…beautiful Mexican music from the old days.

After lunch, our big birding stop was at the Aconchi hot springs about an hour south of Arizpe.  Arriving, I asked the woman taking money at the gate if there were a lot of people at the upper pools, as this was technically the last day of Semana Santa and the only time in Mexico that everyone in the country goes to places where this is water to get into.  I was surprised when she said no.  Well to her credit I’m sure there were far less people at the tubs on this day tan there were over the past two weeks of Easter, but there were still a lot of people up there.  Fortunately, it appeared that the birds had become well accustomed to all the activity and we managed to still get some good birds.  Nice looks at Nutting’s Flycatchers and a Canyon Wren were highlights. Afterwards, we were out in the parking area where we had an invasion of Verdins and our first McGillivray’s Warbler of the tour.

We spent the evening in the teaming metropolis of Hermosillo at the very nice Holiday inn, where a cold beer and a light dinner was all we needed after a long day on the road.

Day 2: April 15^th –  I set up a nice, quick breakfast in my room before we hit the desert habitat just west of the cement plant east of Hermosillo.  We did pretty good with Cactus Wrens, Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, Clay-colored Sparrow and a very retiring Gray Vireo which was uncharacteristically shy.

Next stop was the San Jose del Pima arroyo and a bit of riparian birding that included Western Flycatcher, Varied Bunting, a Bell’s Vireo that would not show itself and the usual flycatchers, but already the heat of the day was upon us and bird activity was diminishing.  We had fun digging out some extra food to hand over to a pair of very nice stray dogs that were at the parking area.  I recognized them from the fall trip, although there were four of them then.  Fortunately they looked pretty good; apparently someone had been feeding them a bit.

Last chance for gas is at the junction with the road to Tecoripa.  I actually needed gas pretty bad and there was no way I would be able to get to Yecora with what I had.  As luck would have it, this being Sunday, all the rancho guys were at the gas station getting their fuel for the week, which means filling up multiple 55 gallon barrels that they can transport out to remote locations!  Fortunately, I picked the better line to get in and the guy in front of me only needed to fill one 55 gallon barrel, so the stop didn’t last that long! Next stop was at the big bridge that crossed the Rio Yaqui where I set up a nice lunch along the bank of the river and in the shade of the bridge.  Here we got our first Osprey of the tour and were entertained by a beautiful male Red-napped Sapsucker in a willow tree.

We made a number of post lunch stops at various habitats including the big fig tree where we spent some time chasing around a very elusive

Lesser Roadrunner too!

Sinaloa Wren.  The better stop was just before we go to the military check point where these is a medium deep canyon with some aspen trees, just south of San Nicolas.  Here we got a few good looks at Black-throated Magpie Jay, always a crowd pleaser!

As we approached Yecora, I made the obligatory afternoon stop at the ‘Barranca’ just to see what we could check off the list.  Just as we got out of the van, I saw two Rusty Sparrows foraging around in the dust in front of the van with a Lincoln Sparrow, and we heard the unpleasant calls of a very wayward Black-vented Oriole that was quite far north and rather high up in elevation!  We got only a fly-over look at him as he went up slope even farther!  We nailed down the favorite perch of a beautiful Tufted Flycatcher for protracted scope views.  Then came the family of playful and numerous Spotted Wrens that gave us a fantastic show that lasted so long that we ended up walking away from them!  With the wrens came a pair of Rufous-capped Warblers that also gave us some good looks.  Later, a Blue Mockingbird teased us with some vocals, but never gave us a look.

After a long day of birding a exploring we were ready to end the day at the Hotel King and a special dinner at Octavio’s!  He was actually closed tonight, but I guess years of being a good customer was all it took for him to open up and serve us a wonderful bistec ranchero with veggies, beans and rice.

Mountain Trogon

Day 3:  April 16^th – A 5:30 a.m. breakfast in my room got us out the door and birding in no time! First, we were off to the ponds on the east side of town.  There were hundreds of Lark Sparrows in the willow scrub along with a couple of American Robins with a pair of wonderful Bullocks Orioles. Then, a Peregrine or two came through and got the Mexican Mallards up and out of there!  The area was super birdy and also had a fair share of puppies that were living in a small shack near the community center.

We made a couple of stops on the uphill climb towards Mesa de Campanero, It was slow birding at nearly every stop, maybe due to the dryness, but we managed to pull out a few things. Everything seemed really dry and the amount of spring song was minimal compared to other years.  The new power line up to the microwave tower destroyed a good chunk of habitat on the cobblestone road, but we still managed to run into an amazing mixed species flock of warblers led by nearly a dozen Hermit Warblers.  We were well entertained for quite some time by this ever growing flock of warblers!

We put out a wonderful picnic lunch on top of Mesa Campanero, the highest point in Sonora, and then did a nice walk in the forest that included great looks at Short-tailed Hawk, Zone-tailed Hawk and a very cooperative Mountain Trogon! Afterwards we headed back down the hill and back over to the ‘Barranca’.  I have to say that the birding was as slow as it gets at the so-called ‘glory hole’, but we still managed to pull out a few new birds. Some of them were Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Flame-colored Tanager, Merlin and White-throated Swift.

Tonight Octavio outdid himself with a nice chicken soup and then plates of enchiladas with all the trimmings!  A couple bottles of nice wine

Gray-collared Becard

were a nice way to end the evening.

Day 4: April 17^th – This morning we made one last check of the ponds before hightailing it up the mountain for one last meeting at the ‘glory hole’!  On the way, we stopped for a nice look at a Mountain Pygmy Owl at the small Mexican cypress forest near the pass. The glory hole was not exceptional this morning but it did reveal some of its finest residents!  The Gray-collared Becard had to be the highlight as it posed for us for several minutes for photos!

I decided to take the back road to Santa Rosa which is always a bit arduous but always a lot nicer, and birdier than the crappy, potholed highway that forces you to visit with the military.  Just outside of Santa Rosa, we got our prize for bumping along for an hour. I saw a pair of Lesser Roadrunners jump quickly off the road and head for the brush.  I quickly put on some tape and in a few minutes they came cautiously back out to the edge of the road.  Soon we had them posing for us in the middle of the road and calling back to us! We ended up stopping for a hurry up lunch just on the side of the road and were treated to a nice Plumbeous Vireo sharing the same shade tree with us.

After lunch we made stops at Barranca Hondo and found the resident Black-hawk, the first of the trip.  Then made one last stop at the outflow of Presa Oviachi just outside of Obregon, which was slow for birds in the heat of the afternoon.

Our last stop of the day was at El Pedregal where Jen had a wonderful stuffed chicken breast dinner waiting for us! It is always such a treat to arrive at El Pedregal!

Lilac-crowned Parrot

Day 5: April 18^th – Before this tour, I had been birding the Aduana arroyo on my own more than I had been earlier in the year and decided to go for it on our first morning in Alamos.  It turned out to be a fantastic decision!  We started out with a couple of stops in the lower portion of the arroyo closer to the highway.  Here, we were strafed by a male Elegant Quail who was not happy at all with the vocal completion he was getting from my Ipod!  He literally headed right for us and buzzed the tops of our heads! Just before the town of Aduana, we stopped at the gray water puddle and were treated to Blue Grosbeak, Rufous-backed Robin and great looks at Plain-capped Starthroats and lots of Lark Sparrows.

Arriving at the parking spot where we begin the hike, we were greeted by two calling Russet-crowned Motmots, a bird that had been hard to find all over Alamos during the winter.  A great start to the hike!

The upper portion of the arroyo was simply amazing!  We had Berylline Hummingbirds, Five-striped Sparrow, Rufous-capped Warblers, Elegant Trogon, Yellow Grosbeak and surprisingly a Lilac-crowned Parrot in the fig tree above us!  We also caught up with a very cooperative Blue Mockingbird that posed for photos this time! After a very successful morning, we headed back to El Pedregal for a nice lunch in the palapa, followed by a welcome siesta!

The afternoon trip was out to the Cuchujaqui River bridge crossing where I was hoping to see a Crane Hawk.  This was not to be, and in general the heat kept the activity low.  However, we did manage to call in a pair of Green Kingfishers with the Ipod…something I had never done before!

This evening we went up to the Mirador Restaurant for a delicious Mexican buffet and we dined outside, enjoying the warm breeze, a beautiful

Nice look at an ELegant Quail

view and good company!

Day 6: April 19^th – No birding trip to Alamos is complete without a visit to the local sewage ponds.  It is typically one of the birdiest areas around and this morning was no different.  Today, we got even better looks at Elegant Trogon and Rufous-bellied Chachalaca.  The big prize of the morning was the late arrival of a nice flock of Purplish-backed Jays; we got good views of both adults and juveniles. After another very birdy morning in the field, we headed back to El Pedregal for another great lunch and siesta!

This afternoon we opted for what turned out to be more of a nice walk in a beautiful canyon than a real bird fest.  The Agua Marina drainage is one place where you can find some very large tropical deciduous trees in relatively intact habitat.  It is also a great place for woodpeckers and creepers on some days, but this was not one of them. This evening, Jen whipped up a tasty chicken fajita feast!

Day 7: April 20^th– We got out of the Pedregal a bit earlier this morning to make the 30 minute drive to the Mentidero arroyo, the largest drainage that comes off of the Sierra de Alamos.  We ended up driving all the way down the arroyo Mentidero to the confluence with the Cuchujaqui River, which still had some good pools of water in it.  The walk down to the fig trees got us more good looks at Plain-capped Starthroats and

22 Woodstorks at the Mentidero

really good views of a cooperative male Summer Tanager in a cypress tree.   There were still a couple of Spotted Sandpipers around and we were treated to very good views of Green Kingfishers again.  As we got close to the fig trees, we needed to cross the arroyo…just as we started, there was a  burst of movement in front of us and a big flock of woodstorks took off in front of us!  I counted 22 of them after I came to my senses and realized what was looking at…a very good sighting indeed!

We got back to town early and found time to do a little town tour while birding was slow and did a little trip through my parent’s old colonial house and we tried to do a bit of shopping! For a change of pace, we had lunch at our friend’s restaurant, Teresita’s Bistro and Panaderia.

After a siesta, this afternoon, a few of us  id one more hike up the Aduana arroyo hoping to find a Colima Pygmy Owl so that we could say that we had seen all three possible pygmy owls in Sonora.  Well, we worked hard and it seemed like it wasn’t going to happen. But, just as we were about to call it a day, I heard the distinct, yet distant call of a Lineated Woodpecker.  He never called again, but eventually I scanned the hillside long enough to find him working away on an old dead tree!  An awesome bird to see this far north and a great way to end the day! Marty had decided to stay in town and walk around and enjoy some time exploring on her own. We reunited back at El Pedregal for another good dinner…tonight it was a carrot ginger soup, pork tenderloin with potatoes au gratin and haricot verts. A nice change of pace from Mexican fare!

Day 8: April 21^st– It is always a bit difficult to pull out of Alamos after being at El Pedregal for a few days…I was getting used to being home for

Mangrove Warbler

a while!  The good news is that this day of the trip is typically the one where we see a lot of birds, indeed the most birds!  Today proved to be no different!  We started out with one last trip to Aduana and a visit to the big puddle on the entrance to town.  I don’t think we had any new birds there, but we got more looks at a lot of things.  Then it was on to Navojoa and the ever dryer lagoons that are part of the Rio Mayo drainage.  Birding was pretty good with better looks at Sinaloa Wren and we got our first and only look at Black-bellied Whistling Ducks.

On the drive through the agricultural fields to the sea, we found a small flock of Least Grebes in a roadside ditch.  Arriving at the causeway we got our first looks at the thousands of water birds while being escorted along by two Lesser Nighthawks.  At Huivulai, we had a bay side lunch and watched the Mangrove Swallows and Least Terns patrol the edges of the water.  During lunch, a very curious Large-billed Savannah Sparrow spent time under the van picking up wind-blown potato chips, as Gull-billed Terns picked unsuspecting crabs off the mudflats.  On the drive out, I made one last pass along the big irrigation canal hoping that the Burrowing Owls would now be there.  Indeed, they were and posed nicely for photos.

Large-billed Savannah Sparrow

We made one last stop in Empalme and the fishing docks where we added Yellow-footed, Heerman’s and Laughing Gull to our list. Our last dinner of the trip was at La Palapa in San Carlos, where we enjoyed a seaside dinner and some pretty good music!

Day 9: April 22^nd – After a noisy night at the Hotel Playa de Cortez, we headed out for some morning birding and got a new bird right in the parking lot – a Tropical Kingbird. We then made a quick stop at the OXXO (which is Mayan for Circle K) for a cup of coffee and a banana, before heading over to Estero el Soldado for a bit of ‘desert meets the sea’ birding.  Thank goodness the sea was there, because the desert wasn’t giving up too much this morning, except for a Gray Vireo and a Rufous Hummingbird.  We made one stop to scan some rocks on the way and got distant views of Blue-footed Booby and a large raft of Eared Grebes.  Once at the estuary, we again had good looks at Mangrove Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Elegant Tern, and a chorus emerged out of the mangrove from a number of Clapper Rails that were not interested I coming out.  Finally, we called an end to the birding on the tour and headed over to the Fiesta Hotel for brunch and a final bird list.

The drive north was uneventful, save for the stop at 21 km to pick up Jen, who had driven up separately in our old Isuzu Trooper to cancel the car permit and pass it off to our mechanic! Boy,  that was an easy goodbye, what relief to get rid of that old car! We drove through downtown Nogales and had a short wait at the border. In Arizona, Marty shared with us several of the good birding spots around where she lives in Tubac. In Tucson, we said our goodbyes! Thanks to all for a wonderful 9 days in Sonora!

More Photos area at this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdgeek/sets/72157629941529805/

Who would have thought that driving 2600 miles in 9 days, staying at as many hotels, and waking up several mornings before 4 a.m. could

The View at Loveland Pass

be so much fun!  Trying to see all the Grouse and Prairie Chicken species in the state of Colorado in less than two weeks requires a rather brutal schedule and a healthy constitution, but for anyone who has the desire the rewards can be quite grand!  130 species of beautiful birds, interesting accommodations, good food and seemingly endless scenery that continually takes your breath away!  This April, for the first time, I put together a 9-day tour that could possibly include seeing all of the Prairie Chickens, for some long time private clients.  We had a very successful and fun trip!

Day I: April 3^rd – I got out of Tucson early, only to fly over the grayness above Denver for an extra 45 minutes due to bad weather.  Things were really socked in with a small, late season snow storm.  After negotiating the rather non-intuitive Denver airport pickup area I found Emily and John and we were headed to points east and a 9 day birding tour of Colorado! The weather was pretty bad, but the birding proved to be good! It was a 170 mile drive from Denver to Wray in the northeastern part of Colorado.  Mostly, you are looking at endless expanses of wheat and grazing land but every now and then you see a pocket of remnant habitat or an abandoned old farm with big trees that looked promising.  We took a couple of detours that turned out to offer some nice surprises.  The best being a Great Horned Owl that John picked up, which was doing his best to hide out in the open!

After checking into the hotel, John and I opted for a quick outing before the required Greater Prairie Chicken orientation to a place called Sand Sage State Fishing Area.  In the drizzling rain we picked up a pair of Wood Ducks, Coots, Mallards, Eared Grebe, Ruddy Ducks and Bank Swallows.

The orientation was interesting with a lot of information about the Greater Prairie Chickens and their habitat and dinner that evening at the ‘4^th and Main’ restaurant was really good!

The Burrito Wagon

Day 2: April 4^th – We were up in plenty of time for a cup of coffee and the short trip over to the museum where the bus was just arriving.  There was a 30 minute very dark ride in the rain over muddy roads to the lek site, where we all filed off the bus and crawled into the ‘burrito wagon’ viewing trailer, as Josh, our Fish and Wildlife guide, referred to it!  Indeed, it is a bit like a ‘roach coach’, or lunch wagon that you see at construction sites, but outfitted far differently inside.  There are two long rows of bench seats with cushions and a fair bit of room behind them to set up a scope or to stand.

We waited in the trailer for a little while until Josh felt like it was time to turn out the lights and open up the big serving windows that looked out on the lek.  It was dark…I mean really dark, and seeing anything out there at this point was possible only by using some serious imagination!  The cloud cover and rain put a damper on the early morning activities of the males who typically come out long before daylight to start their posturing, but even the call of the territory defense were put on hold due to the bad morning weather.  Even Josh was a bit surprised at how long it took for the birds to show up, but eventually they did and it was certainly all that I thought it would be!  A fantastic display of male birds with upwards of 20 showing up eventually, and quite close!

There were also a couple of Burrowing Owls hanging around the prairie dog village.

After the show we closed up the burrito wagon and headed for a big hearty breakfast at the ranch head-quarters where the lek is situated.  It

Greater Prairie Chicken

was fun to see all the old cattle guys serving up breakfast to us birders and how involved many portions of the community are in protecting the Prairie Chickens.

We stayed the previous night at Doc’s B&B, a great old house in the center of town, the owners and manager spent some time talking with us before we packed up and headed off for points south.

It was a fairly long drive to the town of Lamar with one long stop at the Bonny Reservoir that was loaded with waterfowl, even though the water level was quite low.  We ended up exploring the margins of the lake which was really not that birdy, but looked like it should be.  We did end up seeing a Townsend’s Solitaire but not much else.

Another good stop at Sheridan Lake got us looks at Blue-winged Teal and our first Hooded Mergansers in a pond with a very Blue-billed Ruddy Duck.

I was so happy when I spoke with Norma, our hostess for the Lesser Prairie Chicken lek show the following morning. She informed us that we could sleep in an extra half hour as she didn’t need us to be in Holly until 4:30 a.m., so that meant that we could sleep in until 3:15 a.m.!  Heaven! This stuff is insane! We went to bed early at our home for the night in Lamar.

Day 3: April 5 – The 45 minute drive to Holly was a bit dreamlike at that hour, and the patches of fog didn’t help either, but fortunately it was a straight shot and Fred pulled up with the school bus only minutes after our arrival.

I got on the bus as Fred called my name and immediately someone yelled “Oh my God. MacKay!” It was Carolyn Noble, one of my birders from last year’s Gambell trips! She is a wonderful, fun person and I knew it was going to be a great day!  Finally, I got to see a lifer with her (since she didn’t get any on Gambell!)

It was a 30 mile drive out to the lek site and I was beginning to wonder if I should count this on my Colorado list or my New Mexico list…it seemed like a long way!  Once we got on the ‘dirt’, or what was once dirt, things got far more interesting!  The snow and rain of the previous two days had left the so-called road in dubious condition and even Fred was a bit concerned about whether or not we would make it all the way to the lek.  The big old school bus did pretty well and Fred was an amazing driver!  Several times, I was sure that we would get or were stuck, but every time Fred managed to get that big old yellow beast out of a rut and back on to the road! I was impressed and even more so for a guy who has to be at least 80 years old.

I enjoyed both lek tours a lot, but this one was far more home spun and loose, which certainly had a bit more appeal for me.

The Brits that we had met on the Greater Prairie Chicken trip, Andy and Allen, were with us again for the Lesser, as well as a guy doing a big year.

I would say that we must have done something right that day. We drove out to the lek in extreme fog, but as our luck would have it, the lifted just as the birds were beginning their dance, and remained so just long enough for us to see the birds well, and then it came back in with a vengeance! We had 19 or 20 birds on the lek eventually but once again it took a while to actually get a look at one, probably due to the weather again! We then headed to breakfast! Fred and Norma put on a really great biscuit and gravy breakfast with lively conversation about the rodeo business they used to run!

Then we were off to points north to try and find the Chestnut-collared Longspurs that Andy, the Brit, had clued me in to at a big old water project called Nee Gronda. It is actually a big lake that is one of the few that still actually has water near Lamar.

Pronghorn Antelope

It was rather amazing, but just as I saw the small ‘puddle’ that he mentioned on the edge of the entrance road, I saw the flash of a white tail that gave away the bird!  Of course it did not stick around, so off we went tramping around in a cut-over wheat field slightly smaller than the state of Rhode Island trying to locate this tiny bird!  As luck would have it, we got only fly-away looks working the field, and ended up heading back to the car thinking that we would look for it again on our way back out.  Just as we got to the car, I heard the chattering call of the longspurs circling overhead and soon located the flock above us.  Then one male broke from the group and headed right for us! I thought it might land on the scope!  It did not but it did light for a half second next to the puddle, but not long enough for John to get a look at it. Once again, it circled us for a long period of time and eventually landed in the same spot on the edge of the puddle, and this time sat for about 8 seconds, long enough for good looks! We spent another hour in the area and found a pair of Clarkes Grebes, some White Pelicans and a lot of Coots. Then we were off for John Martin Reservoir where we got an Eared Grebe but nothing else new. It was then a long, beautiful drive to La Veta, first across short grasslands and then juniper-Pinyon forests with the fantastic snow covered peaks in the distance, and wonderful looks at numerous Pronghorn Antelope.

The La Veta Inn is a very cool, centrally located spot with a good (not great) restaurant, but really great rooms! As luck would have it, we ran into Carolyn and Charlie again and had dinner with them!

Day 4: April 6^th – We had a nice breakfast at the hotel and then headed out to look for the feeders.  Carolyn had told us about, one at Bush and Virginia so we went there first.  Indeed, there were a lot of feeders but unfortunately most of them had been taken over by the thugs, dozens of Starlings and Red-winged Blackbirds.  We did manage to get some Pine Siskins, Cassin’s Finches and another really nice male Yellow-headed Blackbird.

We took a short drive up towards the mountains and by a couple of small lakes that held a lot of Canada Geese and a half dozen or so Common Mergansers.  The remainder of the drive, we spent watching for flocks which we found almost immediately.  There were a number of ‘pink-sided’ Dark-eyed Juncos and our first Bluebirds of the trip, both Mountain and Western.

Once back in town, we found another set of feeders that had far fewer thugs and some good birds!  A beautiful pair of Evening Grosbeaks, the only ones of the trip were picking around in the dirt under the feeder along with a pair of Spotted Towhees.

Then, it was a three hour drive to Gunnison which offered numerous wonderful opportunities to look for birds, but unfortunately was so blown out by the relentless 40 plus mile an hour winds with dust, that we were not really tempted to stop.   We did stop at one area that I would have spent a lot of time at if it had not been so windy.  Russell Lakes is a collection of maybe 8 or 9 ponds, lakes and wet areas that looked very promising, but with the weather was nearly impossible to bird.

One of the highlights of the drive was the Golden Eagle that flew not 50 yards from the car just at the tops of the trees as we pulled into the outskirts of Gunnison.  We  got good looks at it before it disappeared behind a small ridge.

We got to Gunnison about 4 p.m. and checked in to the house that we rented at the Wildwood Resort. I had a bit of a scare when the GPS directed us into a small development that looked sort of like the hotel we had reservations in, but fortunately was not!  The guy I asked about a room could have been right out of a crystal meth version of Deliverance…but was nice enough to send us in the proper direction! Once we found it, the little house was very comfortable and perfect for us.

After a quick break, we decided to head out to the lek just to make sure that we knew how to get there in the dark tomorrow morning.  It was a

Mountain Bluebird

beautiful drive out the Gunnison Valley to the Waunita Hot Springs Road and the viewing area.  It was still very windy and there was not much to see in the way of birds, but we now knew where would were going in the morning!

We ended up driving all the way up to the hot springs which were another 8 miles up the road and was yet another beautiful drive.  We got really more nice looks at Mountain Bluebird and a number of Northern Flickers.

On the way back down I was more concerned about making dinner reservations and the lack of gasoline and was not paying attention to what might be lurking along the side of the road.  Just as we were getting to the lek location, two Gunnison Sage Grouse exploded from the ditch on the right side of the road and flew alongside the car for a moment before turning towards the hill and disappearing into the sage brush!  Unfortunately, I was the only one who really got a look at all and it was not much of one. We spent a little time trying to find them in the sage brush but they were long gone.

We had dinner at Garlic Mike’s, an Italian place which was really good, before heading back to the house for some much needed rest in preparation for tomorrow.

Day 5: April 7^th – A 5 a.m. departure seemed rather civilized after a couple of the other departure times we put ourselves through to see the Prairie Chickens back east!  But as we left town with coffee in hand we immediately caught up with two white vans that sure looked like a bird tour group.  Indeed, we got to the lek site along with them and set up for the show.

The cars thermometer read 10 degrees when we arrived at the lek!  I wondered if this would have any effect on the birds.  But the wind had finally subsided and even with the windows down on the car it was still comfortable enough.

It took longer than I thought once again for the birds to show up, and they were a lot farther away than I had hoped.  The birds were at least two hundred yards out and the light was really bad.  I was watching the clock because I knew from previous reports that the birds had been leaving the lek at about 6:15 a.m., so I knew that we probably only had a short time to get looks at the birds.  Sure enough, after only marginal looks I saw one of the birds fly off and I had a sinking feeling that we had seen all that we were going to see today, and the sun was still far below the horizon.  Indeed, this ended up being the case.

Trying to make the best of a marginal morning with rather poor looks at the Gunnison Sage Grouse, we went back up the canyon to do some birding with only mild success, but we were rewarded with fine looks at a very large herd of elk.

We had a nice breakfast at the W Café (“Where The Locals Eat”) before going back to the house and packing up for Grand Junction.  Well…that is what we thought we were doing.  Instead John and I decided to make the most of our time in Gunnison and try a couple of passes to see if we might be able to get into Rosy Finch habitat, certainly the passes in the area are high enough.  Our first attempt was for Cumberland Pass which tops out at over 12,000 feet, and if it were open would have great habitat for the finches.  Unfortunately after driving up to the town of Pinket we hit the gate that was locked across the road, it would not be open until after Memorial Day, even in this mild winter.

Juniper Titmouse

So, then it was off for Crested Butte and an attempt at Keebler Pass. We knew there was a good chance that it would not be open, but that was not the most important part. We needed to check habitat for the finches and that might be available even if the road was not.  Unfortunately, we could not get high enough before the road was blocked and we were once again retracing our footsteps back to Gunnison.

We left Gunnison for what ended up being the fourth time at 3 p.m. and made it to Grand Junction by 6 p.m., and got a car wash along the way, much to Emily’s delight!

Day 6: April 8^th – John and I went up to Colorado National Monument without Emily this morning, as she chose to sleep in and catch up on some work.

John and I made it up to the higher elevations of the Monument in good time and without trying too hard ran into a small flock of Pinyon Jays right off the bat. Even better, two of them ended up posing for us and giving great life looks for John.  Later, we came across a lovely Peregrine Falcon sitting over the road in a dead tree limb.  We walked to within a few yards of him for photos and he was not the least bit concerned.

We stopped for a wonderful Easter Sunday lunch in the Palisades wine country on our way to Craig.  Our first big birding stop was at the big pond on the edge of Meeker where we got our first looks at a couple of Sandhill Cranes.

Once we got to Craig we decided to do a cursory research trip out to find the County Road 80 leks so that we knew where to go in the dark of

Pinyon Jay

the following morning.  We spent some time birding in the oak scrub at the top of the hill where Dusky Grouse are often seen.  While walking down the road, John rather nonchalantly mentioned that he had just seen a grouse fly by. We spent some time trying to find another one but to no avail, so we headed back to Craig for the evening.

Day 7: April 9^th – Once again we were up at o’dark thirty and on our way to the lek on County Road 80.  Yesterday afternoon’s scouting trip had left me with more questions than answers in some regards, but at least I knew where the Dusky Grouse spot was, which would be the more important bird of the morning.

As we crept up the gravel road in the dark, I was certain that my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw what I thought was the head of a dead deer in the middle of the road, then it turned profile and I realized that it was actually a Dusky Grouse roosting on the middle of the road!  Best yet, it never flew! It just sauntered off the left side of the road and up into the scrub and we all got cracking looks at it!  Onward we went and within seconds, there was a second Dusky Grouse in the road that gave us another great view!

Satisfied with the Dusky looks, we went off to try our luck with the Greater Sage Grouse spots that were not well described in any information that I had.  After 30 minutes of hearing nothing I pulled the plug and decided just to drive and listen.  This turned out to be the right thing to do.  At the second cattle guard, I stopped long enough to hear the cackling calls of Sharp-tailed Grouse not far from the road and quickly located them.  There were at least 6 of them courting a couple of females in the rather tall grass.

While enjoying the amazing Sharp-tailed Grouse show, a Greater Sage Grouse flew over our heads at a rather high elevation, and although we were thoroughly impressed with the bird’s ability to fly so incredibly well and far, it was not a great view at all!  But it was, indeed, impressive to see that big rather non-aerodynamic bird travel such a great distance!

On our way back towards the highway a couple more Dusky Grouse flew over the road, and eventually we ran into at least another 4 Dusky Grouse, some of them sunning themselves in trees right out in the open for extended periods of time!  This is a bird that is frequently the one that people miss on this tour, as it is known to be difficult to see.  For us, it ended up being the most common bird of the morning!

We did make one detour on our way to Steamboat Springs to check out the location of another Sharp-tailed Grouse Lek, mostly for future reference, and ended up not seeing any more grouse, but we did get good looks at 7 Sandhill Cranes.  In Steamboat we stopped for breakfast at Winona’s Café.

Us looking for White-tailed Ptarmigan

The rest of the morning found us driving on towards Loveland Pass where we made our first of three attempts for White-tailed Ptarmigan in the dwarf spruce forest and tundra at nearly 12,000 feet!  Although incredibly beautiful, Loveland Pass is not the birdiest area in Colorado, so while you’re looking for the Ptarmigan you don’t need to be bothered by a whole lot of other birds flying around.  You are lucky to find a robin now and then!  After a couple of hours, we gave up and headed on to Georgetown where we checked into the hotel and dropped off Emily. John and I went back up to the pass for a couple of hours of staring at the dwarf spruce trees with our new friends, the Brits Andy and Allen, who were also not finding birds!

After once again not finding the Ptarmigan, we headed back to Georgetown and dinner with Andy, Allen and Janet at the Euro Café.

Day 8: April 10^th – John and I decided to make one last attempt for the Ptarmigan this morning and I am glad that we did.  Andy and Allen went up super early and were still there looking when we got there at about 6:45 a.m.  I have to admit that I was a bit down on the bird after about an hour of looking and listening to the Brits complain about how hard this bird was to get!  Then, as if the black curtain of despair was lifted, Andy nearly screamed out that he had found two of them!  It was a fabulous moment! After a successful Ptarmigan moment, we went back for breakfast at the Mountain Buzz and the Brits headed off for the airport in Denver; a much happier drive, indeed, with the white birds under their belts (and ours)! For us, it was off to the north again and the remote mountain town of Walden.  Along the way, we stopped outside of Winter Park to scan a pond that was full of ducks.  We picked up Lesser Scaup in spades and a singing Song Sparrow was a bonus.

Just outside of Walden we saw a sign for the Arapaho Valley National Wildlife Refuge and a wildlife viewing driving tour, so we decided to go

Cassin's Finch

ahead and do it.  It was a wonderful drive with a number of ponds that were also full of waterfowl.  About half way through the 6 miles, we ran into a Singing Sage Thrasher that gave us wonderful views.

Being a bit ahead of schedule, we decide to head on up to the Moose Visitor Center in the State Forest State Park where I knew there were some good feeders.  There were lots of birds, more than we had seen in a couple of days, but most were Red-winged Blackbirds.  We did, however, get fine looks at Cassin’s Finches and a Pine Grosbeak was a bit of a surprise this late in the season.

Then we were off to scout the Greater Sage Grouse lek south of Walden, and I am glad that we did.  It would have been a bit funky getting there in the dark and trying to figure out the directions.  Even as it was, I was still a bit unsure if I was in the right spot.  We then did a loop back to town via the Delaney Butte Lakes and on the way found a Common Loon and three Western Grebes. We had dinner at our hotel, the Antlers Inn, and then headed off for an early sleep.

Day 9: April 11^th – John and I were out the door and off to the public swimming pool at 5 a.m. to meet up with Heidi, a woman that works at the Antlers Inn, who had offered to make us coffee while she opened up the pool for ‘free swim’. She was only a few minutes late, but we were still quite grateful to her for making us coffee as there was no other place open in town.

Greater Sage Grouse

It was a balmy 30 degrees as we headed off to the lek in the dark, excited about the possibility of seeing the last chicken of the trip, the Greater Sage Grouse. We arrived at the perfect time and waited to hear something or get a glimpse of a flying bird in the dawn light.  Soon after a car came up behind us and it was another birder looking for grouse and he asked us if we were in the right place.  Unfortunately, we were not exactly sure and he opted to stay with us and wait!  Within minutes, I saw a bird fly toward the road a couple hundred yards in front of us.  Scanning the short grass with my binoculars in the area that I thought the bird had landed I soon recognized the form of several Greater Sage Grouse standing tall ahead of us.  We decided to move up to the spot and the birds seemed not to care at all!  We got within 30 yards of one that gave us a spectacular show!  By the end of the hour or so that we were there, we counted 19 males on the lek and no females.

We got back to the hotel and met up with Emily for breakfast before driving on to Cameron Pass and a date with a Three-toed Woodpecker.  I was surprised at how quickly a female responded to just a short blast of tape, coming in very closely!  We spent a little time watching her before she got a bit shy and hid on the backside of a tree.  Fortunately, almost immediately a male flew in even closer and we got excellent close up views of him.  After making a few more stops at even higher elevations, including the very top of Cameron Pass, we eventually ended up seeing at least 7 Three-toed Woodpeckers.

Sage Thrasher

We decided to hightail it out of the mountains and out to the Pawnee Grasslands where we hoped to find a McCown’s Longspur and possibly a Mountain Plover, both birds we had missed on the first couple of days of the trip.  The drive was fairly easy and we were birding good habitat for both species within two hours.  We drove about 75 miles of dirt county roads scanning and stopping in good spots.  Eventually we came to a dry crossing that was an area of serious target practice for locals.  There were hundreds of broken clay pigeons and thousands of spent ammo rounds throughout the area.  But there were also birds!  More than we had seen in the grasslands thus far, and eventually I managed to pull out one McCown’s Longspur mixed in with a few Horned Larks, but that would be the only one we would find the entire afternoon! The Mountain Plover never materialized and eventually we were forced to abandon the search and start heading to the airport.

We got to Denver International in plenty of time for my flight and just in time for a tornado warning that shut down the airport and had people heading for the shelters!  It was interesting to see how different people reacted to the possible situation!  In the end, it was canceled and everyone was fine.

It was a truly great trip! Thanks, Emily and John, for being such great company!

After having done this trip, I am evaluating the route and some of the other logistical details as I plan to offer this a trip for next spring.  Look for more details on the website soon.

More photos are at this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdgeek/sets/72157629941621671/

March 10-20, 2012

Day 1- Everyone ended up getting in rather late due to some rather mysterious delay in Houston, so the possibility of doing any birding was pretty much impossible…but no worries because we have many great days of birding ahead! 

Day 2- We hit the first day of birding hard, going out to Reserva El Ocote north of Tuxtla Gutierrez (TG), an area of good humid forest only an hour from the hotel and a stark contrast from the dry tropical forest that surrounds TG.  Birding was good the second that we got out of the van with Blue-crowned Motmot and Slate-colored Solitaires singing all around us.  The bird of the morning was probably the Nava’s Wren that took its sweet time coming out for good looks, but eventually snuck up to within 5 feet of us with extreme curiosity. 

We went back to s’till-closed’ Sumidero  Canyon in the afternoon and tried in vain to get the guard to allow us in just to bird the entrance gate area.  We did manage to get good looks at White-throated Magpie-jay before giving up and hitting the road back to the hotel. 

Day 3 – Morning found us back at the locked gate at the entrance to Sumidero  Canyon and this time we walked on in with no problem from the gaurd!  Our first birds were a pair of Russet-crowned Motmots that were up even before the sun and

Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

an announcing Ferruginous Pygmy Owl that followed us around for a while.  Just after the sun was up, I heard the distinct chip note of a Red-breasted Chat and with just a bit of tape encouragement we got one to come out for excellent looks!

Walking the road was relatively productive with one of the great birds being a very cooperative Gray-crowned Yellowthroat that posed for photos!

Later ,it was off to San Cristobal (SC) and the antenna road at 9000 feet in elevation.  It was foggy, cold  and windy but there was pretty good protection on the road side of the hill.  Right off the bat, we were enjoying fantastic looks at Garnet-throated Hummingbird that kept returning to the same flowering vine.  A short way down the road we ran into at least a pair of Cinnamon-bellied Flower-piercers, and almost immediately a Rufous-browed Wren and a White-naped Brushfinch!  We then made one last trip out to the other side of SC looking for the Pink-headed Warbler, but bird activity was low due to the arrival of a Merlin that was keeping watch over the valley.

Day 3 – We were back on the road to the antennas early and it paid off. It was not any warmer but the birds were pretty good.  We got better looks at Blue-and –white Mockingbird and the Garnet-throated Hummingbird again.  One added bonus was a rather cooperative Mountain Trogon!

Later in the morning we went to KM 2 on the road to Osocingo where we got very little until after lunch.  There

Pink-headed Warbler

is a side road with good habitat just as you pull off onto KM 2, but it is not easily passable in a big van.  On our way out of there, I made a last minute decision to walk on up that road hoping to pull out a Pink-headed Warbler.  I took quite a while, but eventually a bit of Pygmy Owl tape brought in some birds, and Bill made my day by announcing his discovery of “a red one”, indeed it was a Pink-headed Warbler!  In the same flock was a Red-faced Warbler, which also brought us great happiness.

With the warbler out of the way, it was off to the bustling little city of Comitan.  On the way we stopped for Rafa and Mary Sue to buy some clay palomas, and got to town with time to make a quick trip out to Teman Puente where we got more rather bleak looks at Blue-and-white Mockingbird.  We did, however, add Olive Sparrow to the list

Day 4 -  Lagos de Montebello was incredibly lush and beautiful but the bird activity was limited.  We did get good looks at a Green-violet Ear, Common Bush-Tanager, Uni-colored Jay and Amethyst-throated Hummingbird.  After lunch we made our way back to the ruins of Teman Puente this time going

Belted Flycatcher

into the ruins to see what we could find.  Bill picked up a Belted Flycatcher but it didn’t stick around long for everyone to see.  Fortunately, when we got outside, the dense scrub adjacent to the ruins head-quarters held a very cooperative Belted Flycatcher! 

We went back to town for dinner at la Parilla Suiza, my favorite small taco chain for an awesome dinner. 

Day 5 – We spent the morning back at the Lagos de Montebello where it was even quieter than the previous day!  We cut our losses and started our way down the hill and towards warmer weather and less wind and Las Guacamayas!

Day 6 – Well, all I can say is that today’s boat trip will go down in the history of Solipaso as one of the best ever!  From the minute we got into the boat at dawn, with thick fog rising over the river, the sound of passing Scarlet Macaws got everyone’s attention, we even got  a brief look as they disappeared into the mist, it was already a great day! The trip also gave us looks at all five possible kingfishers in Mexico, including an American Pygmy that would not leave us alone.  At one point, we had several raptors soaring above us all at once, including a pair of Gray-headed kites with an Ornate Hawk Eagle and a Laughing Falcon perched in a river side tree thrown in just for kicks!  As we were

Amazon Kingfisher

picking through the raptors, a falcon that looked a lot like a Bat Falcon but was far too large to be one, flew across the river right above us.  My first thoughts were that it might be a Peregrine but the coloring was not right.  Unfortunately, it pulled away before anyone could get a photo.  Bill and I both felt that it really could have been an Orange-breasted Falcon, a very rare bird and one that has not been seen in Mexico in a number of years.  Unfortunately, the look was not good enough to be 100 % sure, so It is on our list, but I am not going to submit it to ebird without a photo.

Tomas, our boatman, noticed a group of small bats roosting on a log just above the level of the river and took us to within feet of them for photos.  When we got a bit too close they all took off together in a sort of bat formation that I had never seen before, it was really neat.  It turns out that they were Proboscis Bats, the Mexico mammal book describes them as common in lowland forests, typically in groups of ten or so, and typically form a single line when roosting. 

One of three Sun Grebes we saw

I hadn’t planned on the adventure portion of the trip, but as they say you can’t take the adventure out of adventure tourism.  With our heads spinning from seeing so many great birds on the up river portion of the trip, I was doubtful and possibly a little unaware of what was about to happen next!  Tomas whipped the panga through a couple of rather hairy sections of river ending suddenly at the base of a beautiful travertine waterfall about 4 feet tall that stretched across the entire width of the river.  It was a beautiful site and it was nice to stop moving for a moment and enjoy the peace and beauty.  About the time I joked with Bill about how I wouldn’t be surprised if Tomas had the skill to pilot that boat up the one small portion of the falls that was not vertical, the engine accelerated and Tomas aimed us right for that gap!  I was sure he was going to veer off at the last second, but instead he shot right up through the gap and we ended up splashing into the still water on the other side of the falls!  It was awesome! After my initial reduction in adrenaline subsided, my first thought went to how he was planning on getting back down the waterfall!

The way back down was highlighted by the drop back off the waterfall which was equally as exciting as going up, and the landing of a pair of Scarlet Macaws in a palm very close to the river.  Unfortunately the light was pretty bad for photos, but a great sight now the less. 

The grand finale was the river otter on the bank with a catfish just a little bit smaller than he…but even better when our boatman realized that the fish was still alive and jumped out of the boat and salvaged  the fish away from the otter, saying that it would be great for his own lunch!  Amazing!

The afternoon was pretty much just a drive to Frontera Corozal in preparation for tomorrows boat trip to Yaxchitlan.

Day 7 – Today was the earliest morning of the tour! The idea was to get to the ruins of Yaxchitlan as the sun was coming up, since any later and you risk the chance of hitting the 10 a.m wall when you can’t find a bird to save yourself!  We got lucky in a number of ways.  First of all, our boatman arrived only 10 minutes after the planned 5:00 a.m. pick up, which was the arranged time.  I was a bit nervous after making the deal for the early boat departure when the  girl that I dealt with told me we could go at any time, but asked me if we wanted the boatman to arrive “en punto”: essentially offering up the option for the boatman to be late!  I suggested that it might be best if he was on time!We loaded up and were out of there, but not fast.  Not only did we have to work the boat out of the rocks and out into the main channel of the river in the dark, the fog was so intense that it didn’t matter how dark it was, it was impossible to see anything!  The second streak of luck was that the boatman was an older guy that knew that river like no other!  We bumped on one rock just as we left the “harbor” and with only a couple  of slowdowns on the entire trip, we made it to the ruins in exactly an hour!  Another birding group that left at 6am had to stop and wait for the fog to rise and was arriving as we were finishing up the morning! Some of the birds we saw were Slaty-tailed Trogon, Mealy Parrot, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Yellow-throated Euphonias building a nest, Keel-billed Toucan, White-necked Jacobin, Barred Woodcreeper, and Golden-hooded Tanagers. Once we got to Palenque we did a bit of afternoon birding around the hotel and got looks at a couple of Pygmy Owls that brought in all sorts of other birds, but the sighting of the afternoon was finding a Greater Grison near the spot where Mary Sue had a Worm Eating Warbler.  A Grison is a weasel like animal that is apparently very difficult to see.  The mammal book says that researchers spend years in the field before every getting a glimpse at one, and that very few people have ever reported one in Mexico!  The one we saw actually seemed to be curious of us and kept coming back to look at us when I would put on Pygmy Owl tape!  Not convinced that this was really the reason for him hanging around, but he did seem interested.  After reading up on this animal it seems very strange that it was so comfortable in what is a rather busy hotel environment, but there is a lot of good forest still around the area. 

Day 8 – Today was our trip out into what I call the ‘upper’ Usumacinta marshes, an area of agricultural fields and grazing areas that have a very offer a very different type of habitat and birds.  The morning was admittedly slow with long periods of driving with little to look at as we scanned the fields for Double-striped Thick-knees and raptors.  Eventually there was a 

A Barred Woodcreeper

small falcon perched up in a tree and we pulled over to treat ourselves to great looks at an Aplomado Falcon!  Not 2 kilometers down the road we found two more perched on a row of fence posts for even better looks!  I think in total we saw nearly 10 different individuals throughout the day.

Some of the historically better areas for birds were unseasonable dry this time, so after lunch we went directly to the better Pinnatted Bittern spot to see if we might be able to at least find one more of our targets for the day. 

Right off the bat, we ran into a big flock of Grassland Yellow-finches that continued to bother us for the remainder of the afternoon, but the Bittern was nowhere to be found, and I was getting a bit worried about disturbance by the many cows grazing in the fields where I have found Bitterns before.  Eventually’ I was encouraged by a field that was being flooded for rice thinking that we might find a few shore birds.  After a few minutes of scoping around, Bill found a very lonely but wonderful Double-striped Thick Knee wandering around in the mud, far from any shade and happy to be picking around for bugs on its own during the day!  That certainly took some of the pressure off the afternoon!  Onward we drove and walked, spending about three hours

Pinnated Bittern

looking for the Bittern in all.  At 3:30 we turned around and I was thinking that it was looking like we would dip on the Bittern, when Rafa brakes hard and points to the right ditch.  There it was, a Pinnated Bittern very close to the road, the best look that I have ever had.  Afraid to move too fast or say too much, we all took photos from inside the van before deciding that it was OK to get out of the van.  We spent a good 20 minutes taking scope looks and photographing the bird

Day 9 – Today was our day to explore the ruins of Palenque but it started out with a walk around the grounds of the hotel which turned out to be great.  Right out the door, I heard a not too distant Collared Forest Falcon calling away, and I could tell by the calls of the Brown Jays that it was getting closer!  I put on a bit of tape and we scanned the tops of the distant trees until we found the mob of Jays.  Sure enough in the middle was the falcon, a bit too far away for good looks with binoculars so I ran for the scope.  As I got back with it, the bird flew back into the woods, but the jays were still on it and not too far away.  I put on a bit more tape and the falcon came flying directly over us with the jays in hot pursuit and landed in plain view not more than 100 meters away.  We got great protracted views of this often very difficult to see species. 

We got to the ruins just as they opened and did well beating the teeming masses into the site and the birds were good.  We got great looks at another Great Black Hawk and found a nice pair of Black-cheeked Woodpeckers.  The attendant Bat Flacon was on his perch at the top of the Palace. Unfortunately, there would be no looks at Mexican Antthrush today, most likely due to major chainsaw work that was going on right next to the area where they often hang out.

In the afternoon, we made a stop at Laguna Cetazaja on our way to Villahermosa, hoping to see a Black-collared Hawk and any shorebirds that might be hanging around.  On the drive to the ranch owned by Eduardo Cabrera, we ran into four Gray-necked Wood-rails running around in an open area.  As we got to the end of the road which marks the tip of a peninsula, we could see that there we were just a bit too late for the party!  Eduardo had hosted a big fiesta for the town on its patron saint’s day and over 200 people had just left after a big lunch and apparently a few beers! Too bad that we missed the food, but the good news was that within minutes everyone was gone and we had the place to ourselves for birding.  New birds included a flyover by a Black-collared Hawk, Mangrove Vireo and Laughing Gulls. 

We ended the day and the tour with a two hour drive to Villahermosa.  It was a great trip with a lot of memorable birds and some great fun!  I counted 323 seen and heard birds including 26 raptors, every woodpecker on the list and 34 Warblers!  Thanks everyone for a great tour!

Rafa and I spent a very nice night at the Garza Canela in San Blas after dropping off our clients in Guadalajara, we were lucky enough to hit the tail

Collared Forest Falcon in Singayta

end of the culinary festival and got to sample some very special dishes!  The following morning we headed out to the Singayta area to get Rafa a few more life birds.  It was a bit slow on the road, but we did manage to ultimately get great looks at a very cooperative Collared Forest-Falcon that had been teasing us all morning.

Our plan worked out well and met Mario and Gaby right on time.  Rafa and I had already pulled together all the food and drink and we were off for Copala arriving in time for dinner at Daniel’s before they all headed out for the night.

We were off pre-dawn for the high country!  We were all excited to be in the mountains and I was excited to show these guys a bunch of new birds.  Our first real stop was in the pines where Rafa and I had Gaby and Mario put breakfast together for us just like we would do on a tour!  We had a great time pretending to be outrageously demanding and rude.  Fortunately, none of my clients would ever be as bad as Rafa and I were!  While we were eating we got looks at a Blue-throated Hummingbird, Blue Mockingbird and our first Red Warbler!

Yes! A Tufted Jay on the road!

My hope was that a flock of Tufted Jays would pop in for a visit while we were eating breakfast, but after a while things slowed down and we opted to move on.  It didn’t take long for us to find the them, however!  Not 2 miles down the road, I rounded a corner and there on the road was a Tufted Jay trying to remove something edible from the pavement!  I quickly pulled over on a very convenient pullout and we spent the next several minutes watching a flock of at least 14 birds interact and fly back and forth across the road…fantastic!  Sometimes these birds can be rather skittish, but this time they were completely comfortable with us being in the middle of the flock and they seemed far more interested in eating than worrying about us! In the end it turned out that this was a very important sighting for other reasons as we would not see the jays again on this trip!

Next stop was the old ranch site at the famous birding location near the Barranca de Liebre.  Right out of the van, we had marvelous looks at Russet Nightingale Thrush, Red-headed Tanager and Rufous-capped Brushfinch.  A bit more looking around and we found more Redstarts of both varieties, Tufted and Buff-breasted Flycatchers and Rufous-capped Warblers.

Soon we were off and down the hill towards the best site for Green-striped Brushfinch.  Things started out a bit slow, but this is not that

What the birds were after at the ranch site!

unusual for the high country in November.  I was really happy just to be birding in the high country of Mexico with some of my best buddies and showing them some new places!  But soon I had to start getting serious about birds again, the warblers had found us!  It was one of those special birding moments that I will never forget.  As soon as one person would call out a bird and everyone would get on it, someone would call out another, it was amazing.  In all there were a dozen species of warblers alone, plus another dozen birds that included White-striped Woodcreeper, Mountain Trogon, Pine Flycatcher and Mexican Chickadee.

The walk down the road continued to produce all sorts of birds, so by the time we got to the Green-striped Brushfinch stop, I was pretty confident that we would be successful.  Sure enough, with just one blast of the tape two brushfinches made there way up the drainage and eventually gave us all really good looks.  Along with them came a family of Golden-browed Warblers who also were quite accommodating!

We went back up the hill and made out was to one of the world’s most beautiful locations for lunch – the canyon rim of the Barranca de Liebre.  Once again, Rafa and I took pleasure in pretending to be overly demanding clients towards Gaby and Mario while they put together a great canyon side lunch.

Some high flying Military Macaws were very entertaining!

Birding had slowed down with the warming day and we took a short drive back out of the Barranca area and towards the cabins that the ejido had built for guests.  Once again birding was pretty slow and only a few of the trees that have been fruiting in previous years were producing this time.

We drove back down the mountain to the Petaca road where things were a bit more exciting!  The Petaca area has hardly a bit of untouched habitat left, but that seems to suit many species of birds just fine.  We got lucky with Rusty-crowned Ground-sparrow, Rusty Sparrow and had a beautiful pair of Military Macaws circle us a number of times and then eventually land in a small cave in the cliff face.  With the scope we could watch them preening and walking around in the cave…it was very cool!

A very cooperative Berryline Hummingbird

The day was getting long and we were all pretty whipped, so we opted to call it a day and headed back down to Daniel’s for dinner.  It was good to do the list and rehash all the great birds that we had seen that day.  After dinner, we all walked into town to see the church and visit the old part of town. Copala is a neat place but too bad a quarter of the buildings on the plaza are abandoned and not doing very well at all!  I am afraid that the Butter Company hotel and bar may be at a point of no return as it is really tumbling down.

After a great nights sleep  with a only a few jake brakes cutting the nights silence, we chowed down a simple breakfast and were off to the Panuco road just a short distance from the hotel.  Admittedly, it was not the best morning I have ever had on the Panuco road, but we did see a lot of neat birds with some work.  We eventually got a Colima Pygmy Owl to come in and with him came Golden and Black-capped Vireos, Blue Bunting and two Golden-crowned Emeralds!  We also got lots of good views of Military Macaws, the Panuco road must be one of the best places anywhere to get good close looks at this fantastic bird.

We ended up pulling out of Daniel’s about 11:00 a.m. and made our way down to Mazatlan.  The boys had never been there so we wanted to spend at least a couple of hours ‘turistiando’ around the historic old town of Mazatlan! After strolling the Malecon and taking lots of funny pictures, we treated ourselves to a delicious seafood lunch before making the drive back home to Alamos! It was a great trip and I was so happy to share some fun times with Mario, Gaby and Rafa!

Colima-Jalisco

November 2011

Private trip for the Raskin Family

Day 1 – After only really getting lost once on the drive into downtown Guadalajara, Rafa and I arrived at the hotel for the Raskin clan ahead of

The Volcanos at Sunset

schedule!  With an improved mental map of the layout of downtown Guadalajara, we were out of there in fine fashion any off to do some birding!  Our first stops were only an hour out of town at the Sayula and Zapotlan lagoons.  Although it was a bit early in migration, we were still treated to good looks at a number of northern migrants at these fine shore birding areas.  There were a few Pectoral Sandpipers and lots of Least Sandpipers, along with the usual assortment of waders and numerous duck species.  Also in attendance were at least four American Pipits. Then, it was off to Sapotalan Lagoon just outside of Ciudad Guzman where we embraced the reverie while we birded side by side dozens of families enjoying their Sunday afternoon, “domingiando” as they say in Mexico.  Nothing like your first look in a spotting scope at a beautiful bird to get you interested in birds…hopefully we made a few new birders out of those kids!  We had

Training new bird guides

good looks at Cassin’s and Western Kingbirds, which is always a nice thing to go over early in a tour, and there were a couple of Vermilion Flycatchers around for eye candy appeal.  I was a bit surprised by the unsolicited calls of a number of Soras and we had our first looks at Ruddy Ducks. We ended the day with dinner on the plaza with lots of music and awesome Enchilada Suizas!

Day 2 – We were up early for a big breakfast in our room then on the road by 6:20 a.m.! It was certainly in our favor to have had the time change recently so that it did not get light until 7:00 a.m.!  We didn’t waste much time getting up the slopes of Volcan de Fuego, and on to better high elevation habitat. At one of our very first stops we were rewarded with a few birds in a very popular fruiting Bursura tree.  It was a trifecta of Tanagers with Western, Flame-colored and Hepatics all doing battle with a trio of Vireo species that included Hutton’s, Warbling and Cassin’s.

Pushing on to even the higher elevations required some technical vehicle traversing and some rather intense landslides and serious rut

Volcan del Fuego

maneuvering…and this was after someone had been “working” the road! With only some difficulty and one or two second runs at obstacles, we managed to make it all the way to the park entrance before one final landslide stopped us.  This was a great place to do lunch!  While Rafa was working his wonder on the lunch, Frances and I had wonderful looks at a Red Warbler darting about, and suffered a bit trying to get decent looks at an incessantly monotonous Blue-throated Hummingbird that would not stop chirping, but we never did find the guy.  Re-energized after lunch we all hiked up the road where we encountered our first Gray Barred Wrens, as well as Hermit and Townsend Warblers and a retiring Mountain Trogon.

The fog rolled in kind of heavy and it got down right cold! It seemed like a great time to begin our decent to the lower elevations.  This turned out to be a fine idea as we basically stopped every time that we exited the fog where bird activity tended to be excellent!  Our best stop had to have been the side road to the microwave tower.  On this stop we managed to pull out the highlight of the day!  Besides the fact that there were a lot of birds here, the hoots of my Colima Pygmy Owl brought in a very agitated Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireo that was content to give us all excellent protracted views!  It was great for everyone to get this lifer and it was a bird that I had not seen for a couple of years.

Stripe-headed Sparrow

Then we started the drive back to Ciudad Guzman stopping along the way for some fine sunset photos of the volcanos. We had dinner at the ‘Patio’ restaurant just off the plaza.

Day 3 – In the morning I opted for going back up to Volcan de Fuego mostly because it is so much more pleasant to bird than the road up to Volcan Nevado, far less dust and no traffic to speak of…not to mention a lot of great habitat.  It is harder to get to really good fir forest, but there is always tomorrow for that!

Our first new bird was an Inca Dove right on the paved road in Atenquiqueon.  Once leaving pavement, we made our first stop not more than a mile on to the dirt road.  Right out of the car, we had our first new bird for the trip; a family of Stripe-headed Sparrows was hanging around some old corrals and gave us protracted looks and decent photos to boot!

We then made two long stops that took up most of the morning in shady oak canyon areas collecting the birds. Finally, good looks in the scope at Blue Mockingbird!  Also had Arizona Woodpecker, a not so accommodating Crescent Chested warbler, Tufted Flycatcher, more Red-faced

Collared Towhee

Warblers (quickly becoming the most common bird of the tour!), Golden Vireo, nearly annoying numbers of Slate-throated Redstarts, and a Happy Wren that sang itself silly but never came out for us to see.

Then we bolted up the hill for the microwave towers, this time going beyond our Chestnut-sided Shrike Vireo stop from yesterday. Getting out of the van I heard the distinctive calls of a Collared Towhee and with just one quick play of the IPod, we had 4 or 5 birds allowing us fine views and photos!

Our near midday walk down the road from the microwave was slow, so we jumped in the van and moved down to the main road for a nice ‘green’ lunch at the junction.

The afternoon turned out to be a lot of ‘birding’, but not a lot of ‘bird watching’!  It was very slow with only a few new birds here and there, including shabby looks at another Mountain Trogon.  But we did have a nice walk and we did run into a group of Mexican Jays which has very recently been split into Trans volcanic Jay.  We ended the day once again with dinner at the ‘Patio’, this time with yesterday’s promised Chiles en Nogada that were not really worth waiting for!

Gray Silky Flycatcher

Day 4 – In order to get some more time in the fir forest, today we went up Volcan Nevado.  It is a good move going up this road during the week as I think only two or three cars passed us the entire morning.  The weekend would be an entirely different experience with hoards of folks headed up to beat the heat.  Our first stop was to enjoy a massive chorus of Green-Violet Ear Hummingbirds, content to be clicking away along with lots of White-eared and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds and there was even a Calliope or two getting in on the fun.  Walking the abandoned two tracks was relaxing and abundant with birds.  Once again we got quick looks at Red Warbler, our only Grace’s Warbler, a couple more Collared Towhees, as well as our first Mexican Chickadees of the tour.

Then it was up to the fir forest and the massive flower packed ditches that make up the habitat near the entrance to the national park.  Here we got our best looks at Gray-silky Flycatchers and a surprise visit from a very interested Cinnamon-bellied Flower-piercer, a bird that can be very difficult to find on the volcanos.  Then it was time for the next BIG surprise of the day!  Driving along I happened to notice a slight movement on the right hand edge of the road, immediately I recognized it as a Long-tailed Wood-Partridge that quickly made its way off the road and into the brush.  I pulled over quickly and got out the Ipod.  After only a couple of blasts, a small group of Wood-Partridges started calling on the opposite side of the road!  I warned everyone to watch the other side of the road because I knew that the separated member wanted to be in the comfort of friends!  Within seconds, the one that I had seen wandered out on to the road ran out into the middle of the road, stopped briefly for us to get binos on, and then ran to hook up with the rest of the covey!  Fantastic!  They were quick yet satisfying looks at this interesting and difficult to see central Mexican endemic!

We picnicked within the boundaries of the park, grateful for another one of Rafa’s outrageously good salads.  Right after lunch an unsolicited

I love these long drives!

Mountain Pygmy Owl started calling in the distance.  We never did get a look at him but it was good to know they are up there!

It was a 3 hour drive to Autlan this afternoon and we made one stop along the way for some agricultural field birding, after Rafa noticed that there were a lot of raptors around.  Sure enough, we ended up seeing White-tailed Kite, Swainson’s Hawk, White-tailed Hawk, Kestrel and Peregrine Falcon within only a few short minutes.  One big surprise was having a small covey of Northern Bobwhite dart across the road as we were headed back to the main highway.  At the highway, I pulled over for a minute so that we could drink up some wonderful views of Groove-billed Anis feeding in someone’s yard!

It had been a great day of birding, if not a long one!  I was a bit tired and should have been paying better attention, but they call them accidents for a reason.  I had been through that intersection many times before and I knew it was unsafe and unintuitive, so I should have been more alert.  Instead, I missed the not so obvious red arrow and made a left hand turn in front of a speeding Volkswagen.  Boom….my first car accident ever! Fortunately, only my pride and the Volkswagen were seriously hurt, and the insurance adjustor and the police were efficient and very understanding.  The cop didn’t even give me a ticket and he expressed to me that this was hardly the first time that there was an accident this intersection. Not a great way to end the day, but fortunately all was well.

A very cooperative Arizona Woodpecker

Day 5 – This morning we made the short drive out of Autlan and up into the Sierra Manitatlan and the crest of the mountains and Puerto de Los Mazos, an area I refer to as the enchanted oak forest.  Right out of the car we were treated to a very accommodating Blue Mockingbird and a small mixed flock that included Cassin’s Vireo, Happy Wren and Black-and-white Warbler.  Just as we were getting ready to move on, I saw a weird movement in the bush and Rafa called Rusty-crowned Ground-Sparrow!  Sure enough, with just a bit of coaxing the bird gave us a limited but good show, the only one we would have on the entire trip!

We walked a good long way this morning birding hard the entire way. Some of the spoils included good looks at Flame-colored and Summer Tanager, Plumbeous Vireo, Rufus-capped Warbler, Brown-crested Flycatcher, Arizona, Ladder-backed and Gray crowned Woodpecker. We also eventually got great looks at a Colima Pygmy owl after a couple of hours of frustration trying to nail his location down!

Once the birds slowed down it was time for butterflies with numerous species seen and a couple actually identified, I am guessing that the late

This Colima Pygmy Owl gave us the evil eye!

summer rains (unfortunately in the form of major hurricanes) have extended and improved the numbers of butterflies this year.

Getting back to the van was pretty funny.  As I rounded the corner walking ahead of the rest of the group, I encountered a pick-up truck loaded with comically over-armed Special Forces of the state police!  Apparently, they were waiting for someone who had a key to open the gate to the microwave tower.  Always a bit intimidating at first to come face to face with highly armed individuals, but quickly it became obvious to them that I was hardly a threat and they were all honestly interested in all the equipment I had and how I use it to help find and see birds!  They were all really nice guys.  Little did I know when leaving them that in the parking area where I had left the van, I would find another dozen or more police vehicles, and even more highly armed cops meeting for a joint training exercise!  It was pretty funny as all of us arrived at our van and waited for the driver of a truck or two to be moved so that we could actually get out of there!

We were all pretty hungry at this point so we made a dash downhill, now into tropical habitat, searching for a good lunch spot.  Lunch ended up being at a rather unceremonious location perched on a high ditch under a fig tree full of robins. The culinary skills of chef Rafa garnered far more attention than the trash filled ditch that was our dining area!

After lunch it was hot and not too birdy, but we made a stop at Laguna Rosario where we pulled out a bunch of ducks in a rather distant pond and a few White-collared Seedeaters that were working ditch.

We had lots of San Blas Jays

Just before arriving in Barra de Navidad, I thought it might be a good idea to do a little scouting trip up the Arroyo Choncho where we would be spending the morning tomorrow.  It was pretty hot, but we managed to get looks at Louisiana Waterthrush and Lilac-crowned Parrots before calling it a day and heading into town!

We had a great dinner tonight at El Manglarito with lots of fun discussing the mango ice cream.

Day 6 – This morning it was back up the hill to the Arroyo Choncho and had some really great birds.  Super looks at San Blas Jays, Golden-crowned Emerald Hummingbird and a lifer Ovenbird for Francis!  We did a lot of walking on the old dirt road, way past the small lagoon at the top where we were included with a big mob on a Pygmy Owl.  Things got quiet on the way back down but it was a wonderful morning.

Back at the hotel we relaxed with a picnic in poolside at the hotel and David helped me out with a bottle of Cabernet! Once the sun cooled down and our nap was over, we were off for the airport road and a nice afternoon of wetland birding that included three species of kingfishers and lots of waders.

On the way back to town we stopped to buy fruit for the following day’s breakfast and got a

Cinnamon Hummingbird

chance to be closely involved in a Mexican goat round up, complete with a boy and his kid!  Once again we had a really nice dinner at El Manglarito.

Day 7 – This morning we packed up the van and were out of the hotel early for a date on the Playa del Oro road, a good twenty minutes from the hotel.  We ended up having to work really hard for most of our birds and a couple were only heard, including the Flammulated Flycatcher that came ever so close but remained hidden in the bush.  We did have good looks at Yellow-winged Cacique, Scrub Euphonia, Blue Bunting, Orange-breasted Varied and Painted Bunting, as well as Botteri’s and Clay-colored Sparrow.

Today Rafa set us up a great lunch in the shade of a huge rubber tree where we were treated to looks at a pair of Citreoline Trogons and Tropical Parula.

The Playa del Oro road eventually makes its way through a nice big stand of intact dry tropical forest and then ends up at a fantastic beach!  It was all far too tempting for David and I and soon we were both in the waves (substantial ones too!) enjoying a bit of body surfing in the absolutely perfect temperature water!

Orange-breasted Bunting

After a refreshing afternoon swim, it was off to Manzanillo and on up to the bustling city of Colima.  Apparently there is no economic crisis here!  The place was amazingly busy and everywhere we looked there was new construction and lots of affluence spread around, much more than most other places in southern Mexico!

Day 8 – In an attempt to milk the most possible birding out of the tour, I opted for one last drive up Volcan de Fuego, but this time on the moist Pacific side.  We got out of the hotel well before first light and made our first stop in the dark at the village of San Antonio.  We were hoping for owls as I went through the realm of possibilities on the Ipod, but unfortunately we got no responses.

Our one big stop was at Laguna Maria where we competed with a Christian revival group for space in the park.  Birding was a bit slow so we were off once again back down the mountain and made one fantastic stop hoping for a Green-striped Brush-finch that never appeared.  We did however get killer looks at a very accommodating Fan-tailed Warbler, more Collared Towhees and marauding group of Rufous-capped Warblers.

Happy with the mornings results, we were off for lunch and then on to Guadalajara.

It was great to get back to the west central volcanic belt with such a fun loving and interesting group after a couple of years being away!  Thanks to Rafa for all his hard work and to the group for having the idea to do this private trip.  I hope to travel with you all again very soon.

I realize that this tour is quickly becoming but a distant memory being that it occurred more than three months ago, however better late than

Gray Vireo

never I sometimes say!  For me it has actually been a lot more fun going back a couple of months after the fact and taking a second look at the photos and trying to recreate an accurate report of just what exactly we did and saw!  Funny but I had actually ended the tour a bit down about the birds that we did or more accurately did not see.  After gong back through it all I realize that we did pretty well after all!  Here is the story of the Sonora tour from October 2011!

Day 1 – Thursday October 21st. The small but intrepid group pulled out of Tucson ahead of schedule and of we went to the Rio Sonora Valley and on to Hermosillo.  The weather was slightly overcast and the birding was too!  In other words things were not exactly falling out of the trees.  Unlike the previous spring trip the numbers of Sparrows and the like were low at the big Sycamore crossing just south of Cananea. We did manage a few birds but mostly I was interested in moving south and on to bigger fish.One of the interesting no bird moments of the day was finding the big church in Arizpe open to visitors.  I have been here dozens of times and only had the pleasure of going in to the church very few times, and it had been years.  I was happy to see that it was even better than I had remembered it.  It was in excellent condition and the De Anza is still installed in his final resting place in the floor in front of the altar!  Admittedly it is a bit bazaire but hey this is Mexico and I really like the weird addition of the mildly inappropriate missed in with stone cold tradition, rather refreshing I think!

Happy Halloween from De Anza

El Rodeo was closed for some reason so I was forced to do lunch at the second best place in town, which was fine if not way too much food.

A stop at the hot springs got us our first looks at Caracara and a bunch of Lark Sparrows along with Gray, Dusky and Vermillion Flycatchers.

Day 2 – We got out of Hermosillo early and were birding at the big shrine before we knew it.  Well if we had never had experienced a good look at Gray Vireo that was checked off the list, the little suckers were hamming it up!  There was also a splattering of other desert birds including Curve-billed Thrashers, Canyon Towhee and several Black-throated Sparrows.Next stop was at the The San Jose Del Pima arroyo where the birding was decidedly slow, but we got good photos of a Couple of Sonoran Mud Turtles enjoying what was left of the moist areas of the arroyo.Lunch par usual at the ever impressive Yaqui river bridge where we were treated to an invasion of Rock Wrens headed south.Further up the road we beat the bushes at the fig tree for little reward in the way of birds, but thanks to Robins keen eye and unfading interest in Butterfly’s, we were all treated to great looks at a recently described species of butterfly!  The Minerva Owl was only first recognized as a full species in 1994 and is the only butterfly of this tropical family in northern Mexico Opsiphanes blythekitzmillerae. In November 2007 an anonymous online auction bidder

Minerva Owl

paid US$40,800 for the naming rights to the butterfly. It was named after Margery Minerva Blythe Kitzmiller of the U.S. state of Ohio, who died in 1972. Researchers at the University of Florida discovered the new species in a butterfly collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History in 2007. It had been misidentified as an example of another species. The 4-inch butterfly is brown, white and black, and is found in the Mexican state of Sonora. Finally it was on to the high country and the pines with our first stop of many at the nearly world famous glory hole, better known to some as the Barranca.  Indeed it was a bit chilly and late in the day but the birding proved to be good as usual at the Barranca.  We got our first looks at Painted and Slate-throated Redstarts, teased by Blue Mockingbirds and Orange-billed Nightingale Thrushes and worked hard to find what woodpecker was doing the tap taping with no luck.  It was a bit late in the day so we head into Yecora for some chow and some must deserved rest in preparation for what promised to be a big day of birding! As usual we spent a little time at the Yecora black water ponds where we got our first impression that there were a lot of sparrows around this fall!  Lark, Grasshopper, Lincoln’s, Savannah, White-crowned and Vesper to name just a few were in fantastic numbers throughout the wet and scrubby areas around the ponds.  Water birds were comprised of pretty much just the usual suspects including a rather confiding Wilsons Snipe.

Rufous-capped Warbler

The drive up slope was marked by numerous stops searching for highland species.  We found our attendant Mountain Pygmy Owl nearly right away and its presence certainly helped to bring in a few other birds that were not so happy to have it around!  I got maybe my best photo ever of a Spotted Towhee at one of these stops and we had very cooperative White-striped Woodcreepers at just about every location!The first stop on the microwave road was as good as we could have expected, well at least eventually!  After a lot of searching for the Aztec Thrushes that I promised would be there, Robin did come up with one! Eventually we found a couple of them lurking around in the Madrone tree, doing their very best to hide right out in the open!  After lunch we made our second trip to the Barranca and were not disappointed at all!  Right out of the van we had calling Spotted Wrens and Blue Mockingbirds.  Just as we arrived I felt the presences of Black-headed Siskins and not much more unfortunately!  As soon as I got out the words, they flew down the canyon before anyone else could get on them.  Fortunately like with a lot of birds Siskins are creatures of habit and I figured that if we just ignored the site for a little while they would be back.  So off we went trolling

Black-headed Siskin

around for Gray-collared Becards and Gray-crowned Woodpeckers, neither of which we found but at least we were ignoring the Siskins!  I ended up blowing some more time ignoring siskins by chasing down some Rufous-capped Warblers which I got great photos of.  After about 30 minutes I took a rather uninterested look back at the area where the siskins had been feeding…the little boogers were back, I quietly yet quickly called for David and Robin and this time we got the best looks we could have hoped for, what a great little bird it is!

Day 4 – This morning rather than hitting the ponds we forged out to an area that I had not been to for a while.  It is a small drainage on the west side of town past the cemetery.  We ended up not going too far on the road because the number of birds flying in front of us was so impressive!  Once again we were over whelmed by Sparrows, hundreds if not thousands of them and 8 species to boot! Then it was back to the Barranca for one last stop before hitting the road for Alamos. The drive to Alamos was a bit uneventful but we did find the first White-tailed Kite of the season.

Day 5 – This morning we went out to Aduana which due the effects of last year’s frost and this year’s drought probably has less food for the birds than normal, I think we experienced the results of all that.  We did manage to see Chachalacas and nice looks at Mexican Parrotlets but we dipped on the Colima Pygmy Owl and the

Happy Wren

Scrub Euphonias that we had up high in the arroyo in the spring. This evening we went up to the Mirador with some friends to celebrate my birthday which was even more complete with the quick sighting of a Buff-collared Nightjar in the parking lot lights of the restaurant and the Mirador.Squirel Cuckoo in Alamos

Day 6 – The morning run was out to Las Cabras and the Alamos Sewage ponds and once again they proved to be the birdiest spot in Alamos.  Besides picking up a number of the big endemics, the bonus was a good number of shore birds up in the settling ponds, including Solitary Sandpiper.  Other highlites were the Happy Wren and the Elegant Trogon.

Day 7 – Today we did the long and bumpy drive out to Palo injerto, I had taken David out there the previous spring and it was pretty good.  Today was good but not great.  We had hoped for a laughing Falcon but not this time, Purplish-backed Jays were also not to be found.  We did get close to this Greater Roadrunner, but no lesser like we had in the same area the previous spring.  We did manage to get great looks at Black-vented Orioles a Squirrel Cuckoo and a very accommodating Northern Beardless Tyrannulet.

Day 8 – Leaving Alamos for the coast seemed a bit premature with a couple of bird misses, but this was quickly remedied when I saw a large

Crane Hawk

black bird out of the corner of my eye just on the edge of town.  I had to cover a fair bit of ground in reverse, but indeed it was a bird that we had failed to run into on the previous days in Alamos.  An immature Crane Hawk!

The drive through the agriculture was a bit light on birds but the coast made up for it!  Big numbers of shore and water birds had already arrived for the winter and birding was fun except for the huge trucks that were passing by with dredged material.  After a quick lunch we hit the small mangrove area just to make sure that the Mangrove warbler was still around.  Sure enough it came immediately when called, in fact there were two of them.

When we got to the hotel “Playa de Cortez” I went into take a quick nap before dinner.  When I woke up I saw David outside on the pier looking out at were hundreds of birds diving into what must have been a big school of fish.  It was then that I realized that David was looking at life birds! Dozens of the birds he was looking at were Blue-footed Boobies, a bird that is not always easy to find at this location.  He was very happy about this, and I had neglected to mention that this might be possible, so he was doubly happy to have found them on his own!

Mangrove Warbler

Day 9 – On the way over to Estero Soldado we made a quick stop in Miramar where once again we had looks at lots of Blue-footed Boobies.

After breakfast it was for Tucson and the end of the tour, I never get tired of this trip, it is so fun to continuously do this itinerary and experience how much diversity there is in Sonora.

August 19-22, 2011

click here to see more photos from this tour http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdgeek/sets/72157627524398667/

The state mascot of Chihuahua Mexico!

For our Madera trip this year, we were so fortunate to have a great group of six people join us. David Hursh, John Alexander, Ken Clarke, Linda FierroVidal and Bill and Beth Clark were all along for the ride, in search of the Thick-billed Parrot!

Day 1 – Tucson to Nuevo Casas Grandes: We got out of Tucson in good time and made our way to our first and only birding stop on the US side of the border at White Water Draw.  Apparently, we were still a little bit early for fall migration, with very few shore birds around.  We did, however, get the expected great views of the Great Horned Owls and a few migrant song birds.

Next stop was the border and the cursory immigration paperwork that was processed very efficiently. From Agua Prieta, Sonora we made our way east across the wide open grasslands to the juniper-oak woodland of the Chihuahua border where we had lunch and tried in vain for Juniper Titmouse.Once into Chihuahua, we made a stop at the large stock pond on the south side of the highway outside of Las Mimbres, about 30 miles west of Janos. We were treated to the Wilson Phalarope air show, but generally speaking, the pond was not nearly as active as it had been the previous week (on the Northwest Mexico trip).Before calling it a day and heading to the hotel, we headed out to the Laguna Fierro just east of Nuevo Casas Grandes.  The Snow Goose, that we had seen last week on the previous trip, was still there and a number of good migrants including a Northern Harrier, a couple of Gray Hawks, Indigo Buntings and some Baird’s Sandpipers.  Later on, David H. suggested that I come take a closer look at the sandpipers, as there was one that seemed to be a bit different.  I went over and took a look and after what was not nearly a detailed enough study, decided that it was not that different at all and called it a

Shore birding at Laguna Fierro

Baird’s as well.  David would not give it up, and I am glad he didn’t.  After looking at several books and debating the size plumage and color of the bird, I had to agree that indeed the bird was different, and when David suggested Sanderling it clicked…that was exactly what it was!  Unfortunately, this exchange did not take place until after we had left the Laguna and we never took a picture of thebird.  This was the first time I fired Rafa on the tour for not taking  a photo!

We settled into the Hotel Hacienda for the night after a nice dinner in the restaurant.

Day 2 – Nuevo Casas Grandes to Madera: After a quick and festive breakfast in the guides hotel room, we were off at day break for the Sierra Madre and a dose of high elevation birds.  On the way, we made stops at the horse racing track and City Park in Buenaventura, as well as a number of roadside ponds all the way to Ignacio Zaragoza and Gomez Farias.  These roadside ponds can be incredibly rich in the late summer, but it seemed like we might have been a bit ahead of the curve on migration this time.  We did get Ruddy Ducks and a lot of Mexican Mallards and even a Pied-billed Grebe or two.

We stopped for lunch and a view of the ruins at Cuarenta Casas, a rather impressive cliff dwelling a mere 20 miles north of the town of Madera.

The restaurant at A Hacienda in Casas Grandes

We arrived just in time for the first cloud burst of the day, and managed to work our way around it while Rafa found time to set up a lunch for us.  Meanwhile the rest of us were entertained by a pair of Hepatic Tanagers.Our last birding stop of the day was at Presa Pinitas just outside of Madera where we ran into a pair of wayward Double-crested Cormorants.

Day 3 – Madera:  Today was the big day of the tour and it found us doing a relatively early morning,  meeting Saul Torres and his uncle John in front of the hotel at 6:30 am. The morning push was to locate the Eared Quetzal which we had had very limited luck with on the previous tour.  I decide to focus on it for the morning, since the Parrot was pretty much a given if you got to the right spot at any point during the day, and we knew where that spot was!  Our first stop was at a location I had seen Quetzals in before, and in fact we had explored the area a week before, but had missed it. I didn’t want to spend too much time there, but it seemed wise to check it out.  It was a beautiful walk in the rather chilly morning air, but unfortunately we did not find a Quetzal.  However, we did find a couple of other interesting birds along the way.  A pair of Mountain Trogons who apparently had a nest in the area.  To our surprise after running into the Mountain Trogons, and climbing up another several hundred feet in elevation, an Elegant Trogon flew across the road and made its very distinctive

Searching for Eared Quetzals

chortling call.  Not only did we positively identify it as an Elegant Trogon, the bird flew into a cavity where it was feeding young!  Unfortunately, none of us had a GPS, but my guess is that we were over 8000 feet in elevation, a very high nesting record for this species!  Still wanting the Quetzal, we headed back down to the van and onward to our next location.

I had Rafa stay behind and start putting lunch out, while the rest of us started walking up a small side road that mostly traveled down the middle of what was typically a small stream; however the rain from the night before forced a fair bit of negotiating to get through!  We ntermittently played tape and listened for the Quetzals for what turned out to be about 3 hours, a lot longer than I had hoped for with no sign of a Quetzal!  What was turning into a major hike revealed little more in the way of other birds and as the sun began to get warm and I was getting concerned that we might not run  into an Eared Quetzal.  We came to a spot where the road diminished in size and going further seemed like it might be a fool’s errand, so I decided to turn around.

As luck (or skill, or stubbornness!) would have it I had hardly finished suggesting to the group that we turn around and go have lunch, when I heard the whistling call of a close Quetzal.  I immediately checked to make sure that my Ipod was off, as I was a bit in a state of disbelief!  Sure enough, it was a real Quetzal and it was coming closer.  Just then, I saw Rafa coming up the trail wondering where the heck we were…his timing was perfect!  Soon, the Quetzal was flying into a large aspen tree close to us and eventually gave us all scope looks, and it turned out to be a pair!   It was so great to see these birds and we spent a good long time getting to know them and enjoying the show!

Back down the hill to another one of Rafa’s fantastic lunches, which seemed even better after our successes of the morning!

Mountain Trogon outside of Madera

Then it was onward and upward to go get even better looks at Thick-billed Parrots.  Being that it was later in the afternoon; the birds seemed to be much more relaxed and quieter than our visit earlier in the day the previous week. In fact there appeared to be none around when we first reached the meadow and I wondered if that distant view in bad light this morning might be all we got for the day!  Saul ended up “scratching”
the trunk of an aspen where a pair had been investigating a nesting cavity the week before and sure enough out popped the head of Thick-billed Parrot and eventually crawled out to give us a fantastic protracted and close look!  I never get enough of seeing these unique birds!

The drive back down to town was sweet with the two big target birds under our belt, and I for one was rather tired from a lot of hiking at high elevation, but happy with how the day had gone!  David H. treated us to an absolutely hilarious account of the cut throat world of competitive spelling bees.  Fascinating and nearly as bizarre as competitive bird watching!

We made one last stop at the Madera cemetery so Linda could take a few photos and ended up adding Brown-crested Flycatcher to our trip
list, the non-Arizona variety.

We had a rather celebratory dinner complete with nice wine and a strange flan for desert.  You have to admit that if it was not for the great birding you might not travel to Madera just for the food….but it did do the trick, we ate and we had a good time!

storm in Sulfer springs valley

Day 4 – Madera to Tucson: The last day of this short trip is pretty much a travel day back to the Tucson, but we did manage to make a stop
at the Laguna Fierro once again and found a few trip birds and a flock of at least 60 Chihuahua Ravens.  It was nice to get a couple in the scope and really study those guys, not something you get to do all that often.

Once across the border we played tag with some impressive thunder storms as we made our way up the Sulfur Springs Valley and on to
Tucson.  A short but oh-so-sweet trip to the beautiful Sierra Madre for a couple of very special birds! Thanks to everyone for making this a great trip!