Winter Mexico Tour Y2K16, The Final Days: Laguna La Maria, Playa del Oro, Rancho Primavera

Ahhh, the final Mexico post. Let's push through! Laguna La Maria is known for its picnic tables. This is because Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrushes (trip bird!) like to forage near them.

This is the same Black-throated Green Warbler from my last Mexico post. I don't know if I'll see any more this year, so here is another photo. Farewell, Black-throated Green Warbler.

There's a lot of Solitary Vireos in Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima. Most are Plumbeous, but Cassin's (like this one) are fairly common. This is isn't a crush obviously, but Cassin's Vireo has never graced BB&B before, so there it is and here we are.

Dipper Dan was fuming from the lack of lifers that morning. Can't say I blame him.

After making our way west to the coast and north past Manzanillo, we took a detour to check the Manzanillo airport marshes, mentioned in Howell's guide...it was awful. Definitively the worst birding spot of the trip...the marsh is not what it used to be, and I don't recommend setting aside any time to bird here. Only bird of interest was an adult male Snail Kite soaring over the road.

That night we stayed in Barra de Navidad, which is full of gringos but small - legit seafood though. Sweet, luscious concha was had. We randomly found the place that was listed as the cheapest in town according to my Mexi travel guide, and I'm pretty sure that title was not awarded unjustly. Don Francisco was giddy, it cost so little money. Lucky for us, we got a room on the roof, which overlooks a little lagoon, which turned out to be a great place to drink and bird simultaneously. Unexpectedly, Barra de Navidad happens to be home to an absolutely enormous Barn Swallow roost, which was located just a couple of blocks away.

Don Francisco, Stilt and Flycatcher Jen gaze upward into the swallow swarm directly above us, getting ready to land on things like windowsills for the night.

We stayed in Barra de Navidad in order to bird the Playa Del Oro road the next morning. The birding was good! The major highlight was a Golden-crowned Emerald that Dipper Dan found, which was the last lifer of the trip for me. After so many hummingbird failures and the stress of being gripped off on yet another target species, this was truly satisfying. We dipped on Flammulated Flycatcher, but had lots of Orange-breasted Buntings, White-bellied Wrens (new trip bird, common here), and an absurd number of Red-billed Tropicbirds scoped from the beach.

Looking southward along the beach at Playa del Oro. See that big offshore rock on the right? It is surrounded by tropicbirds. We had some Black Terns offshore as well (trip bird!). The eBird checklist from the morning can be perused here.

After Don Francisco frolicked in the water and promptly lost his glasses (which gave birth to "Hank", whom we all love and miss dearly) and lunching in Barra de Navidad, we lurked north up the coast, stopping at the same random wetlands that we birded on the way south, in order to dip on Collared Plover yet again. The dip was a success!

This Yellow-crowned Night-Heron is not a Collared Plover.

Neither is this Roseate Spoonbill.

Flycatcher Jen and Stilt ensure that no Collared Plovers are nearby.

That afternoon we made our triumphant return to Rancho Primavera. Bonnie informed us that a Sparkling-tailed Hummingbird had appeared while we were gone, which enraged Dipper Dan. We did not see it. But we did have a mellow morning of birding the property on the final day, which was a good way to end the trip.

Streak-backed Orioles came in for the crushiest encounters.

We saw a lot of dingy Streak-backed Orioles on the trip, but this one brought the facemelt.

Before this trip, I had only seen one Plain-capped Starthroat...for about 5 seconds. It was not a pleasant experience. Rancho Primavera provided many superior viewing opportunities.

This is a good bird...large hummingbirds have a certain allure to them. I'll have to look at one in Arizona sometime. According to Bonnie, the property doesn't get the number or diversity of hummingbirds that they used to get, but I reckon that could change at any time.

Goodbye Yellow-winged Caciques. You are a weird endemic.

So long Masked Tityra. In what country will I see you next?

Adios, Orange-fronted Parakeet. May you remain plentiful.

Vaya con dios, Black-throated Magpie-Jay. I still do not quite comprehend how you exist.

After dropping Stilt off at the Puerto Vallarta airport, the remaining nerds made one last desperate try for Collared Plover (a bird that I hate) at a river mouth at the edge of town, which of course was unsuccessful but it was very birdy and seems like a good spot for them. After that, we drank some mezcal in the airport and went our separate ways...except I sat next to Flycatcher Jen on the plane (Mexican Miracle) and got a ride home from Don Francisco's family from the airport in San Francisco.

There's not a whole lot I would have done differently on this trip...a second day birding "Voclan de Fuego" would have been great, and we should have birded Microondas La Cumbre instead of birding north of Colima (toward Laguna La Maria). A second day of birding Tecuitata (Nayarit) would have been good as well. There are some additional locations near San Blas that we did not get to, but I feel like we did quite well with our target birds there.

But, of course, we did not get everything. I got gripped off on Amethyst-throated Hummingbird and Red-breasted Chat (repeatedly and hurtfully). We did not get Banded Quail, Collared Plover, Mexican Hermit, Sparkling-tailed Hummingbird, Bee Hummingbird, any interesting swifts (ugh...major failure), Eared Poorwill, Bare-shanked Screech-Owl (not that we looked, they are at Microondas La Cumbre), Thick-billed Parrot, Flammulated Flycatcher, Mangrove Vireo, Aztec Thrush, Colima Warbler, and Ruddy-breasted Seedeater. I think that covers most of the dipped-on birds we could have reasonably seen.

But you know what? Fuck those birds I didn't see. I got 47 lifers on this trip (!) and had a hell of a time. I saw 350 species or so in less than two and a half weeks, and I only had food poisoning for one day! Thanks to Flycatcher Jen (who gets listed first because she craves notoriety), Don Francisco, Stilt and Dipper Dan for joining me on another very fucking nerdy and very fucking successful birding trip.

Winter Mexico Tour Y2K16, Days 9-10: Rancho Primavera and Barranca El Choncho

One of the specialty birds of Nayarit and Jalisco is the illustrious Rosy Thrush-Tanager. We lucked in to one back at La Bajada, but Rancho Primavera is really the place to go for these birds. Bonnie, who runs things at the ranch, knows exactly where to look for them on the property, and we were lucky enough to find an exceptionally confiding pair feeding next to a trail.

They aren't so hard to find if you are looking in the right places, because they loudly thrash around in the leaf litter, tossing aside detritus with great ceremony.

The male got really close to us...not the best conditions for photos, but absolutely crippling looks. This is a real facemelter.

There is no shortage of Yellow-winged Caciques on the property, and considering their love of fruit, getting great looks at them is no difficult task.

Such strange crests. Very greasy and pliable, much like my own hair.

San Blas Jay is another specialty at the ranch and was another group lifer. They look a lot like Purplish-backed Jays, but are smaller with paler backs. They also are really hard to find around San Blas.

A group of them often hangs out near the main ranch house, waiting for peanuts.

The Blue Mockingbird that came to the feeder below our house never got old. Here it is again, in all its unskulky glory.

Of course, alluring Black-throated Magpie-Jays are on the property as well, but they are not as bold as some of the other feeder birds.

This is an improbable bird. Probable in abundance, but not existence.

Streak-backed Orioles are everywhere in western Mexico. Everywhere!

Flycatcher Jen unwittingly lured in a herd of horses. She is still down there, just another part of the herd.

How can I not post another Yellow Grosbeak?

Now this...this is a combo. Yellow Grosbeak and not-wild-but-technically-free Jasmine the Lilac-crowned Parrot.

Our view from the porch at Villa Carpintero, the house we rented on the property. Nice, eh?

Other highlights of birding the property were West Mexican Chachalacas, a vagrant Eastern Phoebe, the Military Macaws (lifer!) that fly over the property every morning, and the Red-breasted Chat that I barely saw but can't count. I got gripped off on that bird a couple other times during that trip, which really hurt then and still hurts now. Ugh. We also birded the La Providencia Road, which is higher in elevation (mid-elevation pine forest) and apparently is a good spot for Eared Poorwill...which we dipped on, but not without getting our only Gray-collared Becard (lifer!) of the trip. If you bird that road, note that the eBird hotspot is actually mapped (currently) at a road north of where the correct road is; it has a lot of interesting piney habitat, and the road is not heavily traveled. Could be a good spot. We did not have time to bird the La Biota Road, which I hear is quality.

Rancho Primavera was a great spot to bird and a great place to stay, and thanks to Bonnie for the birding tips and the recommendations on where to grab food in El Tuito. If you want to see what our bird lists from the property look like, you can go here and here. Don't forget to check Rancho Primavera's website, and finally here is the first post from Rancho Primavera in case you missed it.

After we said goodbye to Rancho Primavera, we headed south towards Autlan. Some convenient roadside wetlands produced some decent birds, and are worth a quick look. We were surprised by the amount of good habitat there was during the drive, and it seems like there could be good birding just about anywhere there was thorn forest if you happened to be there at the right time of day. Eventually we got to the area where Hurricane Patricia made landfall the previous year, and the damage to the forest was obvious and extensive. When we arrived at Barranca El Choncho in the afternoon, it was clear that the forest here had taken a big hit from the hurricane as well. The barranca was not very productive for us, and it looks like some of the habitat at the top of the barranca has been cleared...however there is still nice habitat left in the canyon and it may still indeed be a worthwhile stop early in the day.

Up next...Puerto Los Mazos, Microondas San Francisco, and beyond...

Winter Mexico Tour Y2K16, Days 7-8: Isla Del Rey and Tecuitata

Dipper Dan, Flycatcher Jen and Stilt (nerds) stroll giddily toward a flock at Isla Del Rey.

Remember when I said that was the end of San Blas? Well...I lied! I'm a liar! Live with it!

On the morning of Day 7, we left San Blas returned to Lower Singayta to rebird it. The birding was ok...the new bird shine that we enjoyed here for our first morning in town had begun to wane a bit and it wasn't quite as good as on that first day. Such is life. However, we did get a group lifer, which a Washingtonian had scouted for us...White-throated Flycatcher! This was a milestone lifer for Flycatcher Jen, which cements this bird as...you guessed...her spirit bird! So, if you run into her, she now prefers to be called White-throated Flycatcher Jen. You can see our eBird list here.

In the afternoon four of had become quite conscious of a gaping hole...in our life lists. We had never seen Purplish-backed Jay. So despite the bitter, borderline violent protests of Dipper Dan (who had seen them), we got a panga and headed over to Peso Island, which is really called Isla Del Rey. After about a half hour of birding, we found a flock of them along the main trail. Life lists no longer gaped, only mouths. Stoked!

Shortly after the jays departed, we got out to the beach on the west side of the island. A big flock of birds loafed to the south, near the base of the breakwater. California Gull was a trip bird here, and a boring one at that. The scenery was nicer.

A confiding Common Black-Hawk was hunting in the dunes right above the beach. I'm used to poor to mediocre looks at these birds, so a brazen flyby unobstructed by bullshit vegetation was a great change of pace. And who knew black-hawks hung out in dunes? There is nothing these birds can't do.

Mmmm...black-hawk crush. This is one of those species I remember seeing in field guides as a kid...I never thought I would see one, yet here I was standing on goddamn sand dune, crushing the shit out of one. I've seen a lot of black-hawks over the years, but every now and then I'll see a bird like this and get a weird flashback...I never thought I would see this. You see, this is the kind of damage you can do to yourself if you become a hopeless nerd at such a young age.

Common Black-Hawk on a dune. Suitable habitat. Now we know.

Despite the black-hawk's mellow ways, this American Oystercatcher left me chuffed. Not only was this a quality trip bird, it was a frazeri. This is the subspecies that shows up in California, which confusingly also looks like Black X American Oystercatchers, which are fairly common in SoCal and in coastal Baja. I've written and worried extensively about that here.

Note the jagged breast band, a classic trait for this subspecies.

The white wing stripe often does not extend onto the primaries in frazeri, which is the case for this bird. In the photo below, you can also see some dusky coloring on the white uppertail stripe, another trait the nominate subspecies lacks. Its cool seeing these birds where you know they aren't just hanging out and boning down with Black Oystercatchers, for the sake of ID of course.

If you are so inclined, here is our eBird checklist from that afternoon. Oh, it is totally possible to circumnavigate the southern part of the island, but only at low tide! We learned that the hard way.

On the morning of Day 8, it was time to head south for real. We would bird one more site in Nayarit, above the little town of Tecuitata, which is one of the new hot shit birding spots in the area. I copied down the instructions included in the excellent Birds of Passage, and even managed to find Teodoro (the first Mexican Miracle of the morning) who have us the green light to head up the hill away from town. He said we had to talk to someone else (I forget his name) in order to pay the birding fee, but said we could pay after we were done birding. We found the right parking spot mentioned in Birds of Passage, and eventually even found the guy we were supposed to pay a couple hours later on the trail (the second Mexican Miracle of the morning). It seems they are pretty serious about developing ecotourism here, and with the high quality birding the area offers it's a perfect fit. I will say one thing that Birds of Passage left out...when you park, the road that goes left is much longer (and thus preferable) than the road that goes up the hill to the right; if you go right, you will probably have to turn back around after a little while. The habitat is great in both areas though.

Shortly after parking, we found a massive flock of birds feeding in the fruiting trees. Many Black-throated Magpie-Jays adorned the trees. This remains a bird that I am not comfortable with looking at...they are just too crippling.

Much of the flock was made up of Yellow-winged Caciques, loud, flashy birds with funny crests that do not at all fit in with other birds I've seen. There is something different about them, and it's not just the way they can devour an avocado.

Citreoline Trogons are always nice to gaze upon. What is not nice to gaze upon, I can say from experience, are Colima Pygmy-Owls...I walked up on one and flushed it from about 15 feet away at eye level before I knew it was there, just to have it fly into the forest, never to be seen again. I am not counting it. Colima Painful-Owl is more like it.

Golden-cheeked Woodpeckers are everywhere, but they are flashy birds.

We had some great mixed flocks that morning; one of my favorites had Yellow, Black-headed and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks all in the same combo/binocular view. As Flycatcher Jen mentioned over at I Used To Hate Birds, this was Don Francisco's trigger bird when he was a kid, as he solemnly and ceremoniously told us at the very beginning of the trip. Looking at a Yellow Grosbeak is like looking into fully-realized Frank's soul.

I was really stoked to get this as a lifer a couple days before in La Bajada...its not like I'm going to run into one of these in southeast Arizona anytime soon. What an absurd head.

Overall, Tecuitata was great birding and I would highly recommend it to anyone birding in Nayarit. Lots of great, mid-elevation habitat, and big mixed flocks. The checklist from the morning is right here.

The Human Birdwatcher Project Presents: Cage Bird Conspiracy Theorists

Ah, the Common Cuckoo. Undoubtedly California's best bird of 2012, and undoubtedly a bird that flew a long ways from home. Photographed in Watsonville, CA.

Birders, it's time to put the kibosh down. Over the years, I've heard birders questioning the origins of high (and low) quality vagrants more and more often. Some skepticism is certainly healthy, but needlessly claiming a rare bird is someone's escaped pet is bad for everyone. This is a disturbing trend, to say the least...it is a persistent pattern observed in birders, and is often based on a lack of understanding of natural patterns of occurrence, how birds migrate, and what birds are and are not frequently kept in captivity.

In case you are not up on this contentious and very nerdy issue, let me catch you up. Birders like seeing wild birds. However, not all birds that live in the wild got there on their own. If you go to the duck pond at your local city park, you will probably come across Muscovy Ducks. They may be able to live there without supervision, but the chances that this popular barnyard bird migrated from a wild population in Central America is about nil...something we can all agree on. They are no more wild than the peacocks that get the run of your local zoo.

Problems arise when birders poo-poo a naturally-occurring bird as an escapee when there is little to no evidence to back it up. This happens over and over again, and I think less experienced birders may be prone to heeding these uninformed opinions.

For example, a friend and well-known California birder who goes by Red Phalarope Man instantly shat upon the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (to his credit, not literally) that showed up for a brief period in the middle of the state last May. He was completely convinced it was a bird that had escaped captivity. Although there was the very small possibility he was correct, there was no compelling evidence suggesting it was anything but a wild bird, which had occurred here a few times in the past. Sure enough, you may remember last summer was a huge year for Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks that wandered far north of their usual range all over the country. Our bird, since accepted by our state's Bird Police, was just leading the first wave. Any unwitting birder who may have paid Red Phalarope Man too much heed may have passed on chasing this California MEGA, something they would have regretted for the rest of their life.

Emperor Goose is a species that has been questioned as naturally occurring outside Alaska, but has a proven regular track record of occurrence at coastal sites in the western U.S. during the winter (which is when and where one would anticipate them). If Emperors were really being released willy-nilly, you would expect them to be found all over the country, at all times of year. This vagrant Emperor Goose was photographed at Ocean Shores, WA.

Escaped birds usually come in 3 flavors:

1) Waterfowl collections and zoos. You or I don't know anyone who collect exotic ducks and geese, but these bird hoarders are out there. They hold really bizarre and exotic birds that could also migrate here from their native lands...sometimes. While I have seen some species in the wild that unquestionably originated from these bird collections (i.e. Ringed Teal, Black Swan, Egyptian Goose), people are always questioning the legitimacy of vagrant waterfowl...White-cheeked Pintail, Falcated Duck, Smew, Barnacle Goose, Bean Goose, you name it, these birds always raise doubts among certain people when they are found on our shores.

This undoubtedly wild Harris's Hawk is part of a family group that is resident in Jacumba, CA.

2) Falconry birds. Falconers keep a variety of hawks and falcons of both species that are native and not native to the continent. Sometimes they escape. I have seen a Harris's Hawk perched, with jesses, on the TV antenna of Dipper Dan's house in the Sierran foothills of Angel's Camp, CA...certainly not a wild bird, and not in a very likely place a wayward vagrant would appear.

In California, our state Bird Police for many years bizarrely refused to accept Crested Caracara as a naturally-ocrurring vagrant, despite their regular and repeated visits all over the state. They have since become less ultraconservative (always a good thing, amirite?) and accept new records of this bird just about annually.



Black-throated Magpie-Jays roam free in the Tijuana River Valley, just south of San Diego. This is a great example of an obvious escapee...it's a nonmigratory species that is found nowhere near San Diego, but is known to be kept in captivity (unfortunately) just across the border in Mexico.

3) Cage birds. This category includes parrots and many Carribean and Mexican birds that were likely caught in the wild but were released or escaped far from where they were kidnapped. Many species that fall into this category are known. However, birders often get too wrapped up in the "cage bird" hypothesis, i.e. the Red-legged Honeycreeper found during spring migration on the Dry Tortugas that was rejected by the state's ostensibly then-corrupt Bird Police.

Most experienced birders have encountered at least a couple of birds that truly fall into one these "escaped" categories in the wild. California seems to get a lot of them...mixed with wild birds in wild settings, I've run into flamingos, Pin-tailed Whydah, Red-billed Leothrix, Black-backed Oriole, White-collared Seedeater, Phyrruloxia, Blue Mockingbird, Gray Silky-Flycatcher, who knows how many kinds of parrots and parakeets...the list goes on.

Brambling is one of many Siberian/Asian birds that make a wrong turn during migration and show up in North America. This one spent a winter in Woodburn, Oregon.

So how does one avoid being overly cautious? Learn about the species in question. Does it have an established pattern of occurrence? Is it a long distance migrant? Where have strays shown up in the past? Would it be more likely to find in certain seasons than others? There is much wisdom to soak up from other birders, but not the self-proclaimed authorities who rank a lot lower on the Global Birder Ranking Scale than they think they do...and it can take more than some decent bird ID chops to really sort these folks out.

There are known repeat offender escapees, and known areas where there are high concentrations of these birds as well. For example, southern California gets all kinds of bizarre stuff, mostly on the coastal plain; it is widely believed that these birds originate from cage birds just over the Mexican border. Florida is awash in strange exotics as well.

A recent instance where the Cage Bird Conspiracy came up was when a Common Cuckoo (a long-distance Siberian migrant) spent some time in California this fall. This species occurs rarely but regularly on Alaskan islands during migration, so as with other "sibes", birders have always known that a stray could potentially fly down the west coast of North America. There is a definite pattern of this happening with many other species...many Asian-flavored waterfowl birds, plovers and sandpipers, Red-throated Pipit, Northern Wheatear, wagtails, etc. stray regularly to Alaska, and sometimes down into Canada and the Lower 48. When you look at the above map, you can see that the Bering Strait separates Alaska's Seward Peninsula and easternmost Russia by a mere 50 miles or so...it is no stretch of the imagination to think a lost Russian bird could find themselves migrating down the wrong coast by mistake. However, to invent a scenario in which a Common Cuckoo is born in Russia/East Asia, captured, sold to a tourist, taken to the United States and somehow freed during the height of fall migration (something a couple birders insinuated) sounds more like Hollywood to me. And yes, that is a movie I would see.

What about ship-assisted birds you ask? Well, that is another blog post for another time.

Pin-tailed Whydahs are becoming increasingly common in southern California, and have now been reported at least twice as Fork-tailed Flycatchers. This is also an annoying trend, but misidentifications always have and always will happen. Whydahs are African birds, so based on the fact that no passerines migrate between North America and Africa (except Northern Wheatear?!), we can deduce that this is not a true vagrant.

Of course there are instances where escaped birds are mistakenly considered naturally-occurring as well, but I feel those cases are a bit easier to sort out. It is certainly true that birders are falliable and are probably not correct 100% of the time in either case...as the Human Birdwatcher Project reminds us, "birders are people too!".