Dispatches from Mescalia

What else to do in these uncertain days of turmoil and unrest than to retreat into sweet sweet NOSTALGIA. The following tales are plucked from a six week trip spent aimlessly wandering the mountains and beaches of Old Mexico. Felis and I can not guarantee the validity of any these recollections, as many of them were made under the influence of strong spirits, sold to us by a woman and her parrot at the beginning of our journey. 

Ave de Mexico

Oaxaca Highlands

Up in the mountains, perched someplace between yucca drylands below epiphyte-laded cloud forests above. At the center of a small town, a 17th century cathedral rests like a dormant spacecraft that landed centuries ago. A village built around this artifact from Andromeda. A teenager shoots from the foul line of a basketball court built adjacent to the courtyard. A woman next door puts laundry out to dry in the morning sun. We sleepily make our way from the cabina towards food and day ahead.

Astronave

Magdalena welcomes us each morning with a slow, measured, monotonous BUENAS DIAS CHICOS. Her booming voice at once jarring and nurturing. We mumble our reply, shuffle to a table and play out the rest of the script. CAFE? Si, gracias. CHOCOLATE CON AGUA? Si, gracias. We mostly eat in silence, occasionally making halting, probably incomprehensible small talk with Magdalena. Our attention drifts out the window to a kestrel perched upon the crucifix that crowns the church belltower. The red paint of the cross does nothing to diminish the idea of this taloned sentinel spilling the blood of rodents brought back as offerings to god. But what god? Whose gods? 

Sangre de los ratones

As per protocol, Magdalena brings us two sandwiches which will be our sustenance during the daily exploration. Like two schoolboys off to the classroom, equipped with our brownbags, Magdalena, our madre whilst here, our madre still in some ways, booms after us BUEN VIAJE CHICOS as we depart for another day. Back out in the courtyard, a descending series of cries emanate from within the cathedral. Over and over, these plaintive calls repeat. Magdalena’s voice, elemental and grounding, mixes with the mind-splitting spiral singing of the canyon wren in the bell tower. It's vertiginous song, echoed and trapped within the tower, transports us back to the 17th century. To the building of the church-the blood and sweat of slave labor mixed with the mortar that holds these walls. Back further still, to when the rocks were stacked along the trails we've been walking these past days—rocks covered with millennial lichens, the craggy oaks above laden with epiphytes whose folds and fissures are ceaselessly interrogated by warblers and vireos. The imprisoned song gets compressed further and the mountains are leveled. We come to, back to the present. We look around, shaking off the shackles of time the wren has saddled us with. Now equipped with the knowledge that the current flora and fauna that surrounds us is only the latest incarnation in a series of living skins this range has adorned, we step into the future.  

Piel de las montañas 

BUEN VIAJE...CHICOS.

And Magdalena. Somehow she has always been here.

Puerto Escondido

Two gringos walking the busy coastal highway, too cheap to rent a taxi, too dumb to understand the bus service in the area. No matter, the ditch birding is incredible and when coupled with the life-threatening danger of oncoming traffic, the experience is transcendent. The obscene conglomerate of feathers and pluck that is the white-throated magpie jay causes Felis to yell IS THAT A BIRD. Moments later, after a near decapitation from a passing trucks' side mirror, a foraging streak-backed oriole is found. THAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BIRD I'VE EVER SEEN I scream into the roar of traffic, my reasoning perhaps influenced by the recent near-death encounter. That said, it is certainly a bird to die for.

Juan 

Awkwardly (everything we do in this country is awkward), we rent two kayaks and set out upon an estuary? Bay? River mouth? What is this big bodied brackish mirror we're floating on? We see a mangrove hawk we think, looks like a black hawk. Range/habitat seems right. Who knows. Who cares. Heat stroke squashes any sort of shit giving re: lumping/splitting/ID in general. A dragon descends and skims the surface, a frigatebird drinking. We nearly capsize. A bush in the middle of nowhere keeps producing boat-billed herons as we draw nearer. Like Mary Poppins' bottomless purse, the scene is positively impossible. They just keep coming, 5, 10, 20, clapping their massive bills at us, the racket shattering the serenity of this mysterious pond. The herons shit as they fly past us, their turds milking the still waters, the only clouds we see that day. 

Michoacán

Cold and pre-dawn, we bounce up a steep mountain road in the back of a camioneta. Two tall gringos, we don’t fit. Blood-pumping warmth begins to return as we climb stairs into high forests of abeto, pino, encino, oyamele at first light. We see a few monarch butterflies, but expected many more. Cold and tired, convinced we’ve been led into another gringo tourist trap, we glance at one another in dismay. We are impatient. We are American.

Then we look harder into the slowly-brightening understory, and we see. They hang from the trees like dead dusty leaves. Strings of mussels. The branches are laden. The branches are strained to breaking. The sun has risen high enough to bring some warmth. Some fluttering movement begins. Dozens of monarchs begin descending out of the trees, floating down towards food. For a moment, we think it’s a lot, we are impressed. We are winners.

But as the sun’s warmth grows ever stronger. They keep coming. They land on every surface. What was dozens is now thousands. Tens of thousands. Millions. Uncountable, all-encompassing. The sky is thick with gliding orange and black kites. The air is audibly moving from the push of their collective million wingbeats. A river of wind courses between the treetops. They land in mud and water to drink, wings twitching, like they are straining to take off and carry the earth back up into the sky with them. They mate, rolling circles in the air, the male carrying the female in coitus. They mate on the ground, rolling in the mud over the wings of their dead, recently dispatched by the red warblers that take only the heads and thorax. 

Flores para la vacia


Los arboles que estan hechos de mariposas

Suddenly and without notice, the day has passed and darkness nears. Eight hours dissolved into an infinitum of wingbeats. We descend from Monarch Mountain exhausted, emptied out. Gravity pulls us to our beds somewhere in the town below, miles away, hours away. The song of the brown-backed solitaire, atmospheric ice glitching and tumbling, drags up deeper into the valley. The ice bits rise and merge with the first burning stars above. 

The next morning, awake in a mountain town, a boozeless hangover, we lurk forth in search of cafe, pan and whatever else along the way. Miraculously the solitaire's song, still ringing in our heads from the night before, is heard from the middle of town. It is close. We follow the winding street to the headwaters of this ethereal ringing and find it. Caged and tailless, he is rendered comic and tragic without his beautiful rudder. The song fills the town and spills into the alley gardens, passes through the panaderia, the trashed choked streams and up into the groves of sleeping monarchs above.

Los ornitologos

If you haven't had enough of these frivolous tales of bumbling self-indulgence then continue on to our Palenque fiasco which was featured in an earlier episode of BB&B.  Vaya con pajaros - Cassowary

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 Mexican Tour Y2K16, Days 13-14: "Volcan de Fuego", Laguna La Maria

This Gray Silky-Flycatcher accompanied a mixed flock we blew by early that morning. Alas, we were too low for Dwarf Vireos, and could not loiter with this recent lifer and its Lincoln's Sparrow comrades.

On the morning of Day 13, we ditched shitty Ciudad Guzman for good and headed up the road to "Volcan de Fuego", as Howell calls it...I have not found another resource that calls it that. We barged it in our Minivan de Oro, which was no small feat...the road was burly in a number of places, and we definitely put some dings into the van. I would not recommend taking a minivan or sedan up this road, at least for the higher reaches, unless you have Don Francisco at the helm or you are willing to fuck up your rental. 4x4 is not necessary though, just high clearance. Though the road is shitty it does look like it is kept clear, so despite it being almost washed out in places no fallen trees will block your way until you get way up high.

The birding was good...really, really good. Huge flocks abounded. Taking a wrong turn rewarded us with close-up looks at Slaty Vireos, a group lifer that left me reeling. We never did find a Dwarf, but I'll totally take a Slaty over a Dwarf.  In fact, there were so many birds it was difficult to make much progress as far as elevation gains. Stopping at the turnoff to the microondas was birdy (shocker), with the highlight being calling Long-tailed Wood-Partridges...we never did see them, but that is a hell of heard-only bird.

We ran into a handful of Calliope Hummingbirds while birding higher elevations during this trip. I'm a big proponent of Calliope Hummingbirds, but they were not the hummingbirds we were looking for. Do you know what we did not run into? Bumblebee Hummingbirds, Mexican Hermits, Sparkling-tailed Hummingbirds. Pain, pain, pain.

The volcano slumbers, or so we thought.

The hills and mountains of western Mexico are rife with Tufted Flycatchers. At the appropriate elevation, they always seem to be one of the most abundant and conspicuous birds. They are charming and mellow, and comforting in their orangeness.

Slate-throated Redstarts are also thick at these elevations. These are flashy birds, whipping about and splaying their tails constantly.

When crippling birds are conspicuous, even a mini-crippler such as this, birders are happy.

In the early afternoon we finally reached a zone that was rotten...rotten with the stench of potential lifers. There is some incredible habitat on this road if you can make it far enough. This is where Howell references species like Thick-billed Parrot and flock of 100+ of Aztec Thrush. Guess what we did not see? We did have a Colima Warbler scare, but fortunately the frightful bird was just a Virginia's Warbler. What a relief!

Not especially frightful was this Russet Nightingale-Thrush, which we had been seeing but I did not realize until this day was a life bird...how embarrassing! Russet Nightingale-Thrush is endemic to Mexico and has the unfortunate distinction of having a name similar to Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush, which it does resemble. Anyhow, we had a couple Russet Nightingale-Thrush on this road and in previous days, I wouldn't say it is a tough bird to come by up on the volcanoes.

Shortly after I got my lifer Rufous-capped Brush-Finch (and narrowly avoiding yet another grip off...fuuuuuuuccccckkkkkkk yesssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!) we turned around and called it quits for the day. On the way back I noticed something strange...an erupting volcano...you don't see that every day. This was not totally unexpected (Bonnie back at Rancho Primavera said it was active), but it was still intense, to put it lightly. I told my nerd crew earlier in the morning that if the volcano wanted us dead, we would certainly die that day.  When this suddenly became a very realistic possbility, the nerds could not handle it, since the most exciting thing they typically experience is watching their list totals increase in eBird. Dipper Dan let out an eerie wail and promptly shat himself (loudly and horrifically), others lay in the road, curled in the fetal position and sobbing loudly. Frank moaned about all the money he wouldn't be able to save for the rest of his life, Stilt tried to revise her entire life up to the very moment, and (White-throated) Flycatcher Jen awkwardly continued to try to be the center of attention while most of the other nerds were busy dying.

The beginning of The End.

This is what The End looks like.

The Grim Reaper is in there, we could see him.

Obviously no one died, and the volcano erupting is a regular occurrence. Here you can see the moon next to the ash cloud, which calms everyone from turnstones to (White-throated) Flycatcher Jen.

Everyone agreed that this was the best birding of the whole trip, despite the number of target birds we missed. I would strongly recommend birding this road more than once if you are in the area; it would be easy to camp next to higher up, and we did not encounter a single vehicle above the ag fields. Our checklist for the day is here.

That night we lurked down to Colima, where I don't quite remember where we stayed for the night (I'm drinking whisky right now, you see). We did not stay at Los Candiles, a favorite birding hotel, as it was too bloody expensi. Oh, just remembered! We stayed at someplace on the zocalo. It was acceptable, and not expensi! There isn't a lot of food around there, but there was a veggie place that FJ was quite chuffed about.

The next day was the single worst day of birding we had on the trip...and it wasn't bad! Just not great. I mean, we got another Slaty Vireo (on the highway in front of El Jacal de San Antonio), and a pretty good day list, but most of us did not lifer that day. We had some good random roadside birding, but the most interesting stop of the morning was Laguna La Maria.

As soon as we entered the park at Laguna La Maria, we were welcomed by an absolutely massive flock of Lilac-crowned Parrots, far more than we saw on the entire trip combined. They were loud and highly visible. After Stilt caught a goose for fondling purposes, we lurked down to the lake to try to pick up some weird birds. Not many weird birds were to be found, though the area was birdy. After a Red-crowned Ant-Tanager departed, an Olivaceous Woodcreeper gave us very good lucks, which was a relief as I had missed all the previous OLWOs that had been seen earlier in the trip.

This Ivory-crowned Woodcreeper was very confiding, which is how I prefer my woodcreepers, abundance be damned.

Could this be a bird that will show up in the Rio Grande Valley someday? I think that is a reasonable question to ask. But the wait could be a bitch, so cross the border and go birding already.

You know what these are...these are nerds. Don't worry, they are not looking at anything interesting...probably a Great Egret and some coots. You can see the nice, lush habitat that is around the lake though.

Black-throated Green Warblers were uncommon in most of the places we birded during the trip, but as you know, they will always come in for good looks, be it in the state of Texas or the state of Colima.

More from Laguna La Maria, Playa del Oro and Rancho Primavera up next!

Winter Mexico Tour Y2K16, Days 10-12: Puerto Los Mazos, Microondas San Francisco, Volcan Nevado de Colima and Laguna Zapotlan

After staying the night at Hotel Autlan in Autlan (north end of town near the roundabout - slightly expensive for Mexico but fine), we backtracked south to Puerto Los Mazos in the morning. Apparently, this site is notorious for its changing access...we found the gate unlocked and there were no personnel present, so we hoofed it up the hill all the way to the top. It is entirely possible that we could have driven (though there are few pullouts), so keep that in mind when you go.

Much of the hike goes through oak woodland; it was funny bumping into birds like Bridled Titmouse and Arizona Woodpecker, so far from the place I associate those birds with. Eventually the road gets into something like cloud forest; this area has been damaged by Hurricane Patricia as well, but there is still plenty of good birdy habitat. I took no bird photos at all that morning, for on that day I inexplicably lost the ability to see interesting birds. I just could not fucking see them, let alone photograph them. I could not see the Rufous-crowned Sparrow (only one of the trip), Green-striped Brush-Finch (would have been a lifer), or the flock of Singing Quail (only of the trip). It was brutal. The habitat up top (above the oaks) was quite good as promised and very birdy, though it would have been nice to get up there earlier in the morning. Here is our checklist from the morning.

There were a lot of hummingbirds up top, but the only species of note was Mexican Woodnymph, of which there were quite a few of. There was only one donkey.

After walking back down the hill we returned to Hotel Autlan for another night. The next morning we birded the road to Microondas San Francisco, where I was again gripped off with Red-breasted Chat (multiple birds) and Golden-crowned Emerald (would have been a lifer, obvi). It was harsh. The birding was quite slow to begin with, but got better and better the further up we went. We hit a big mixed flock where the road straightens/levels out for a bit, which featured a number of Black-chested Sparrows, an awesome bird that broke my horrible liferless streak I had been enduring. Further up the road we had some luck with some raptors...Hook-billed Kite, White-tailed Hawk and Zone-tailed Hawk all appeared in short order. Going further up, none other than a Lesser Roadrunner bolted across the road, which was one hell of a lifer!

What Howell does not mention in his birdfinding guide was how insanely birdy the agricultural areas/edges are past the dense thorn forest...the mixed flocks were insane...there were flocks seemingly everywhere we looked. In this area, we had things like Violet-crowned Hummingbirds, Gray-crowned Yellowthroats, Grasshopper Sparrows, Say's Phoebe, the kingbird trifecta (Thick-billed, Cassin's, Western), Dusky Flycatcher, Elegant Euphonias, Black-vented Oriole...this is an area worthy of your attention. Our eBird checklist from the morning is here.

Nerds lined up for birds, as they should be.

After our Great Success at Microondas San Francisco, we headed east to the volcanos. We ran into our first and only big storm of the trip, though managed some nice trip birds along the way (Lucifer Hummingbird, Curve-billed Thrasher, Loggerhead Shrike). Eventually we got up in the mountains, and the storm miraculously cleared. Birding a bunch of random roadside paths and pullouts was very rewarding...Magnificent and Blue-throated Hummingbirds, Green Violetears, and Cinnamon-bellied Flowerpiercers!

Cinnamon-bellied Flowerpiercer was a definite target bird for the trip, so we were happy to see them. One of the spots we birded was the RMO Viboras road, up at the crest of the highway, which was rewarding...Mexican Chickadees, Green-striped Brushfinches (which cancelled my gripoff from two days prior), etc. Our eBird checklist from the afternoon is right here.

Gray-barred Wren was a group lifer on the Viboras road. These loud and charismatic wrens are my new favorite wren. I was really good at pishing them in, unlike almost all other Mexican birds (Dipper Dan won the Best Pisher award).

The racket these huge wrens make is hard to ignore, and they often drag other species along with them. Seeing a Gray-barred Wren is always good news.

That night we stayed in Ciudad Guzman, a truly awful city, but our hotel on the zocalo (I believe it was Hotel Zapotlan) was both really nice (by our standards, though they had no internet) and really cheap (which Don Francisco relished). The next day we went up the main road to the Colima Volcano, which is accessed off Highway 429 (and not listed in Howell's book). The birding was quite good, though I wouldn't call it great; maybe that is because I got gripped off on multiple Amethyst-throated Hummingbirds. There were a lot of quality birds though...Collared Towhees, Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireos, Transvolcanic Jays, etc. I was swarmed by an absolutely massive flock of warblers at one point and put all of my being into finding a Colima Warbler, but was unsuccessful.

Red Warbler was a major target bird for everybody, and they did not disappoint. These cripplers were plentiful on the north slope of the volcano

Their silver auriculars really caught the sunlight...definitely a better bird that a field guide does not do justice.

After coming down the mountain, we tried birding one more random, high elevation road. By far the best bird here was this aggressively confiding Mountain Trogon, a species I'd only seen once before, and in shit conditions.

Absolutely facemelting. I've only seen a handful of trogons that were this mellow, and this was the best of them all.

Another ostensible Pine Flycatcher, for your edification.

Empids are hard, but you knew that. Here is the checklist from the volcano that day.

Later in the afternoon, we checked out Laguna Zapotlan (checklist here), the huge lake near Ciudad Guzman. We managed to find some birdy areas, with highlights being Reddish Egret (rare here?) and Least Bittern, and huge roaming carpets of Yellow-headed Blackbirds. I wouldn't call it a must-see birding spot, but it was definitely worth an afternoon stop and helped pad the trip list a bit. Part of the lake had flooded over the heavily-damaged roadway, which big rigs barged with enthusiasm. An ex-KGB agent was mysteriously in the area; he cursed the poor signage in Mexico and was the only driver of a normal vehicle we saw who plowed through the flood, which took considerable Russian courage.