Trying to catch up...
January 1st, 2009
Well, I’m obviously very far behind here but…my excuse is, I just came off vacation in Mexico, and so have only recently regained access to a computer. (Yes, I know there are internet cafes in Mexico, but I didn’t want to waste valuable birding (and generally goofing-off) time looking for one). I know you’re all feeling terribly sorry for me, being cut off from the internet for days at a time...
Since it looks like I will likely be spending the rest of 2009 in boring old Canada, I’m going to include the vacation birds in my year list. I was on the Pacific coast of Guerrero, north of Zihuatanejo. We stayed in very small hotel in a village called Troncones. (I highly recommend this area, and birding in Guerrero in general; I've been to places with a lot more diversity, but this was a quality over quantity sort of experience.)
Birds are more or less in taxonomic order, rather than order of observation.
1. Brown Pelican
2. Magnificent Frigatebird
3. Green Heron
4. Black Vulture
5. Turkey Vulture
6. Short-tailed Hawk
7. Spotted Sandpiper
8. Wandering Tattler
9. Whimbrel
10. Ruddy Turnstone
11. Elegant Tern
12. Royal Tern
13. White-winged Dove
14. Orange-fronted Parakeet
15. Groove-billed Ani
16. Broad-billed Hummingbird
17. Cinnamon Hummingbird
18. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
19. Citreoline Trogon
20. Ladder-backed Woodpecker
21. Willow Flycatcher
22. Vermilion Flycatcher
23. Brown-crested Flycatcher
24. Tropical Kingbird
25. Warbling Vireo
26. Rufous-naped Wren
27. Sinaola Wren
28. Happy Wren
29. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
30. Rufous-backed Robin
31. Virginia's Warbler
32. Yellow Warbler
33. Black-throated Gray Warbler
34. Yellow-breasted Chat
35. Red-crowned Ant-tanager
36. Stripe-headed Sparrow
37. Northern Cardinal
38. Painted Bunting
39. Great-tailed Grackle
40. Streak-backed Oriole
Most of the birds I saw January first were on a half-day excursion into the Sierra Madre; plus a few birds seen from the hotel (at sea level) in the afternoon.
By the way, this was a very casual drive we took up into the mountains; we hadn’t a clue where to go, really, except that I knew from Steve Howell’s book that it’s a good idea to get up into the sierras for the change of habitat (his Bird-finding Guide to Mexico doesn’t cover the particular part of the state we were in). We just drove along the highway into the interior (#134) and stopped where it looked promising (and possible – there aren’t very many good places to pull over on these roads). But despite the unplanned nature of the trip, it proved to be a very good bet.
Cheers,
Peter C.