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Querétaro State, Mexico.  November 10 & 11,  2021.For many birders nothing comes close to the appeal of our spring and summer warblers. By warblers I don’t mean the rather drab, look-alike warblers of the old world, I speak of our North-American, neo-tropical warblers. Around here, most years, we’ll see about one quarter of the hundred-plus warbler species from the Parulidae family. Most of the family never stray from their tropical homeland so, on my recent trip to Mexico I was happily not surprised to see several new-to-me species. After our trip, our Travelian Tours leader, Rodrigo, prepared a complete list of birds seen, it included about twenty warbler species some of which were familiar summer visitors: Black-throated Green, Wilson’s and Nashville Warblers for example. But there was more and three really caught my imagination: Crescent–chested Warbler, Golden–browed Warbler and Painted Redstart.

A picture of the Crescent-chested Warbler featured prominently on our itinerary website, it looked so impossible and so exotic that I needed to see one to believe it. I asked Rodrigo what our chances were, he nodded casually, yes, he thought we probably would. Our third morning was the payoff, we were struggling up a vague path through thick forest when one appeared right in front of us. Everyone took many photos, it seemed as interested in us as we were in it. Taking many photos doesn’t guarantee good ones though and I was disappointed with my efforts. Above is my best while a great one from Rodrigo is on the masthead.

Late the same day, we wandered down an uneven rural road into a valley. There was forest on our uphill side and farmland turning to a moist thicket on the other.  It was late afternoon and birding was patchy, until we saw a little movement in the moist thicket. There was a Golden–browed Warbler, and then another until we realised we were watching a scattered group of maybe a dozen. They offered many photo ops but rarely held a position for more than a second or two so we all took many ‘oh it moved’ photos. Here, once again are a couple of Rodrigo’s photos(above and below); I’m indebted to him for his skills.

Finally – but really far from final, the Painted Redstart. We know American Redstarts in Ontario, they’re not the most colourful warbler but always worth stopping to admire. But the quite unrelated Painted Redstart is almost unbelievable in splashes of red, white and black. My first reaction was of disbelief, a bird that you would think only exists in coffee-table books. It too found us as interesting, perhaps we were intruders. Here it is, once again courtesy of Rodrigo.

 

Sotano De Las Huahuas, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. November 17 2021. I’ve enjoyed many heart-stopping birding experiences over the years but today’s was without doubt one of my most extraordinary. It was in Central Mexico, a tropical place, and started with a pre-dawn hike through a rain forest:  First down a knee-jarring series of solid but uneven stone steps, our way led by pools of light from the lanterns and flashlights ahead. Downhill for perhaps fifty, maybe a hundred, steps to a brief flatness and then back uphill, hard work up. I don’t know if anyone was counting but perhaps three-hundred, six-hundred, maybe more of those same uneven steps. The altitude here was in the 2,000 metres range and my heart pounded as my lungs tightened, squeezing for more oxygen.

We took a few rests as daylight grew and I savoured the privilege of being here, of being allowed and able to be here, at dawn, at my age, and giddy with the exhilaration.  Another few hundred steps and now, just about daylight, we stood at our goal, the edge of a vast sótano, a sinkhole or pit cave, a  deep hole opening into the dark basement of a mountain.

A sótano is one of the many creations of rainwater dissolving limestone, a drip by drip process that creates cracks and clefts and makes underground streams and caves.  If and when the roof of a deep cave collapses, a massive hole may open to the sky, like the one we were staring down. 

This sótano, a blemish on the side of a several thousand-metre-high mountain, was huge. It could have been almost any dimension, length, breadth and depth, it was impossible to tell without determinable references, but an interpretive sign explained “It has one of the largest underground halls in the world (184 metres wide and 290 metres wide) …fits a soccer stadium and accessed by a 90 metres high and 30 metres wide opening.” The spectacle was literally awesome; the word chosen and written in the sense of emotionally overpowering, not in the debased sense to describe anything one step above trivial.

But our purpose here was not head-spinning thrills, it was to watch the early morning flights of night-roosting White-collared Swifts and Green Parakeets.  Now under beams of sunlight, the swifts swept and wheeled in large, tight flocks circling around the bowl, gaining height with each spiral until released to the green forest and sunlight. The bright green parakeets were happy to see the day too, they were screeching and chattering among themselves in social gatherings. We watched as small groups criss-crossed just below us in the depths, parties of bright green against the dark.   They had places to go and things to do but seemed unconcerned about a Peregrine Falcon that circled within the deep shadows.  Much of parakeet life seems to be about visiting neighbours and gathering to preen and socialize.

We couldn’t move, it was almost too much to absorb, the bright sky above, criss-crossed by parties of Military  Macaws, a frame of forest wrapped by circling swifts, and the dark and irrational pull of the emptiness below alive with parakeets.

 

Merrick Orchard, Dundas Valley, Hamilton ON. December 1 2021. I’ve said this before but as November fades to December it sometimes feels as though a vacuum cleaner has sucked up all the birds and taken them away; it can be awfully still out there. Those fields and woods that were so lively and musical are now deadly quiet. But it is what it is and yesterday I took a long and taxing uphill-downhill walk through the woodlands and fields. I could hear White-breasted Nuthatches busy socialising, the odd noisy Blue Jay and watched a Hairy Woodpecker hammering at the soft wood extremities of a dead Red Ash. But it was slim pickings bird-wise until I found my Bird of the Day.

A Hermit Thrush sat quietly, clearly visible in the open upper level of abundantly berried bush. I was a little taken aback, Hermit Thrushes are usually quick to make themselves less visible, like all their thrush cousins. But this one sat quietly and watched me as I moved to get the best angle for photos, it gave me plenty of time to study it and pick out the field marks that distinguish it: a shy demeanour, a fairly heavily spotted upper breast and rusty brown back and tail.

It really was a wow! Bird, not because it’s improbable, a few always winter over this far north, but because it was just sitting there, being seen, studied and enjoyed. My Bird of a cold Day.

 

Neblinas, Landa de Matamoros, Mexico. November 14. 2021.  The two countries neighbouring the USA could hardly be more different: Canada ‘We the North” – some like to say, and Mexico, The… what?  In the popular imagination perhaps cactus-dotted and arid, or blue waters and margaritas. Our Mexico though was neither, our Mexico as opened to us by Travelian Tours, was rushing rivers, small villages, inconvenient mountains, pines, oaks and great birding in a rain forest.

As we looked across range after range of rugged mountains and deep canyons I tried to imagine how it was possible that Hernan Cortez and his conquistadors had crossed these mountains five-hundred years ago. Their story is well known but is far too long and complex to get into here, but I’m certain few people today would rationally contemplate crossing these endlessly hostile and interlocking ranges on foot, no matter how young and fit you might be. History tells us the rationale was quite simply the promise of gold.

To reach Neblinas, a thinly populated hillside settlement, we followed narrow roads, weaving endlessly, climbing all the time and doubling back on ourselves to follow the line of least topographical resistance.  The hillsides were green and moist, cattle pastures dotted expanses of cloud forest.

Three kilometres short of Neblinas (Spanish for mists) the van stopped and we piled out. It promptly left and Rodrigo explained the plan that we would continue walking and looking for birds until we reach the village where the van would be waiting for us. With that, we rather counterintuitively set off in the opposite direction. But in truth for the next hour or two we hardly moved at all, there was so much to see. I struggled to keep up as we tracked movement and songs: Yellow-winged Tanager, Masked Tityra, Elegant Euphonia and Flame- colored Tanager, all new to me and confounding at times as they moved in and out of view (which, by the way, is the challenge and intrigue of birding).

Everyone stopped dead when Barry abruptly called, “Bat Falcon!” A bird of coffee table books surely!  But there, as plain as day, atop an old snag sat this very attractive bird of prey. It is described in the authoritative Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America as a ‘small compact tropical falcon – of – open areas with scattered patches of trees, towns mostly in humid areas… main prey – birds, bats and insects.” Breathtaking to me and the sort of bird which by its name alone seems improbable. But here it is.

Others lingered to examine the falcon but I needed more and moved to another tree, and soon spotted large slow movements in some lower branches. Out of my depth I needed expert help, and as I called to get others’ attention, the almost correct words came out, “I’m looking at a large brown, I don’t know, I’ve got a – a – cuckoo – of some kind”. And cuckoo it was, a Squirrel Cuckoo. It had the eyes, face and long tail of cuckoos as I know them in Ontario. I suppose it’s its squirrel-like behaviour as it pokes its way around close to the main trunk and branches of trees that earned it its name. It also has a rather furry looking cinnamon brown plumage. I wish I could have got a better photo but here it is.

Two birds of the day, both with mammal-bird names, bat and squirrel, falcon and cuckoo. Hard to beat.

November 9 2021. Pinal de Amoles, Mexico. Our Mexican birding days usually started early and if the birding was good, lunch might easily get forgotten until quite late in the afternoon. Today when we had finally had enough of steep, narrow trails with spectacular views, enough of Mexican Jays, Hutton’s Vireos and Acorn Woodpeckers, enough of  Black Vultures and Chihuahuan Ravens skidding past at eye level, we settled comfortably into a local restaurant, ready to take our time and unwind over a long lunch.

The lunch was good, they always were, all meals were an exploration of Mexican food for me.  My companions helped with menu explanations as needed but I was happy to try anything, although sometimes I’d fall back on, “I’ll have the same as him.” It worked best when I was too tired to think.

Towards the end of lunch, Rodrigo, our Travelian Tours leader, returning from a minor errand, pointed out that he could hear the song of a Blue-throated Mountain-gem (below) coming from the adjacent courtyard.  This was a too-good-to-miss opportunity for our group so we settled the bill and went looking. We found it, a female, feeding from the pendulous flowers of a large Fuchsia.

Mountain-gem is a touch misleading because it is a hummingbird; clearly.  Until recently it was known as Blue-throated Hummingbird, but to satisfy hair-splitters in the bird-naming world, the Blue-throated and six other hummingbirds, were assigned to a distinctive Mountain-gem subgroup, probably because they are quite large, as hummingbirds go.

There was more. One of us suddenly noted a Cinnamon-bellied Flowerpiercer (above) working this same Fuchsia.  This was a surprising discovery; an unexpected bonus and we were all in a good position to study it. Other than that efficient flower-piercing bill, it looks rather like a small version of our familiar American Robin.  I take it from my more knowledgeable friends that it was a good sighting, so that made two, or maybe several, Birds of the Day.