Chiapas
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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!
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
Pink-headed Warbler
Belted Flycatcher
Amazon Kingfisher
One of three Sun Grebes we saw
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
Pinnated Bittern
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!