Mexico Birding

On our second day in Mexico we went out with the explicit aim to photograph birds. We were able to spend our time getting photos and that showed with 30 species observed and 20 of those with photos. Sadly I couldn't get a decent photo of the Chachalaca which I wanted to photograph just because of the cool name but I did add them to the list. Most photos were from a park next to the Tangolunda beach that ran alongside a golf course and from the main road leading past the course; no bush bashing today.

Huatulco, Oaxaca, Mexico is a tourist resort location with a port that can handle cruise ships. There are nine bays in close proximity with varying grades of resorts that attract the tourists but with the foothills of the Sierra Madre coming close to the coast it is also a great birding spot. The cruise port is a long floating jetty and as I walked off the Rotterdam I got to photgraph my first Great Kiskadee that was posing on a pylon.

Great Kiskadee

Walking through the tourist shops at the port we saw three more birds. I had seen two of them the day before but it was a good start to the day.


Yellow-winged Cacique	Tropical Kingbird

Golden-cheeked Woodpecker	Golden-cheeked Woodpecker

It was stinking hot of course, 33ish. I started off with great enthusiasm at about 9:30am but by the end of four hours birding I was moving from shade spot to shade spot daring the birds to come to the camera and cursing them if I had to move into the sun to get the photo.

I tentatively identified a few Orioles. Australia only has three but it is rather more exciting in this part of the world. I have been playing an excellent board game called Wingspan which features 170 bird cards from North America and the Baltimore Oriole is a high value card so it was nice to see one for the first time in the wild. I am less sure of my other ID's. Fingers crossed.


Altamira Oriole	Streak-backed Oriole

Baltimore Oriole	Orchard Oriole

I would have liked to get a front facing photo of the Citreoline Trogon but even the back only view is quite spectacular.

Citreoline Trogon

Still haven't managed an Instragram worthy photo of the White-throated Magpie-jay. It is such a gorgeous looking bird it should lead to a winner everytime but the perfect photo still eludes me. Trying to get that enormously long tail in a photo with close enough detail and free from vegetation has been a task.