A stroll through any wooded habitat in the tropics can be disconcertingly like a visit to the florist. Where else could you encounter such beautiful morning glories?

Or an enormous woody pink-flowered datura?

But not even the most exotic flower shop holds the birds that a rainy morning’s visit to Xalapa’s Parque Natura produced on Saturday.

A bedraggled Squirrel Cuckoo tried to dry out in the weak sun,

while a band of Groove-billed Anis worked slowly through the brush surrounding the basketball court.

Thanks to the dark weather and the morning’s light human visitation, several sometimes elusive residents of the park’s thick trees were in evidence. Plain Chachalacas,my previous visits rarely much more than a croak and a glimpse, flopped around in the foliage:

Black-headed Saltators, equally noisy and only slightly more visible, fed out in the open–or as out in the open as these huge and beautiful finch/tanager/cardinals ever do:

In spite of the lack of human activity, I wasn’t the only one who’d decided it was a good morning for a walk. I shared the misty woods and damp sidewalks with this comical beast, a Gray-necked Wood-Rail that “followed ahead” of me for ten minutes before stumbling into the forest:

A fine farewell to my favorite birding site in Xalapa!

But no apocalyptic thoughts got in the way of a great trip today up to La Joya and Las Minas. Up, up climbed our big red bus, and when Manuel, faced with the impossibility of turning around, nonchalantly backed his vehicle a quarter mile along the edge of the barranca, we were grateful for both his manifest skills and his bus’s power steering.

Once safely on the ground, there was no stopping the birds and the birding.

I knew that we would tally a long list–the other conference group had already birded both sites the day before, with great success–but I was happily surprised by just how many of the birds we actually saw. Our first stop turned up an uncharacteristically obliging Red Warbler, which fed in view of us all for many minutes, making it hard to pay adequate attention to the Olive Warblers, Slate-throated Redstarts, Yellow-eyed Juncos, and Brown-throated Wrens bouncing around in the area.

A very pleasant shock was the unwonted visibility of Russet Nightingale-Thrushes; their Rusty Blackbird-like squeaks are a familiar sound in the high elevations, but rarely if ever have I seen as many as the four (!) obliging individuals today.

Any other species and I’d have thrown the photo away, but never did I think I’d be able to point and shoot at any nightingale-thrush and have the bird be recognizable. The scrappy little Gray-breasted Wood-Wren that popped out of its thicket a moment later was moving too fast for a photo, but still gave views every bit as good as those we’d enjoyed last year.

The group had moved on without me, and when I saw binoculars raised in one direction,  I hastened to catch up with them. A young male Bumblebee Hummingbird was perched in a nearby tree, its rufous tail and bright back flashing as it preened and stretched. The second or third smallest bird in the world–depending on the mass of Wine-throated Hummingbird–this little creature made the Golden-browed and Crescent-chested Warblers in the background look like great hulking bruisers, and the Brown-backed Solitaire perched above it–itself normally a delicate and elegant beast–seemed almost like the ludicrous blow-up of a bird.

Hard indeed to tear ourselves away, but we had to move downhill to La Joya, where the morning’s bright skies quickly gave way to clouds and even a brief sprinkle–the only rain of the entire trip.

Two big flocks of Black-eared Bushtits (have I already used the word “cute” today?) attracted good numbers of migrant parulids (including Hermit Warblers), and mixed finch flocks in the pines included Lesser Goldfinches of the blackest-backed type, a few Pine Siskins, and several natty little Black-headed Siskins. Mexican Chickadees played in the trees, and the last avian sounds we heard as we climbed onto the bus were the high lisps of Brown Creepers, the weird buzzes of Crescent-chested Warblers, and the cheerful farewell of a Slate-throated Redstart.

Until next time!

We’re a goodly distance south of the US border, of course, but a number of the birds we saw reminded me a bit of birding south Texas. Great-tailed Grackles are abundant everywhere, but it pays to remember that this terrifically successful (and terrifically attractive) species has moved across the Rio Grande in historic times.

The same is even more pointedly true of the demurely plumed and demented voiced Clay-colored Thrush, which not that long ago was a birdline rarity in Texas–and now occurs regularly (and as a breeder at that) north to Corpus Christi.

What will be next? As Michael pointed out in a recent article in Birding, there are several common northeast Mexican species that can be hoped–expected–to show up sooner or later north of the big river. I’ve been paying special attention to one of them this week, resolved not to overlook it should I be so fortunate as to run across one on my next visit to the Valley.

Melodious Blackbird is, I must admit, pretty easy to overlook. It’s big, it’s black, and it’s noisy–the classic icterid–but not, on first glance or third, particularly distinctive. They’re big and heavy, with a noticeably broad tail, and the bill is thick like a grackle’s but much straighter. The dark eye eliminates a number of confusion contenders, too.

This species and many others are on the move north, and the more time we spend looking at them in their current range, the more likely we are to pick them out when they arrive in our current range. At least that’s my excuse for this week in Veracruz!

A skipper. 'Nuff said.

This one was brighter, and to all appearances tastier, if that left hindwing is anything to go by:

This beautiful fritillary is, I think, a Julia:

I have to admire the lepers for their straightforwardness in naming creatures like this one “longwings”:

I actually have Jeff Glassberg’s beautiful Swift Guide with me, but identifying them always seem to fall behind admiring them! One of these days perhaps I’ll run through my photos and see just what I saw.

Macuiltepetl Park is one of those places. Even on a normal Wednesday like today, the street in front of the main entrance is packed with traffic and street vendors and people going about their morning business. But walk through the archway and suddenly Macuiltepetl–the “fifth hill” on whose slopes Xalapa is constructed–is a peaceful near-wilderness, the hillside forests cool and dark and bird-rich.

In our four fleeting hours this morning, we covered the first couple of hundred yards of the park’s wide, level paths, and discovered birds ranging from Black-headed Saltators to a Berylline Hummingbird on a nest. At least two Blue-crowned Motmots graced us with their presence and their low, evocative hooting, and a Canada Warbler on the slope below them was the first I’d seen for a couple of years (!).

My favorite birds, though, were excellent close comparisons of three relatively mundane species (by Veracruz standards, at least!). Once again we enjoyed side-by-side Social and Boat-billed Flycatchers, this time joined by a Great Kiskadee noisily living up to both parts of its name. No photos of the kiskadee, but this boat-bill was a nice one.

The morning’s list is at ebird.org, as usual, and I’ll try to find a moment to post images of a couple of the butterflies for which this site is so famous, too.

Wednesday, already? Seems like we just got here!

This was far from the last raptor we’d see today. Following a fine workshop by Ernesto Ruelas on the identification and counting of migrant raptors, our big red buses trundled off to Cardel, where we ascended (there’s an elevator now!) to the world-famous rooftop for some hawkwatching.

And there were lots of hawks to watch. Besides the resident Black Vultures and the streams of southbound Turkey Vultures, we saw in our few hours on the roof upwards of 20,000 Broad-winged Hawks, swarms and swarms of birds, their wings drawn back, peeling off from the kettles to move south. With them were a few Swainson’s Hawks–more will be passing every day–and assorted other raptors, including Merlin, Peregrine Falcon, and small numbers of Mississippi Kites munching on the dragonflies that were engaged in their own, almost as impressive migration.

Of course, we did a little munching ourselves, at the fine buffet set out for us by the Hotel Bienvenido just a quick flight of stairs down from the hawkwatch.

All of us here at the ABA Conference will have a second chance at the coastal hawkwatches, tomorrow or Friday, when we’ll spend the whole day along the Gulf of Mexico. We’ll be hard put to find a spectacle to match today’s!

The morning at Chavarrillo was full of wonders expected and not, from Bronze-winged Woodpecker to Montezuma Oropendola. One of the most gratifying sights came early in the day, when my disquisition on the identification of “kiskadee-like” flycatchers was conveniently illustrated by the timely arrival of these two:

The upper bird was one of the abundant and soon familiar Social Flycatchers, the lower a fine big-schnozzed Boat-billed  Flycatcher.

They really do seem to have a canoe stuck onto their face. I don’t think any of the participants will have further troubles with these species after their study of this “living field guide.”

There were lifebirds aplenty for the group as we wandered down the street in front of the hotel. Here we’ve stopped to admire Brown Jays, Social Flycatchers, and an Azure-crowned Hummingbird; a Groove-billed Ani squealed and chucked from a roof across the street.

Because it was mid-afternoon, the birding was noticeably slower than on our earlier strolls through the suburbs, but the creek five minutes’ walk away still produced well for us. I had to return to the hotel before the Mississippi Kites flew over and the Boat-billed Flycatcher showed up, but I did get to glimpse the insistently calling Louisiana Waterthrush and hear the noisy Band-backed Wrens before duty called me back to the hotel.

Can’t wait to get farther afield tomorrow! I’m going with Robert and Eduardo’s group to Chavarillo and the Parque Natura, and expect to have much to tell when we get back.

We started the morning with the short walk to the Parque Natura, just a couple of blocks from the hotel; an important discovery was the Costco Canopy Walkway.

Oddly enough, most Jalapeños seem to labor under the delusion that this elevated walkway is meant to help them get across the busy highway more or less intact, but for birders, it proves a great way to look into the treetops at such wonders as Brown Jays, Yellow-winged Tanagers, and Social Flycatchers.

This will likely be the first lifer for many of the conference participants when they get up in, let me see

, four hours or so (I’m just back from escorting the new arrivals from Veracruz to Xalapa). And they can be forgiven, I think, if they linger long over this charismatic little creature.

The birding was great in the park–so good that we covered only, oh, something like the first quarter mile of the path. Wilson’s Warblers where everywhere (really, everywhere!), and patient sorting finally produced an elegant male Mourning Warbler in one of the flocks, his throat crepe still intact. Loosely associated with the same migrant gang was a pair of Rufous-capped Warblers, vocal and confiding as usual.

A real treat was a Squirrel Cuckoo that came out of the foliage to perch briefly in the dead twigs; the background music was provided by a couple of Melodious Blackbirds. We’re in the tropics now!

Just as impressive as the birds were the bugs. This archaic-looking grasshopper was perched impassive in the cool grass of morning.

Can’t quite say it was beautiful, but a fascinating creature for sure. More conventionally appealing were the butterflies, among them this eighty-eight:

But nothing beats the sheer snazzitude of clearwings. This species was quite common on the edge of the woodland.

By late morning it was growing warmer and the birds quieter, so we ran a couple of last errands, had lunch, and headed to the Anthropological Museum of Xalapa. I knew it was famous, but I was entirely unprepared for the mass of fantastic objects well presented. This place is suddenly among my favorite museums anywhere–and not just for the many birds, like this Black-throated Green Warbler, attracted to puddles on the extensive grounds.

I’ll try to put together an “album” of some of the amazing sculptures collected there, but for now, let this one give a sense of the monumentality of what are called, quite appropriately, “cabezas colossales”:

and let this one give a sense of the incredible delicacy of the many, many smaller objects preserved:

A perfect day–birds, art, and Mexican food!

WINGS arranged the field trips for this year’s ABA Conference in Veracruz, which starts Sunday afternoon here in the beautiful old city of Xalapa. It was a short night last night after our 1:15 am arrival at the hotel, but the few hours of sleep were refreshing and a good breakfast revivifying. And then it was off to scout the hotel grounds and neighborhood streets for the informal welcome-to-Xalapa birdwalk scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Social Flycatchers screeched from the trees, and Wilson’s Warblers flycaught just about everywhere we looked. Then Greg’s sharp eyes picked out a dumpy shape in the shade–a Blue-crowned Motmot, sitting motionless above the creek. A few minutes later he found another on the other side of the road, and we eventually heard both birds giving their hesitant double whoop. Even better, an evening walk down to the same site with Tamie and Brenda produced one of the birds actively feeding, sallying out to capture big and no doubt delicious insects which it bludgeoned and swallowed.

Our evening sortie was well timed for White-fronted Parrots, too, as they headed noisily to roost.

Most simply flew overhead, but one pair stopped to dine in the treetops overhead, easily snipping off branches with their bills and maneuvering them with their expressive feet. Eventually this pair, too, joined the rest in what looks like a fairly substantial roost behind the hotel; should be a nice noisy show tomorrow morning!

You can see a complete list of the birds we found around the hotel today at ebird. And check back here for daily updates on what promises to be an outstandingly good week with the birds of Veracruz.