Remy was keen on taking a winter break in Hawaii, so we arranged a trip to the “Big Island” where we had spent our honeymoon almost 30 years ago. We based ourselves in Kona, since we found a couple of great snorkeling sites there on another visit a few years ago. We also gave ourselves a night in the Volcanoes National Park. This wasn’t a birding trip but I negotiated an early morning trip to Waikaloa up the coast and then a half day trip up to native forest along Saddle Road. Other than that, it was very much a case of casual birding around where we were staying or hiking. Unlike many US birders who make a real effort to see all the species introduced to the islands, I cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the incoherent mix of exotics on the islands. I naturally ran into many of them but was more interested in studying Pacific Golden-Plovers, which are scattered around the lowlands in small numbers and much commoner than on the coast of California. Pacific Golden-Plover Ruddy T...
To break up the long drive to Cancun, we planned to stop at Xpujil, near the eastern edge of the Calakmul Biosphere for a couple of days. Starting on the eastern edge of Calakmul and continuing east towards the coast, the forest becomes wetter and many of the species that occur in eastern Chiapas also occur there, although their status is much less well-known. Given that we had limited knowledge of how to access the various sites and we knew that at least some of them were on ejido lands, we hired Claudio Lopez (+52 983 182 6203 on Whatsapp) as a birding guide to maximize our efficiency and avoid potential problems. Claudio turned out to have exceptionally sharp vision, which made both Paul and myself keenly aware that our age was catching up with us! Before we reached Xpujil we decided to stop off at the bat cave near the entrance to Calakmul. After arriving there, we discovered we had to wait until a guided tour in the evening before we could go in. After waiting about an hou...