The Goleta Birder

  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...

  I had missed some species during my first trip to eastern Chiapas a few years ago. These mainly fell into two camps: Straight-up misses and a group of easy-to-hear but difficult-to-see species such as tinamous. I was hoping that the latter group might be a bit more responsive to playback than in the winter but that proved to be a vain hope. Realistically, I need to return in the rainy season, when breeding activity peaks. When I had begun to plan the trip, I discovered that the classic birding locations at Bonampak and Xaxchilan were not currently accessible to tourists because cartels were operating heavily in the area to detain would-be-USA immigrants and force them to pay for passage to the USA. As a result, I focused my trip on a visit to Naha, where the local birder, Miguel Garcia Cruz (+52 916 164 3094 on Whatsapp), said things were OK. Naturally, after making all the arrangements and bookings, there was a change in the presidential administration in the USA. The new Tr...

  The Usumacinta rises in the highlands of southern Chiapas and flows north and east towards the Gulf of Mexico (Sorry Mr. President, but I really don’t like name changes for the sake of it, having suffered through the ridiculous flip-flopping on North American birds names the last three decades). There are extensive marshes along much of its lower reaches and these offer a whole range of species not possible in the dry Yucatan. Leaving Calakmul a day early gave us a chance to spend a couple of days in the area rather than just short stops while traveling between Chiapas and Calakmul. We initially aimed to take the road to Jonuta, where we hoped to find a hotel for the night. Camino Palizada, which leads to Jonuta, passes through seasonal wetlands that are mostly dried up by spring. We stopped at any remaining wet areas that held birds. One key target was Jabiru, which was a lifer for Paul and a Mexican tick for me. Jabirus are most common in the immediate aftermath of the wet ...