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Crested Guan Image by Lee Zieger |
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| This trip gave us a very special treat of seeing a Crested Guan out in the open. The Crested Guan is a relative of the Plain Chacalaca found here in Mexico and in the Rio Grande Valley. This picture is the best of this Guan for me in ten years of photography in Mexico. | |||||||||||||
Brownsville, Texas
El Cielo, Gomez Farias, Cd Mante, El Naciemento, Boca Toma, and La Florida April 2 - 6, 2008
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A stop at Rio Corona brought trees full of singing birds in the canopy. The canopy, up about 80 feet, birding was great but a real pain in the neck. We decided a stop on the return trip would work better for our time schedule. The pain in the neck and need to get to Gomez Farias by 2PM appointment time with our guide had us leaving in less than a hour. |
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Some haze was in the sky. We suddenly saw this big bird on a dead tree. A Crested Guan was perched on a dead limb after a fill of fruit. The fruit tree produced lots of birds on a previous trip. It was located so we could look down on the tree's canopy. Ricardo guiding regularly knows where all the fruiting trees are. The fruiting trees and bushes are like having feeders you do not have to fill. I continually dropped off the group and went on for them to walk up to me in the suburban with cooler of drinks and snacks. We hop-scotched our way up and then on the return also but not as much. Our stop in the town of Alta Cima at about 4,500 foot level produced a Flame-colored Tanager with a worm for it's young. It was hidding out waiting for us to go to keep it's nest a secret. The same tree sported a Blue-grey Gnatcatcher out looking for food. My first good enough look for a photo of a Blue Mockingbird was enjoyed by all. These endemic birds are hard to find. A surprise bird not seen during migration was singing away. The Black-headed Nightingale Thrushes were on this one trail east of town. We were under a canopy that was at least eighty feet up and allowed very little light in. The small bird gave us great looks to go with the song on top of large moss covered boulders. Ricardo called in a Mountain Trogan that gave us good looks and pictures too. |
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Last
Day's return trip brought some new birds in the El Cielo area
plus some road birds. We stopped
for a late lunch north of Cd Victoria, the Tamaulipas State Capital).
It is a Mezcals Museum
and manufactor plant with very good food. It is surrounded by planted
Agave. The bottle
of Muscal comes with a fresh worm usually. Local written history
indicates it is made from the Agave plant just like Tequila. Tequila
is a word in Mexico that can only be used in a certain state. Click
the underline Mezcals to find some history on the drinks made of
the Agave Plant. |
Our
trip was uneventful with the usual check points in Mexico. I
filled up the 40 gallon
suburban tank in Matamoros, Mexico just across the border from
Brownsville as the price per gallon is much lower at $2.60 per
gallon. Diesel is even less at $2.00 per gallon. Crossing to the
US side was much faster than previously. The border crossing back
up is down with fewer people crossing due to the US Security
checks and personal ID requirements. I am very diligent seeing
that everyone is good on paper work for both Mexico and USA. It
is not difficult.
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| Ricardo Jimenez Bird & Butterfly Guide for the El Cielo Area - Web Page and Contact Information. |
Bird Count by Day
1-Apr 42
2-Apr 79
3-Apr 98
4-Apr 122
5-Apr 151
6-Apr 169
| Eastern Screech-Owl Common Pauraque Black-bellied Whistling-Duck Muscovy Duck Blue-winged Teal Northern Pintail Plain Chachalaca Crested Guan Least Grebe Pied-billed Grebe American White Pelican Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Great Egret Snowy Egret Cattle Egret Green Heron Black-crowned Night-Heron Boat-billed Heron White-faced Ibis Black Vulture Turkey Vulture Grey-lined Hawk Great Black-Hawk Harris's Hawk Roadside Hawk (Crested)Southern Caracara American Kestrel Aplomado Falcon Bat Falcon Peregrine Falcon Common Moorhen Dusky Flycatcher Eastern Phoebe Vermilion Flycatcher Dusky-capped Flycatcher Ash-throated Flycatcher Brown-crested Flycatcher Great Kiskadee Boat-billed Flycatcher Social Flycatcher Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher Tropical Kingbird Couch's Kingbird Eastern Kingbird Masked Tityra Black-crowned Tityra White-eyed Vireo Rufous-browed Peppershrike (Green)Inca Jay Brown Jay Tamaulipas Crow Chihuahuan Raven Northern Rough-winged Swallow Black-crested Titmouse |
American Coot Sungrebe Killdeer Black-necked Stilt Northern Jacana Spotted Sandpiper Long-billed Curlew Laughing Gull Rock Dove Red-billed Pigeon White-winged Dove Mourning Dove Inca Dove Common Ground-Dove Ruddy Ground-Dove Blue Ground-Dove White-tipped Dove Green Parakeet Olive Throated Parakeet Military Macaw White-crowned Parrot Red-crowned Parrot Red-lored Parrot Yellow-billed Cuckoo Squirrel Cuckoo Greater Roadrunner Groove-billed Ani Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl Northern Potoo Black Swift White-collared Swift Wedge-tailed Sabrewing Ruby-throated Hummingbird Broad-tailled Hummingbird Green Violet_ear Hummingbird Mountain Trogon Elegant Trogon Blue-crowned Motmot Ringed Kingfisher Belted Kingfisher Amazon Kingfisher Green Kingfisher Acorn Woodpecker Golden-fronted Woodpecker Bronze-winged Woodpecker Smoky-brown Woodpecker Lineated Woodpecker Pale(Ivory)-billed Woodpecker Olivaceous Woodcreeper Ivory-billed Woodcreeper Barred Antshrike Greater Pewee Spot-breasted Wren White-bellied Wren Blue-grey Gnatcatcher Eastern Bluebird Brown-backed Solitaire |
Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush Grey Silky-flycatcher |
Rio RV Park
8801 Boca Chica Blvd.
Brownsville, TX 78521
Phone: 956-831-4653 or 866-279-1775
Fax: 956-831-0147