Mexico: Granja de Camarón y Chacalilla

On the outskirts of San Blas there are shrimp ponds and where there are shrimp ponds there are birds.  White birds.


This one pond in particular was filled with Wood Storks, White Ibises, American White Pelicans, Great and Snowy Egrets.  Even the Short-tailed Hawk that flew over was a light morph.


There were many little roads and pulloffs to explore in this area and we birded many of them over several afternoons and evenings.  Collared Plovers do not exist here, despite what you may have heard.

 Gull-billed Tern

 Cinnamon-rumped Seedeater (formerly White-collared Seedeater)

Common Black Hawk

One road was filled with puppies. 

 Are you dead?

Nope.

This was fun until their mom came out and tried to kill Dan.  It all worked out in the end.

Good momma.

Down this same road we found a dead frigatebird that had likely collided with the powerlines running along the ponds.


And a couple more birds from the road past the shrimp ponds that leads to Chacalilla:

Orchard Oriole

Lesser Nighthawk

As Seagull Steve mentioned in his recent Mexi-report, we heard from local birders that the town of Chacalilla north of San Blas was a becoming a great birding area, and one of the best places to find Elegant Quail.  We headed there one evening to check out the scene and decided to return a few days later in the morning. 


Someone called out quail early on and I caught this one terrible photo of one scurrying across the road.  Not worth counting as a lifer.


Our checklist for the morning included 98 species.  Sigh.

Bare-throated Tiger-Heron

Gray Hawk

Green Kingfisher

 Morning vultures

Frank somehow noticed this mantis eating a butterfly in a roadside shrub:



98 species in 3.5 hours is a very nice thing.  More to come, stay tuned.  Good times!

Comments

  1. OMG Jen, you are blowing birding out of the water, so happy for you a major Adventure!! The plight of dogs in Mexico is awful, I wish wish wish...I read on FB this morning Bundy has been arrested hope it will bring that silly nonsense to an end!

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    1. Yep, the Malheur situation has improved but still ain't over...

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  2. Awesome birds - we've only seen a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron flying away from us, and never had a White-collared Seedeater sit still enough for a photo. I love the photo of the mantis gnawing on the Lep! The variety of mantids in the tropics was a pleasant surprise when we visited last year

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    1. I highly recommend you find a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron NOT flying away sometime. Your face will melt right off. Glad to hear you guys might be joining us for birds and beers!

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