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| WHITE-FRONTED PARROT |
Puerto Morelos is a fairly sleepy seaside town on the Caribbean. The section our friends' home is in is only about 15 blocks long and 3 or 4 blocks wide, ending at market square on one end with the beach to the east and mangroves to the north and west. Most days we were there, in the mornings, before it got too blasting hot, we would take a walk, either along one of the streets or the beach to the square and back and just in that small area we came up with 7 lifers and lots of year birds. Granted, some of the year birds, like
Brown Pelican or
Caspian Tern, we'll eventually get in NJ, but most, like
Franklin's Gull or
Magnificent Frigatebird, are not birds we'd normally see in a year.
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| Golden-fronted Woodpecker |
I believe the first life bird I got was sitting by the pool when a
CINNAMON HUMMINGBIRD zipped by, attracted by the hibiscus flowers. Or perhaps it was the orioles, both
YELLOW-BACKED ORIOLE &
YELLOW-TAILED ORIOLE, also seen while sipping a cocktail by the pool. There was also a
Golden-fronted Woodpecker constantly around, pecking away at the wooden poles atop a neighbor's villa. By then, I'd realized I had better keep a camera nearby at all times, though my chances of ever getting a shot of the hummingbird were nil.
A quick glance at the Golden-fronted Woodpecker would make you think that it is a Red-bellied Woodpecker, to which it is close in the taxonomic order. It even sounds similar when it calls. I was really bothered by the bird. If you look closely around the base of the bill you will see that it is
red, not golden, as the name would imply. I kept thinking that perhaps I was misidentifying the bird (though I couldn't think of what else it would be) until on Wednesday, when we birded Sian Ka'an that our guide told us that the sub-species of this woodpecker on the Yucatan Peninsula indeed did have red, not yellow, at the base of its bill. I felt much better hearing that.
Puerto Morelos has a mixed housing situation. There are some impressive manses, some modest homes, and, sprinkled about, empty lots that attract birds and birders. There was one lot, a block square, close to the villa that was fenced in with a warning that it was federal land, and it was here, while birding with Shari and Bob White, that we found the
WHITE-FRONTED PARROT (actually 2) in one of the trees. One posed long enough for me to get good pictures. At first we identified it as a Red-lored Parrot, but upon examining the photos and the guide books, we realized there was too much red on the face and that the white patch on the head was all wrong for that species. It's hard when you're in a new place to instantly put a name to a new bird, even if you've studied them beforehand.
One morning, walking to the square, Shari and I spot a small yellow bird in a big flowering plant. My first thought was a vireo, until I saw the little pointy beak. The eye-ring and the coloration matched
GRAY-CROWNED YELLOWTHROAT in our guide book. And close to the square, among the dozens of Eurasian Collared-Doves, were ground-doves, both
Ruddy Ground-Dove and, new for us
PLAIN-BREASTED GROUND-DOVE. (The
Common Ground-Dove, which we also saw once, has a spotted breast.) They're not much to look at, but they were a lifer:
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| PLAIN-BREAST GROUND-DOVE |
Walking the beach could be productive.
Ruddy Turnstones were the prevalent shorebird, the gulls were an equal mix of
Laughing Gulls and Franklin's Gulls. A few pelicans flew by. But for me, the sight I never tired of was seeing Magnificent Frigatebirds hovering and gliding along the coast.
Magnificent Frigatebirds
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| Great Kiskadee |
Flycatchers were a problem.
Great Kiskadee I can identify by voice and
Boat-billed Flycatcher looks almost like a kiskadee except for its honker and then there's the
SOCIAL FLYCATCHER which is a petite version of a kiskadee. But
Tropical Kingbird and
Couch's Kingbird are essentially identical and can only be separated reliably by voice. Fortunately, I heard their voices, though I wouldn't put my life on the line for either of my id's.
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| Boat-billed Flycatcher |
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| SOCIAL FLYCATCHER |
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| Tropical/Couch's Kingbird |
The first bird we saw upon landing and the ubiquitous bird of the week was the
Great-tailed Grackle, similar to our Boat-tailed Grackle (at one time conspecific), but while the boat-tail is almost exclusively a bird of the marshes, the Great-tailed Grackle seems more of a generalist. We saw them everywhere and they were the bird that woke us up in the morning with their screeches, whistles and mews. They don't fear people and would swoop down to take a drink from the pool--I guess they like the taste of chlorine--while we were in the pool.
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| Great-tailed Grackle, pool side |
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