Great-Tailed Grackle

Debbie and I are birding S.E. Arizona to photograph migratory and non-migratory birds that we have never seen before.   We’ve been entertained by birds, like this Great-tailed Grackle ever since we entered this country.  A land with habitats ranging from desert and desert-oasis to high mountains where we were actually covered with snow on Mt. Lemon one day.  The both of us wearing Baja shorts and sandals!

One of the RV resorts had a nice lake where we saw Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

There, we also saw Black-crowned Night Herons.

Black-crowned Night Heron

Always smiling, Debbie is shooting these -

common Coots.  Coots?  If they had been named Ivory-billed divers or something like that they would have a better status in the bird world.  So cute!

Coots

One morning I spotted this tailess Sharp-shinned Hawk.  Accipiters don’t molt tail feathers all at once so we can assume this bird had been in trouble.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

At a little hot-springs oasis near Death Valley we saw our first Lucy’s Warbler.

Lucy’s Warbler

I know, I know, some of these photos are a little fuzzy but most birds just won’t stop moving and they can be few and far apart.  Sometimes I just have to pull the trigger and hope.  Here’s Debbie again.  You can tell how much fun we are having.   I’m going to leave today’s blog with a few shots of water-birds from Crystal Springs, Az.

Debbie at Crystal Springs, Az.

Female Bufflehead

Ruddy Duck

Ringed-neck Duck, Hooded Merganzer, Lesser Scaup

We haven’t filed any photos yet so therefore I can’t post any but…..we will!  We are having fun but miss you all.  Full day birding tomorrow, no guide.  Lovin’ the new Jeep Wrangler.  Later Gators

Lotta, Oly and the Pest

Acorn Woodpecker

It’s been a month or so since Debbie and I left San Blas.  Some of the memories are already beginning to fade (as well as some of Debbie’s bug bites) so I thought I’d share some of the photos of the birds we saw before I forget more about the trip.

This clown-faced individual is an Acorn Woodpecker.  Even though there are a few of these birds in Baja Sur, I’ve never seen one up close.  I would have traveled all the way to San Blas just to see one.  Examine this shot closely and you will see the acorns these birds have packed away for another day.

Next we have a Berylline Hummingbird.  These birds were especially hard to photograph because we didn’t have the luxury of having hummingbird feeders ANYWHERE.

Berylline Hummingbird

Like I always say, Debbie and I are known to guides as “The lucky Couple”.  Whether it’s birding Africa, the Arctic Circle, Galapagos Islands or wherever, we seem to get shots of birds others miss.  Like this Black-headed Siskin.  Being lucky enough to see one is good but being lucky enough to photograph one of these shy, always in motion little birds is great.

Black-headed Siskin

Another little guy (gal in this case) that is hard to get a good shot of is the Blue Grosbeak.  Yes, we have a few of these birds around the East Cape area but they are few and far between.  I had to hang out over a barbed-wire fence and duck under a hornet’s nest to take this shot.

Blue Grosbeak

You may have seen this photograph before but it’s worth seeing again.  According to our guide this is the best shot hes’ ever seen of the Blue Mockingbird.  This is another very shy and always under deep cover bird.

Blue Mockingbird.

Following are some of my favorite birds of San Blas.  Oh heck, they’re all my favorites.

Mangrove Warbler

Masked Tityra

Mexican Hermit Hummingbird

Military McCaw

Northern Tufted Flycatcher

Rufous-backed Robin

Rufous-capped Warbler

Sinaloa Wren

I find myself going on and on with these pictures.  Beautiful birds all with their own characters.  Lotta Tidbits posted a complete slideshow on her last blog so you can see them all there.

The Art Fair at Palmas was a great success!  Met a lot of good people and sold many books.  Bye for now.

Hello everyone!  Our page for our San Blas, Nayarit, MX birding slideshow is now up!  Click on the above link to view it.  Happy viewing!

With our normally warm Baja weather not being so warm, I started researching other areas that we could bird and be warmer whilst doing it.  After much research, we selected San Blas, Nayerit, MX for our next birding adventure.  However, I was a little concerned about the continued mention of jejenes.

San Blas is a friendly town and is nestled amongst mangrove forests about half way between Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific Coast.  It has very little foreign influence.  With a population of about 10,000, it is very relaxed and kick back and not many tourists are seen.

There is an existing sewer system but still, no paper in the toilet!  We were warned to wash all fruits and veggies in Microdyn, which we did.  We also drank and brushed our teeth with bottled water.

We stayed at Casa Roxanna which was clean, comfortable and economical. The help  and the owners Louis and Kent were extra friendly and very helpful. The property consists of 9 large bungalows and a nice pool amongst a beautiful serene garden setting.  We would stay there again in a minute.  

But, I must tell you, Casa Roxaanna has absolutely the best location location location in San Blas, hands down.  After all, it’s right next to the best darn panadoria we’ve (yep, i’m gonna speak for Chris here too) ever been in in Mexico.  It wasn’t stylish like the one in downtown San Jose del Cabo, which is also delice, but just a plain old get down and bake bakery with trays upon trays of yummy donuts precariously piled on top of the numerous huge flour  bags on the floor.  I figured wow, this must be a busy place!  Sure enough, they delivered to seemingly every store in San Blas and maybe outside of San Blas.  I don’t know but…you get the picture.  La Princessa…panadoria San Blas.  Don’t miss it.

San Blas is a quiet town with the exception of the Great-tailed Grackles in the main square and the local padre.  Yes….the local padre.  I did promise more about the local padre, didn’t I? (see my previous blog)

The first night we were there,  we were awoken from a sound sleep by what sounded like fireworks.  Biig fireworks!  We finally got used to them as the night wore on but we were in hopes that this was not an every night occurrence as we had to be up by 5AM every morning.

When Mark gathered us the next morning, we asked him what the heck it could have been.  He then told us the padre of the local (or, is that loco?) church was a pyromaniac and sets off bottle rockets for nearly any occasion, day or night.  I won’t tell you what he said exactly but, you get the picture.  Sure thing, next night, same thing!  And, if it wasn’t the bottle rockets it was the church bell clanging at all hours during the night and early morning.  We finally got used to it and we now consider it a very big part of our stay in San Blas.  We laugh every time we think of it.  Awwwwwwe.  Another memory that makes me smile.

There are many shops along the narrow (worse than Los Barriles) cobblestone streets and most everyone sells something different than the other.  Most all needs can be met but guaranteed… there is no WalMart in San Blas!  Compared to Baja, it is quite inexpensive and the language is slightly different.  You really need to roll your r’s when speaking Spanish or they look at you like, huh?…even if you say the correct word.

During our adventures, which took us through mangrove estuaries, jungle and forest, we passed through very few villages. We found it humorous that there were so many machete carrying men walking alongside the roads.  Well, think about it?!  When you live in the jungle, you carry a machete!  So….no worries.  We always felt safe wherever we were as the people were so very friendly.  Not much English is spoken by the locals.

We never did make it to the beach but heard it was beautiful with several huts, restaurants, etc.  The weather was great, with highs in the mid 80′s but chilly in the morning and evenings.  There was a continuous haze in the air that made it difficult for great shots of the birds but we still managed to get a few (imagine that!).  One day was pretty cloudy but no rain in sight as it was the dry season.

There were few mosquitos but the jejenes (no see ums with teeth) ..let me tell you about the jejenes…  I had and still have bites all over my hands, arms and legs.  Now, please keep in mind that I wore socks, long pants, long sleeve shirts and had on mosquito, fly, insect and tick repellent.  I will tell you…there is no way to stop the jejenes from biting you.  They are especially bad at dawn and dusk.  Of course, they didn’t bother Chris much at all. If they dared take a bite, they left quickly and told their friends to stay away.  My very macho man wanted me to say that…  :)    

I’ll share with you this useful information.  I was itching so badly that it was really really hard not to scratch.  I of course GOOGLE’d my problem and ran into an article where this guy was talking about his 88 year old grandmother that swore Listerine helped with the itch and……she is right!

Our San Blas birding adventure was dirty, dusty, bumpy, isolated, rugged, safe, beautiful and seven days of tough fun with an excellent guide, Mark Stackhouse.  Mark guided us tirelessly and superbly from 5AM until sometimes 8PM with maybe an hour or two break for six days straight.  His knowledge of birds is phenomenal.

We found out we had just missed James Currie, the host of the TV show “Birding Adventures” in San Blas.  The episodes with Mark and of course the stars of the show, the birds, airs April 8th or so, 2013 (I’m trying to verify this with James now.  Heard back but still unclear so I can’t tell you for sure).

We had the opportunity to see between 200 and 300 species of birds in and around San Blas.  This is a very bird rich area.  In just a short distance of the town of San Blas, we found a variety of habitats including higher mountains, lowlands, mangrove estuaries, forest, jungle and of course, the Pacific Ocean.

We took over 3500 photographs and after editing, kept around 400, adding nearly 100 new birds to our photo collections. Many more were seen and heard but we did not get a clear shot or did not see them at all.  Mark would be sounding out the names of all the birds he was hearing as we were trying to focus and photograph only one.  He does not necessarily look for the birds…he listens to the birds.  It really was incredible.  At times I would find myself getting a little frustrated and then I thought of how lucky Chris and I were to be amongst such beauty.  A smile would overcome me as I tried harder to focus and get that “just right” shot.

28 Feb, 2013

Our MagniCharter flight was delayed about an hour out of San Jose del Cabo, MX (SJD).  We had a quick 40 minute flight to Mazatlan on a 727, MX (MZT) where Francisco, the local bicycle repairman and our taxi to San Blas was waiting for us, with a big grin.  A most gracious, accommodating and funny man he is.  The drive south was about 3.5-4 hours.

We stopped at one of Francisco’s favorite restaurants just outside Mazatlan for camerones diablo and enchiladas.  Superb.  Continuing on to San Blas, we saw field after field of mangos, papayas, bananas and more.  You would see cattle every once in a while and then the scene would go back to more agriculture.

Near the larger cities, you would find sombra after sombra where hopeful people sell camerones.  We just couldn’t figure out why we didn’t see any refrigeration, ice chests, nada for coolness for the shrimp.  Come to find out, they were all selling dehydrated shrimp.  We didn’t try any.

We went through 3 toll booths.  Fees were 88, 90 and 186 pesos.  I must say, the roads were pretty darn nice.  I did find it funny that, well….you see the picture on the left?  Both of the right lanes you see are for just that…the right lane drivers.  Note that the one on the far left is wider than the other.  The far right lane is for you to get your a.. over when someone comes up behind you and wants to pass!  This was obviously well known by most all the other vehicles seen on the highway during the drive.  I kind of liked the idea myself!

Francisco stopped for gas and of course, knew everyone at the station.  Chris and I get out and stretch a bit (necessario these days) and see grackles.  We smile at each other as we know we are getting close……to the birds of San Blas.

We rolled into San Blas around 4 or 5 in the evening, just in time for the jejenes massacre, Debbie only.

Trip Notes:

DAY ONE

River San Cristobal, beautiful and teaming w/birds.

Matachen, new road to nowhere.   Beautiful sunset, light fades fast. Lots of birds.

Pizza for dinner, delivered, was good for MX pizza but not as good as my honey’s!

Rumored local padre of the church, pyromaniac..  Shooting off rockets.  Rockets in the middle of night…every night?

DAY 2

AM. Chacalilla, not too many birds was windy.   Romans chicken for lunch, was grt.   Wanting veggies.   Only Chris in PM.  Got lots of new birds up mangrove road.  Debbie went shopping for veggies. Left over chicken, rice and salad! For dinner.

DAY 3

AM. Singayta jungle, squirl cuckoo, many birds, lunch with Mark and Ellie and backyard birded into PM, Chris and Mark to sewer plant, sora and lineated woodpecker and biiiig turtles.   Left over pizza for dinner.

DAY 4

Tepic area.  Sierra de San Juan.  Birded all day.  Wonderful day in the mnts.  Finished the day photoing mm’s (Military McCaws) and saw pair of bat falcon.  Abs fantastic !!  Dinner at Ofinos w/M n E n D

DAY 5

Tecuitata,  coffee farm w Daniel and Martha, elegant n citrolin T’s (Trogans)!  Lucy’s in Aticama for lunch, pozole de pollo especial (this was sooooo awesome!). Excellent!  San cristobal estero.   Awesome!  Another boat ride to La Trovara. Potoo’s in the dark!

Can it get any better?

DAY 6

AM, can’t call in any birds in most of morning. Did see MX hermit hummer lec,   PM. Went hunting for painted bunting (saw but tough photo), bl thrtd magpie jays, el trogans (heard). Fragrance of mango blossoms in the air.

I must expound on Day 5.  Mark pulled up to Lucy’s for lunch.   She cooks the best most dynamite pozole there is.  I know even tho this was my very first time for pozole!

The visit to the coffee farm Capulin was extremely interesting as Daniel, one of the owners, gave us a great tour and is so very proud of what he does and as well he should be.  His wife Martha was gracious as well.  And the coffee…..OH! the coffee!!!  Needless to say, we brought some home!

Winnowing the coffee beans

Grading the coffee, pd per kilo

Sifting

All in all, seven days of beautiful birds, great scenery, great camaraderie with Mark and many more memories from our birding adventures.

I still think I hear the church bells clanging?  Nope.  Just the chimes next door.  But, oh what a great memory they bring.  I smile.

Note:  We are still working on getting the bird photos up.  Stay tuned!

Chris and I talked about it and decided the best terminology for our birding trip to San Blas, Nayarit, MX was “tough fun”.  I’ll explain later when I do my story on the whole trip.  But first, we need to get all the 414 photos out of the 3500 más o menos we took,  named and uploaded to our website.  Whew!  We’ve both been working feverishly to share them with you.

Overall, it was a fantastic 7 days filled with LOTS of birds!  I mean, do you think we were happy?  I would come in really dragging my you know what as we were normally up by 5AM, sometimes 4AM and would get back to Casa Roxanna after 6 PM with maybe an hour or two break in between.  Most of you probably know that I am not in the best shape.  Of course, this didn’t bother Chris much…until he hit the pillow and he was OUT!

We didn’t watch TV and I got in the pool once for about a 1/2 hour while begging off birding for an afternoon.  I had to go shopping as we had not had a chance to get any food, drink or other supplies since we had gotten there 3 or 4 days before and started birding early the next morning.  Now you get the picture…right?

Mark Stackhouse

Our guide, the legendary Mark Stackhouse, never let us down.  If he didn’t enjoy the 7 day chase as much as we did, you would never have known it.  He is a tireless guide and birder and allowed us the opportunities to photograph and add 85 new species of birds to our collections.  Of course, many more were seen and heard.  More later on Mark and his lovely family.

Wait until you hear about the local padre!  More later!

Great-tailed Grackle

Debbie and I made the decision to get out of this record cold and wind spell we’re having here in Los Barriles and go somewhere warm.  After much research on Debbie’s part, we chose to go birding in San Blas over on the mainland.  The details of the trip will come later because dearest Debbie took lots of notes and being the “Lotta Tidbits” she is you won’t be disappointed.  I’m going to move along to some of the photos we took (like 3,000+/-) of the birds.  Please keep in mind we were only there for a week and there is so much to see and it’s hard to get the best shots of so many beautiful birds.  Photo on the left: Great-tailed Grackles live all over town, singing and singing to our delight.

First day, off to the mangroves by panga we go.  Our guide, legendary Mark Stackhouse arranged for us to depart the little port and head upstream in a quiet boat on a private tour.  We saw Limpkins galore.

Limpkin

The mangroves  were teaming with birdlife.  The boat was so quiet we were able to get closeup to much of what we saw.  Like this Tri-colored Heron fishing.

Tri-colored Heron

And a White Ibis checks us out from mangrove branches.

White Ibis

Here’s one of his cousins we saw, a White-faced Ibis.

White-faced Ibis

Yellow-crowned Night Herons were a sight to see!

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

We took photos of Wood storks.  This is a young bird trying to figure things out, cute.

Wood Stork

We were dazzled by Roseate Spoonbills

Roseate Spoonbill

And Reddish Egrets

Reddish Egret

At one place where we were trying to shoot a White-throated Flycatcher (later), I got this creepy feeling someone was watching us.  Looking around, all I could see was birds.  Then I see him!  ”Debbie, check this out”.  No, she’s too busy being focused, (or focusing) to look to see what I’m babbling about.  In and amongst the Greater Yellowlegs and Black-necked Stilts theres a gull, a Ring-billed Gull.  He’s giving me this look of complete distain and annoyance.  Geeze…….What did I do?  See for yourself;

Ring-billed Gull

Try to remember, we’re going to be at Palmas de Cortez for the fair March 24th with books to sell.  Tell your friends, bring your brother, his wife and the kids, supply is limited.

Costa’s Hummingbird

The weather has been really windy so I’m taking a little time out from stomping around the arroyos and tip-toeing about our awesome estuaries.  A great time to sit on the south patio where it’s nice and warm, protected from the wind and work on some camera skills.  My goal is to, as much as possible with my camera, (Cannon T2i), slow down the wing beats of our speedy hummingbirds without using synchronized flash technology.  I’m still in the camp that believes flash from cameras can injure birds.

When shooting manual the trick seems to be to balance shutter-speed, apeture(fstop)  and ISO.  In many bird shots I prefer a blurred background but it’s tricky for me to keep the background noise(grain) down.    Next shot is that of a Xantus’s Hummingbird.  Distance from the bird is 12 feet.  Shutter speed is 1/4000, using f10 and ISO 1600.  The camera’s meter says to use 3200 but to reduce grain I’m going a click down and add exposure in editing.

Xantus’s Hummingbird

Costa’s Hummingbird

I used the same settings for the Costa’s photograph above.  Being self-taught and actually not the smartest turnip on the cart, I have to keep experimenting with the camera.  Shoot a bunch at different settings, download to iPhoto and compare the results.

Xantus’s Hummingbird

This one is not as clear because it is a hand-held shot.  I used a monopod for the others (monopods are like a tripod but with only one leg).

Using the same settings I’m getting pretty good results on other subjects like this female House Finch…(whoops!  House Sparrow actually). shot at 50 feet.

House Sparrow

And this low-light photo of a White-winged dove.

White-winged Dove

This Black-headed Grosbeak got in the way of my lens late in the day.

Black-headed Grosbeak

Now, please remember I’m not giving camera lessons.  Just writing about my own experiences and what may be working for me.  It’s such a joy to live in a place where I can sit down and see 10 or 20 bird species at one time.  Oh, and remember, we’ll be at the fair at Palmas de Cortez with books to sell March 24th.

Xantus’s Hummingbird

It is with great pleasure we welcome their return. But…where have they been? (we welcome your comments at the end of this post to let us know what you are and are not seeing…by comment please, not email.)  I am always curious to know what others are seeing and where.

I wanted to share with you some photos that I took the other day.  They were taken in our Llewellyn Baja bird sanctuary with the exception of the gallo (rooster).  We were cruising and stopped and asked permission to shoot it.  I held up my camera when I asked so they wouldn’t get the wrong impression!  LOL

He was being pretty cocky as there were lots of hens around.  Pun intended.

And the female Northern Cardinal.  Isn’t she beautiful?  I couldn’t resist shooting her, even tho we have soooo many photos of them already!

And I can’t EVER keep from shooting the Costa’s Hummingbird.  And I have to admit…the males are definitely prettier than the females.  Even tho this male was not showing his color.  But…he did eventually and I got him pretty well…

Male Costa’s Hummingbird.

And of course, what would we do without our gorgeous male House Finch?

That’s if for our backyard Baja birds today!  Hope you enjoy…

Lotta

House Sparrow

Sometimes it’s nice to take a “breather” and just spend some time at home.  Today, me and my sweetheart Debbie, decided to hang out on the south patio, have some iced tea and shoot whatever birds we see.  Well how fitting, first bird to get in the way of my camera lens is a House Sparrow  ( in Mexico it should be called a Casa Sparrow).   The bird above is a female and isn’t she a looker!   And where there is Mrs. House Sparrow there’s usually Mr.

House Sparrow

What a handsome devil!

Then came along Mr. (in red) and Mrs. House Finch.  What a joy to watch and listen to these birds.

All of the sudden the birds split. All it takes is one squak  from Mr. House Sparrow and everyone is gone.  Debbie and I know something is up, (must be where that old saying comes from).  Sure enough, we look up and there they are!  The bird picknic spoilers, a Zone-tailed Hawk and a  Red-tailed Hawk.

Then came along another couple of bird-eating rascals.  A Sharp-shinned Hawk and a Peregrine Falcon.  The Sharpie is in molt.  See the ragged secondaries?

All the birds have taken cover and are quiet and still.  I spot an almost rare treat perched in a Palo-Blanco tree.  Well I’ll be!  It’s a Ruddy Ground Dove.  If you don’t look close, this bird can be mistaken for the Common Ground Dove.  The Ruddy doesn’t have that scaly look about the head and chest like the Common does and it’s bill is mostly black.

Ruddy Groung Dove

Some of the little guys start coming back to the feeders first for they need to feed often.  I see a male Costa’s Hummingbird  fidgeting around.  And then a most beautiful female or juvenile Xantus’s Hummingbird  zooms by.

Everything begins to return to normal.  A female Northern Cardinal hops around looking for sun-flower seeds.  A young or female Hooded Oriole is sneaking shyly about the feeder.  Always suspicious of my watching eyes.

I’m going to end today’s blog with my shot-of-the-week.  A pretty good photo for a hand-held shot.  Isn’t he something?  An endemic Xantus’s Hummingbird.