Mar 02 2009
Take a look at the landscape below. What can you tell me about the environment depicted? It’s a desert, or at least a dry habitat, right? The plain in the foreground, anyhow–who knows what the climate is like in the mountains? But the tall, spiky yucca plants at front right tell you, just as [...]
Feb 27 2009
It occurred to me one day during my recent trip to Mexico that I was taking a lot of pictures of red things, often with green and white as background or accents. Hmmm, I thought, I should get a good shot of Mexico’s flag–it would make a nice introduction to a blog post featuring those [...]
Feb 13 2009
Dear Mexico, We’ve been seeing a lot of each other recently and I have to say, I’m more than a little smitten. I love the way you combine the transcendent with the ordinary. I love the way you keep your secrets, revealing them so slowly. I love the warmth and dignity of your people. And [...]
Jan 15 2009
Pretty simple this time–just a ribbon of Roseate Spoonbills floating across a cloudless Mexican sky. Be sure to check out other Skywatch Friday posts from around the world.
Jan 14 2009
Teotitlán del Valle is a town of about five thousand that seems much smaller. It’s wedged into a narrow stream valley that winds its way up into the mountains, about a 20 minute ride east from the city of Oaxaca. On our recent tour, we visited Teotitlán twice, focussing our efforts on the cactus scrub and [...]
Jan 06 2009
I’ve struggled a bit with this post. Every time I try to write it, it feels too heavy. I dunno, maybe the heat here is getting to me. So I’m going to try an experiment–I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking. I’ll provide a rough translation at the end. I’ll bet you [...]
Dec 31 2008
Hello and Happy New Year! I’m in the middle of leading a tour with Chris Benesh for Field Guides, Inc., to Oaxaca, in southwest Mexico. I don’t have much time to write, but here are a few pictures you might enjoy: The main plaza at the ruins of Monte Alban, above. Below, the ball court [...]
Dec 23 2008
This is my last post in a series of four on the endemic birds of Northeast Mexico. That doesn’t mean I’ve run through the entire list of species, not hardly. But I hope I’ve given you a taste of some of what makes the area unique. I’m ending on a chromatically appropriate note with Red-crowned [...]
Dec 20 2008
OK, here is where the American Ornithologist’s Union and I part company. They still officially consider the green, Red-bellied Woodpecker-sized woodpeckers that occur in Northeastern Mexico to be a distinctive subspecies of the Golden-Olive Woodpecker Colaptes rubiginosus, a wide-ranging neotropical species. They designate these birds as Colaptes r. aeruginosus, the “Bronze-winged Woodpecker.” I say–and this is hardly a [...]
Dec 18 2008
I’ve got a thing for yellowthroats. I always thought they were cute and had lots of personality–everyone thinks that. Otherwise, they weren’t especially on my radar. But traveling into Mexico at the dawn of the 1990′s really turned my head around. Of course, there was the opportunity to see Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (click that link for [...]
