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As I discussed final week, the world appears to have turned the wrong way up these days, no less than right here in central Mexico. After a devastatingly dry summer time (our wet season), now we’re having a surprisingly moist winter (our dry season). On Tuesday my closest birding buddies, and, of late, my common companions, needed to go right down to Paso Ancho. This city is a thousand meters (three thousand toes) decrease than Morelia, and in our state’s Tierra Caliente/Sizzling Nation. It’s also within the rain shadow between the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Transvolcanic Vary. That signifies that it will get a lot much less of our summer time rains, and is often bone dry in the course of the winter.
And but, in the course of the days main as much as our outing, the web climate web page saved predicting a risk of rain for that day. Then, the day earlier than, they moved to a 50% likelihood for every hour till the late afternoon. This didn’t look like an issue to me, as a result of a little bit of rain actually appears to deliver out the birds in such a dry habitat.
However it wasn’t a little bit of rain. As a substitute, this semidesert obtained a gentle drizzle, with moments of actual rain, from properly earlier than our early-morning arrival till simply earlier than our mid-afternoon departure. My final images, in reality, seem to have been taken by way of a dense fog, as a result of my lens had fogged up, though the impact was solely beauty, and reversed with a while within the solar two days later.
Considered one of my companions stated that in his area of Mexico, this sort of rain is known as a “mojapendejos” rain. Pendejo is a somewhat impolite phrase for somebody who’s both of low character, or not very good; and the verb mojar means to make one thing moist. And certainly, it did rain simply sufficient to maintain us constantly moist, however we had been too pendejo to hunt shelter. So true, so true.
In our protection, toughing it out allowed the 4 of us to see 83 species in sooner or later, a really respectable complete for Paso Ancho. And the drizzly situations made a few of these birds extra reluctant to fly away which, mixed with the low mild, actually made their colours pop. Listed here are just a few of the ensuing images. I’ll make clear that that very same low mild required an additional quantity of modifying right here at residence (up the sunshine ranges, drastically enhance distinction, and sharpen the photographs as a lot as potential). Additionally, you possibly can really see proof of the rain in every one of these photographs, in addition to a lot of twigs, because the birds largely most popular to remain below cowl. Having stated that, I hope you get pleasure from these:
The Pink-breasted Chat is one among Paso Ancho’s flagship species, and I’m so glad to now know the place to reliably discover it.
It was a thrill to see this male Painted Bunting so up shut. My solely remorse is that it by no means turned sideways, to indicate the opposite 5 of its seven colours, as indicated in its Spanish-language identify “Sietecolores“.
We had an analogous expertise with this male Various Bunting.
The Orange-breasted Bunting, one other Paso Ancho flagship species, did let me down a bit, as solely this feminine allowed me some satisfactory images.
I acquired luckier once more with this male Elegant Euphonia.
It was an unusually good day for Plain-capped Starthroats, typically being harassed by a lot smaller Lucifer Hummingbirds. The Plain-capped Starthroat is the most important hummingbird in our area, with a invoice as much as half so long as its physique.
Hummingbirds will not be the one birds inquisitive about Paso Ancho’s ample Fouqueria blooms, as demonstrated by this feminine Hooded Oriole.
However I used to be extra excited to see Barkeria unifloras blooming all over the place we went. It at all times appears odd to see orchids blooming in a semidesert habitat. However I’m not complaining.
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