Some Mexican birds

Okay, so I am incredibly far behind. I'll just blame this crazy summer for my delays in updating this blog. Now that fall is upon us and things get dreary, it's easier to find time to do this chore, but it's also a little sad to think back. Here's some birds - that's pretty fun and harmless. How about we start with the bat falcon Falco rufigularis?


If you've ever been wildlife-watching in tropical rainforests, you'll know just how incredibly hard it can be to see anything at all, and to know what you're looking at. Toucans, at least, make it easier by hanging out in clearings and making funny noises. This is Ramphastos sulfuratus, the keel-billed toucan.


And then, the tropics are also filled with birds from genera that I don't even know exist. The yellow-throated clorophonia, for example, may have been a beetle for all I knew. It turned out to be a cool little bird of the understory, Euphonia hirundinacea.


And this woodpecker is more of a variation on a familiar theme. The lineated woodpecker Dryocopus lineatus, looks much like the pileated woodpecker, except for its streaked chest and white stripes on the back.


Here's another very tropical bird, the red-legged honeycreeper Cyanerpes cyaneus.


This one is pretty common and familiar, but usually they've eluded me throught the tangle of vegetation. It's the groove-billed ani, Crotophaga sulcirostris.


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Some mesoamerican critters

I have seen just a few interesting animals, as I have only been in Guatemala for a week so far, and most of it has been dedicated to studying spanish at the Escuela de la montaña, about one hour down from Quetzaltenango.

This is the white-throated magpie-jay, Calocitta formosa.


Actually from the Reserva Biológica Huitepec, in Chiapas, this is the slate coloured solitaire, Myadestes unicolor. Most of the birds are impossible to photograph as they reside in the canopy, like the mountain trogon, or they hide in the low plants, like the quails and wrens (although the band-backed wrens act and sound like flocks of angry magpies).


I just came back from a trip to the Finca Santa Anita la Unión, a community of former guerrilla members, where I got to see one of the few remaining Ceiba trees remaining in this part of Guatemala. A quick look at the trunk will explain why they are almost extinct here.


This is a Dendrobates - looking tree frog, that I caught in the school's garden last night.


And this mushroom I found in Chiapas brought back some memories. It looks just like Geastrum striatum, a cool and common fungus in France.


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¡No hay tos!

When I got to Mexico City I expected the place to be reminiscent of Camus' "The Plague," or Saramago's essay on blindness, but the panic had largely ebbed by then, and all that could be seen was about a quarter of the people wearing surgical-type masks, signs in pharmacies that said "We don't have any dust masks," restaurants with signs that said "for takeout only, because of official order," and no tourists. This is actually the most outrageous thing I saw there, which reminded me of the problem that Saramago raised: What do you do when you enter the church, and catch the disease? (It says: Please use your mask to enter the church)



The guy at a ticket counter in one of the big Mexico City bus stations (those are just like Paris train stations, if you are familiar with those but haven't been to DF) looked at me as I tried to rush him. "No hay tos." Apparently, that means "no problem," but it seemed to fit perfectly, as it normally means "there's no coughing."

As Mexico relaxes its preventative measures, the government has sent phalanxes of masked people with hand sanitizers and questionaires; "do you have a fever?" "Are you coughing?" etc...

At the prestigious museum of anthropology, on their first crisis day, we were issued masks, and even told to wear them. By this time in the real Mexico City, only about 20% of riders in the crowded metro were wearing them. Many people wore their masks around their neck.

And things were largely back to normal, as can be attested by people going about their business, ususally mask-free, on the Alameda:

I am now, as of today, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the state of Chiapas. My goal was to visit the famous Mayan ruins at Palenque, but when I got here I thought I'd rather just enjoy the town, and forget about the long bus rides there and back.

The town is pretty all around, and so far everyone I talked to has been quite friendly.

There's a lot of yellow walls, with smatterings of other colors (probably depending on what's on sale at the time), which is always a delight for tourists with overpriced cameras, and I am no exception.

The beauty of the place is enhanced by the rain that comes and goes, always messing with the light and sky.

Rain wasn't an issue at the nearby Grutas de Rancho Nuevo, where I went to climb the nearby mountain. It turned out that the mountain was the site of a live-fire excercise of the Mexican Army, so I wisely stayed mostly underground. The cave is blocked off by a funnily translated sign, which I studiously ignored (upon seeing that I had a headlamp, the guard told me: "Lo que yo no sé, no me duele") The parts beyond the sign were fun, but there were a lot of small ponds, and I couldn't take pictures because my headlamp makes them come out in gray halos.

It was much easier to take pictures in the touristy part:


There were not a lot of stalagmites in the lighted part, as many had been chopped off to make way for visitors.

Because of the lights, enlarged entrance, and tourists, there was algal growth on most of the pillows at the entrance, but this one was largely okay.

And at the entrance, I found the cave's dragon! Update: this is the dragoncito de labios rojos, or Abronia lytrochila.


How about that, for a first day in Chiapas?

Quickly catching up on Mexico

Hello! I promised I'd write more, so here it is. So far the trip has been fantastic, to the point that I wanted to spend more time in every town I visited. Swimming and hiking were great in and around Puerto Vallarta (especially around El Tuito), and I then spent time in Guadalajara where there was an international book fair and lots of fun college students who had come to listen to the speakers (I got to hear Arturo Pérez-Reverte talk about La Reina del Sur, that I had read, and saw Elena Poniatowska, whose book La Piel del Cielo I was reading at the time). Here is Arturo Pérez-Reverte singing an old narco-corrida with the Tigres del Norte:


I then went to Zacatecas, which is always fun and was even better this time since there was a very interesting movie festival (theme: borders and migrations). I saw about five feature-length movies and heard some actors and directors comment on two of them.

Otherwise, get ready for landscapes and birds!

Cacti of all shapes and sizes:


A tiny cactus camouflaged in the rocks:


Fascinating masks in Zacatecas:


La hasteca, near Monterrey, where I have to go back and spend more time:


The Cerro de las Mitras, behind which my friend Ricardo and his family live in Monterrey:


La Huasteca, again:


A gadwall, Anas strepera:


A male Great-tailed grackle Quiscalus mexicanus:


And a female:


And an eastern fox squirrel Scirus niger:


I am now in Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.