AVMA News

APRIL 2, 2024

More dairy cattle in Idaho, New Mexico, and Texas have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI).

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Idaho Kansas Cows New Mexico 461

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 28, 2024

Our local friend was already busy and everyone that had been suggested had to be flown in from either nearby Huatulco or Mexico City, which significantly added to the guiding fee. The post Birding (and drinking mezcal) in Oaxaca, Mexico first appeared on 10,000 Birds. This ended up being a bit more difficult than I imagined.

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Mexico Birds Oregon Puffins 224

10,000 Birds

MAY 20, 2020

I have commented before in my posts that most of our Warblers here in central Mexico never actually warble. southwest, but it is a permanent resident in western Mexico and parts of Central America. The adorable Red Warbler lives only in Mexico. Still, there are a few notable exception to this rule, even here in Michoacán.

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Honduras Mexico South America America 357

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2023

Tabasco is probably the wettest state in Mexico. During Mexico’s dry season (which is just now ending), most of the country turns brown, as our plants survive the annual drought by dropping their leaves. And the final species, seen in the neighborhood in which I was housed, gave me my 500th species in Mexico. Good choice!

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Mexico Tigers Cows Birds 130

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2020

Whether you happen to be more interested in music or birds, you may love “A Guide to the Birdsong of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean” Since this is a music project rather than an actual guide of bird vocalizations, there won’t be a catalog of antbird trills and toucan yelps.

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Costa Rica Nicaragua Cuba Mexico 268

10,000 Birds

JULY 12, 2024

As I have mentioned repeatedly over the past months, life this spring has gone topsy-turvy in central Mexico, as we experience what has certainly been one of our driest years in history. We had good sightings of a pair of Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers , one of central Mexico’s few summer-only migrants.

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Mexico South America 2020 America 241

10,000 Birds

APRIL 28, 2021

As I mention each year at this time, the beginning of the birding year, up north, is the end of Mexico’s peak birding season. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this winter’s biggest story was a tremendous abundance of Cedar Waxwings throughout central Mexico. There were about 40 in this group.

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Mexico Trafficking Sparrows Virginia 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 30, 2021

After 38 years of life in Mexico, I rarely have the sort of stomach trouble tourists supposedly get here. My first trip into non-touristy Mexico, I was so worried about the Tijuana Two-Step that, let’s just say, I had the opposite problem for a week. It’s always nice when Mexico gets its due.

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Mexico Groups Species Birds 264

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

Here in Mexico, I can almost always count on Black Vultures and Turkey Vultures to pad each outing’s list by two species. Occasionally I have been lucky enough to see Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures in tropical Mexico. Alas, although I was once a California boy, I have never seen a California Condor.

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California Condor Turkey Mexico Meat 233

10,000 Birds

JUNE 24, 2020

The Yellow-green Vireo is another of those rare birds that winter in South America but only travels north as far as Mexico to breed. Three years ago, when I had the privilege of showing one of my favorite sites to Mexico’s top birder couple, they noticed a Yellow-green Vireo in the brush and pointed it out to me.

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10,000 Birds

AUGUST 11, 2021

Many thrushes live or winter in Mexico, but their taxonomy is mostly quite simple. Eight of our large thrushes (the American Robin , western Mexico’s own Rufous-backed Robin , and eastern Mexico’s ubiquitous Clay-colored Thrush , among others) belong to the genus Turdus. Why are Aztec Thrushes so hard to see?

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10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2024

Sinaloa Martin By 2015, I had discovered the tiny town or Paso Ancho, Michoacán, as my nearest option for seeing the many endemics of Mexico’s Hot Country/ Tierra Caliente. Only on its way north in late spring does it stop at different points to rest and feed, mostly near the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico.

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Squirrels Mexico Kansas South America 244

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 8, 2024

For years, I had hoped to see a Lesser Ground-Cuckoo, one of Mexico’s more exotic and difficult species. (When they actually afford you a whole new blog subject to write about, that is certainly an extra bonus.) And I even had this species on… Source

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Mexico Birds Species 237

10,000 Birds

JULY 14, 2021

The Rusty Sparrow is a bird of Mexico and Central America that looks remarkably like the Rufous-crowned Sparrow , but is considerably larger. Red-tailed Hawks are certainly not specific to Mexico, but I have been following a pair of them for a long time at Los Filtros — one dark morph, and the other light morph.

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Mexico Sparrows United States Virginia 256

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

In 2022, the 10,000 Birds eBird Collaborative submitted 1,837 checklists from 9 countries ( Australia , China , Costa Rica , Mexico , Saint Lucia , Serbia , Trinidad and Tobago , United Kingdom , and the United States ) and observed 1,273 species. The Collaborative life list increased to 4,140.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 24, 2020

In autumn and winter, they descend these high ridges to avoid the worst of the high winds and blowing snow – sometimes to feeders such as Sandia Crest in New Mexico, where there is a long ongoing study on these fascinatingly tough songbirds. New Mexico Nature & Culture. Want to see rosy-finches on a Naturalist Journeys tour?:

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America Arizona North America Texas 264

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2022

In April 2022, the Collaborative submitted 216 checklists from 4 countries ( Costa Rica , United States , Mexico , and the United Kingdom ) and observed 735 species. The 2022 year list stands at 1,023, and the life rises by a single species ( Great Swallow-tailed Swift seen in Mexico) to 4,114.

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United Kingdom Costa Rica Ireland United States 256

10,000 Birds

MAY 27, 2020

Because of our age, Mexico’s rising COVID-19 numbers, and my wife’s anxiety about infectious diseases in general, we have been in total lockdown at the Lewis home. The Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture is a mostly solitary vulture, found from Uruguay to Mexico. TOTAL lockdown. Milady locked herself down back in March.)

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2022

Cedar Waxwing: For most birders in Mexico, 2021 will be remembered as the year of the Waxwings. This is the only migratory warbler to live entirely within Mexico, breeding in the northeast and wintering in the southwest. White Ibises belong down on the coast of Mexico, which requires a 4-5 hour drive that I rarely make.

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Mexico Virginia Barn Owls Birds 253

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2024

So here is where we were a week ago in central Mexico: Some of the country’s most important and largest lakes, such as Lake Cuitzeo and Lake Yuriria, were completely dry. Mexico’s largest lake, Lake Chapala, had dropped below 40% of its capacity. But much can change in a week. We have not had a single dry day since.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2024

Last week, I returned to Morelia, Mexico, my home for the past 30 years, from twelve days in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I spent my childhood and teenage years. Of coure, some of these species can be seen in both places because they migrate from up north to central Mexico. But those are surprisingly few.

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San Francisco Mexico California Advocacy 204

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2024

Being a westerner — raised in California, and now living in western Mexico — I was perhaps most excited about the migratory birds that breed in eastern North America. And the Baltimore Oriole is an iconic eastern bird, which winters along Mexico’s east coast, but never in the west. Then, around 4:00 p.m.,

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Mexico Birds Raccoons Baltimore 231

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2022

In March 2022, the Collaborative submitted 184 checklists from 4 countries ( Costa Rica , United States , Mexico , and the United Kingdom ) and they included 637 species. Mexico ranks sixth on the Collaborative’s country list with 425 species observed. The 2022 year list stands at 949 and the life list is now at 4,113.

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2024

Here in central Mexico, we have one such case that is so notable that it has been the subject of a good deal of scientific study. and eastern Mexico has an all-black head, a black back with bright white spots, and orange flanks. Some even do this so often that images of their hybrids will be included in bird guidebooks.

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Mexico United States 2019 Research 241

10,000 Birds

APRIL 19, 2024

Since I don’t have a photo here of the male Black-headed Grosbeak , you’ll have to take my word for it that this female is just as handsome as the male, which is not the case with many other bird species: The Rusty Sparrow is found only from central Mexico south to Central America. But you can often see it at L os Filtros Viejos.

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10,000 Birds

MARCH 28, 2024

It took up residence for part of each year in the Parque Metropolitano of the city of León, Guanajuato, to the northeast of Guadalajara and well northwest of Mexico City. American Flamingos do occur naturally in Mexico, but only on the Yucatán peninsula in the country’s extreme southwest.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 11, 2023

While our compatriots seem only to want to visit Mexico’s touristy beach cities, we would rather go anywhere else in this country. Indeed, even though I just celebrated 40 years of living in Mexico, we have never been to Cabo San Lucas, and our only experience with Cancún was going though immigration in that city’s airport.

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Mexico Birds Turkey Sparrows 262

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2014

There are two Painted Bunting populations, one that breeds along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Florida and one that breeds in the interior United States and northern Mexico from southeastern New Mexico to western Mississippi. The Atlantic Coast population lingers on the breeding grounds after nesting to molt.

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Mississippi Mexico Alabama North Carolina 277

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 18, 2024

Which means that the large country of Mexico boasts (according to one list) 127 endemic bird species, while the famous birders’ destination of Costa Rica has only 6. I’ve seen about a fifth of Mexico’s endemic birds, almost all of them right here in the state of Michoacán. It doesn’t seem fair at all.

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Costa Rica Mexico Lions North America 223

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 19, 2020

Northern Mockingbirds aren’t all that common in central Mexico, and for some reason, I rarely hear them sing here. Blue-black Grassquits are tiny birds, only four inches long, that are very common in subtropical savannah habitats from Mexico to Argentina.

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Argentina Mexico California Breeding 243

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2023

I even made one trip with the specific purpose of birding on Mexico’s much wetter eastern coast, visiting different sites along the very stretched-out state of Veracruz. That is because, like the skin of the gringos who visit Mexico’s beaches, the Palo de Gringo’s bark is red, and peels.

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Mexico Woodpeckers South America Species 201

10,000 Birds

MARCH 18, 2020

Then I moved to central Mexico, where I discovered that Juncos are actually crazed psychopaths who are clearly plotting your death. Juncos in most of Mexico are of the Yellow-eyed Junco species. When I was a young man growing up in Northern California, I thought I knew all about Juncos. Juncos are cute little woodland sparrows.

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Mexico California Sparrows Owls 223

10,000 Birds

MARCH 16, 2022

It is definitely not a “Road Runner” And it is definitely, certainly, absolutely not a Lesser Roadrunner , the roadrunner of choice for tropical Mexico and northern Central America. I have been lucky enough to see a few Greater Roadrunners in the Sonoran Desert, on both sides of the Mexico/U.S.

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Coyotes Mexico ALA Abandon 233

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2022

239 is only good enough to place me at #280 for the nation of Mexico; even twice that number would not put me in Mexico’s top ten. In other words: It’s good to live in Mexico. 239 is easily enough to keep me at the front of the pack on eBird for Michoacán. But then, there is still not that much competition here.

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10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

Our company is based in Guatemala but also offers tours in Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. Guatemala has the most reliable places to observe the mythical Horned Guan. We work hard to provide the richest and most rewarding experience of the Neotropics.

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Guatemala El Salvador Belize Honduras 263

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

I truly do hope I am not tiring 10,000 Birds’ readers too much with my obsession with Michoacán’s ongoing drought, the disappearance of Lake Cuitzeo (Mexico’s 2nd largest lake, in normal years), and our own micro-endemic Black-polled Yellowthroat. But obsessed I am. And it brought friends.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 13, 2021

and both are native to Mexico — just not my part of Mexico. While not a common garden plant up north, I did find it for sale with Annie’s Annuals, a wonderful California nursery. Salvia leucantha (Mexican Bush Sage) and Salvia greggii (Autumn Sage) are both common garden plants in the U.S.,

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