and some Mexico bird-watching

My Mexico holiday finished with a few days in the San Blas area - one trip out to see the humpback whales in the bay, and a few walks to see the local birds.  There were quite a few crocodiles around in the wetlands too, which are great to photograph as they mostly don't move.  Look carefully at the crocodile above and you will see that two of its lower teeth have grown right through the upper jaw...




We saw some nice birds, most of which I did not get to photograph as I don't have the right camera - maybe not the right photographic skills either.  But this lineated woodpecker posed nicely with its crest in the sun.

As did this citreoline trogon - shown in a back view so that you can see the deep blue of its back and tail - although it did turn round for some nice front shots too.

The amazing nocturnal northern potoo - look at the eye!!
















Finally, whilst they aren't as spectacular as the birds above, I did love this group of groove-billed anis warming themselves in the early morning sun:

monarch butterflies in Michoacán

The main sight around which my Mexico holiday was designed was the over-wintering grounds of the migratory monarch butterfly. Over the course of a year, they cover a round trip of up to 5,500 miles, taking several generations to do so.  The toughest are those that fly from the northern US (or even southern Canada) to Mexico, where they gather in their millions in the pine forests of Michoacán to see out the winter, mostly living on fat reserves although eating and drinking a little on warm days.  Then when the temperatures rise sufficiently, some time in March, they set off for Texas.  There they mate and lay eggs and die, by that time some eight months old.  The generation born there travel further north, mate, lay eggs and die all within the space of a month, as do the next two generations, before the autumn comes and it is time to fly south again.  Amazing that this generation knows where to go, when neither their parents nor their grandparents made the journey.

Many areas of the forest where the butterflies over-winter are now protected, and it was nice to see many parties of Mexican school-children there, being shown this spectacular part of their national natural heritage.  We visited two different such reserves on two days.

The largest of the two was El Rosario, with perhaps five million butterflies this year.  On the day we visited it was quite cold, with the sun mostly obscured by cloud, and so the butterflies were quiet, just perched motionless, with the wings closed.  There were none fluttering about. If you passed through that stretch of forest and didn't know the butterflies were there, you might just think that some of the foliage on the trees was dying.

Look more closely however and this is what you see (although easier to spot here as some opened their wings to catch a brief bit of sun):

Millions of butterflies.  Covering the tree trunks and hanging from the branches.  Apparently sometimes the branches fall from the trees with their weight.  They have very few predators at this stage as the milkweed plants they have fed on in the US are poisonous.  Only three species of birds in Mexico can digest the poison and we didn't see any of those birds on either of our visits to two different reserves.

On a sunnier day they set off in flight, in search of nearby pools of water to drink, or flowers to feed from, to boost their reserves and help them to make it through the winter.  Some die at this stage, having insufficient strength in the cold air to get back to the colony in the trees.  We saw many such dead and dying butterflies on the ground.

Overall a really spectacular sight, which I'm glad I finally got round to seeing.  A beautiful red warbler seen on the way up (sadly no photo of that) on day one added to the experience too.  A warning to anyone tempted to go - the reserves are at some altitude (over 3,000m) so take a horse up (only $5) and walk back down - and dress warmly.  I needed my hat and gloves!

Mexico City and Teotihuacán

After a month back at work, in both Panama and Honduras, I was able to take a few days off again for holiday, this time to Mexico.  I'd never been to Mexico City before so took a couple of days to whizz round a few highlights of this city of 22 million people.  It was crowded (and the sense of personal space is quite different, as people consistently bash into you as they walk past, making no effort to step a few inches to the side to avoid such collisions), it was polluted, and there was clear evidence of the subsidence the city is suffering from as the aquifer below is depleted of its water (see the angle of the chapel to the right of the cathedral in the photo above) - but it was still a city I felt comfortable in.  There is so much grand old architecture that it looks like a European city.  It is also bursting with museums and galleries, several of them world class.

I spent time at Frida Kahlo's old house and made two separate visits to the incredible National Anthropological Museum.  I was headed out to Teotihuacán afterwards and they recommend a visit to this museum first, but really it is a place everyone should go, full of impressive exhibits from the various pre-Colombian civilisations such as the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Olmecs.

I didn't want to focus only on ancient cultures, however, so also had a wander around Tianguis del Chopo, a flea market for old (and new) punks and goths.  Lots of stalls selling punk Tshirts and leather jackets, mixed in with lots of stuff using the skull motif that is so popular in Mexico.  I wore an old (37-year-old!!!) Siouxsie & the Banshees Tshirt and an equally old skull-and-crossbones earring, but couldn't compete with some of the people there, like this guy to the right with his multi-coloured mohican!

But the time passed quickly and soon it was time to find the northern bus station, to head out to Teotihuacán to join the tour group from the UK who I'd be spending the next week with.  I was already with a friend - an American guy I'd met in Guyana a couple of years ago - and we'd spent many hours in Mexico City discussing Trump and Brexit, thankfully sharing the same revulsion towards the illiberal, racist and xenophobic movements convulsing our two countries.  So when I saw the Brits in the tour group - nearly all of retirement age and none from London - I warned him that we should probably steer clear of such conversations if we didn't want to get into arguments, given the demographics of the Brexit vote.  But the subjects came up anyway - how you could you avoid discussing that wall when you are in Mexico?! - and I was pleasantly surprised to find we were all on the same page.  I suppose because we were pre-selected as a group of people who travel, and who are interested in the wider world, so how could we hold such prejudices?

Of those people I know back in the UK, a disappointing number of them voted for Brexit, but all Brits I meet whilst travelling are more open to the world, thankfully.  It does though make me wonder what I will encounter should I move back to the UK.  Indeed it makes me ask myself the question sometimes whether I really want to move back there at all.  But meeting with this group of British holidaymakers did give me some hope.

So, my friend and I went birding around the hotel area before the others arrived, and joined them in the morning for a tour of the ruins of Teoptihuacán.  Sadly we were not doing the luxury hot air balloon version of the tour that is clearly popular:

but we did a walking tour, managing to pick up some nice birds along the way such as cactus wren and blue grosbeak, as well as spotted ground squirrel sitting on what looked to be a painful seat!