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JIM CONRAD'S
NATURALIST NEWSLETTER
On-the-road edition: Notes from
El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, southern Tamaulipas, MÉXICO

1. WHITE-HEADED PARROTS, 53 of them, passing overhead, squawking uproarously
2. HOODED ORIOLE, the same species I've been seeing all winter back in the Yucatan, this one singing its familiar song from a Spanish Cedar tree
3. BLACK-HEADED SALTATOR, a towhee-like bird with an olive back, cooperatively singing with a companion
4. GRAY CATBIRD, the same catbird we have up north, nervously flitting from treetop to treetop, though usually he sticks to shadowy thickets
5. PLAIN CHACHALACA, several Wild-Turkey-like birds calling from across the valley
6. MELODIOUS BLACKBIRD, two all-black, grackle-like birds cooperatively singing from the weedy slope above
7. MASKED TITYRA, four of them, white with black wings and face masks with red eye-patches, with thumb-on-comb calls, singing from the lower limbs of a Gumbo Limbo
8. WILSON'S WARBLER, all yellow but with a black cap, a very common winter visitor foraging in a strangler fig
9. NORTHERN PARULA, a warbler with a slate-blue top with a yellowish nape and a yellow bottom with a chestnut chest-smudge, calling with its buzzy trill dropping at the end
10. BROWN-BACKED SOLITAIRE, a slender, plain-looking, gray-and-brown thrush with an ethereal song of fluty phrases, one of the most accomplished of all singers, and several are calling in this valley
11. TROPICAL KINGBIRD silently passing through
12. SQUIRREL CUCKOO, 18-inch long, rusty-red bird silently dropping downslope into a thicket
13. IVORY-BILLED WOODCREEPER, looking and acting like a northern Brown Creeper but twice as large, a rusty brown bird with pale streaks on back and breast, and a woodpecker-like, pale beak
14. SCRUB EUPHONIA, like a Goldfinch but with more black and a yellow spot on its black head, foraging among bromeliad tufts on leafless tree
15. GREEN JAY, so prettily green, yellow, blue and black, in undergrowth harshly fussing at my passage
16. WHITE-THROATED ROBIN, drably brown and paler below, but with a conspicuous white throat with black streaking, five to eight of them feeding in a tree with marble-size, yellow fruits
17. ELEGANT TROGON, a little like a parrot with a long, squared tail, this is a female mostly brown with a red belly and white chest band, and a white spot behind the eye; she perches silently watching me from a tree limb, then flies away
18. OLIVE SPARROW, a dark olive and brown little bird with brown head stripes, perching silently at dusk in dense thicket
19. BROWN JAY, dark brown above and paler below, 16 inches long (Blue Jays are 10 inches), screaming above my tent

At dusk I camp off the road among limestone boulders, maybe a mile below the village of Alta Cima. Here at the end of the dry season the trees are dropping brown, leathery leaves that thump onto the tent every breeze that comes along. After two nights on buses I am exhausted and rattled. My sleep is dreamless, like being dead.

SATURDAY, APRIL 8TH

At dawn it's a chilly 48°, the sky is clear, and what a pleasure it is to awaken in a forest where all one can hear is the wind, falling leaves, and birds. As I continue my hike upslope I encounter these new birds for my list:

20. CLAY-COLORED ROBIN, brown above and tawny below, silent in underbrush
21. TURKEY VULTURE circling over the valley
22. BRONZE-WINGED WOODPECKER, greenish with bronzy wings, gray crown and with red behind the eye, it's stabbing into a thick carpet of moss on a leafless tree limb
23. YELLOW-BILLED CACIQUE, a black, grackle-like bird with very conspicuous yellow beak and eyes, tugging at a shred of stem bark in dense undergrowth
24. PAURAQUE, a foot-long Whip-poor-will-like bird flies across the trail and lands on a rock in plain view 20 feet away

I enter the settlement of Alta Cima, surely of not more than 100 inhabitants, very humble homes helterskelter along the road, orchards with a strange mingling of banana trees, peach trees with small peaches not quite ripe yet, and much branched, tree-like prickly-pear Opuntia cactus. Walking through the settlement I see these species:

25. FLAME-COLORED TANAGER, a gorgeous, strawberry-colored bird with blackish wings with white bars, blackish tail and blackish stripes on back, singing hoarsely, vireolike, from a Sweetgum tree
26. DARK-BACKED (LESSER) GOLDFINCH perching silently in leafless thicket
27. BLACK VULTURE, three of them playing on air currents near peak above us
28. ZONE-TAILED HAWK tightly circling over valley
29. RUFOUS-BROWED PEPPERSHRIKE, a thrush-sized bird, olive above, yellow below, gray head with a rusty eyebrow stripe calling from thicket border
30. RAVEN crossing above valley
31. BEWICK'S WREN, lustily singing atop a hut's solar panel (! -- but they're setting poles for grid electricity during my visit)

Leaving the settlement, continuing the hike upslope, I meet Esteban Berrones wanting to be my birding guide for US $30 per day. His problem with regard to making a living like this is that he speaks little English so birders who come here -- mostly North Americans -- seldom hire him. I ask him what the most interesting birds are he can show visitors and he lists these:

• Crimson-collared Grosbeak
• Blue Mockingbird
• Flame-colored Tanager
• Singing Quail
• Tamaulipas Pygmy Owl
• Azure-crowned Hummingbird

Well, if you speak Spanish and want Esteban to guide you, call him at 01 83118 3-72-28, and check out the website at www.elcielotours.com. Esteben says he's also seen the Stygian Owl here, but he's not promising that one to visitors.

I camp at the bottom of the pine zone. The tropical element is dropping out at this elevation, now at maybe 1200 meters (±4000 feet).

SUNDAY, APRIL 9TH

The 356,442 acre El Cielo Biosphere Reserve claims to be the northernmost cloudforest in the hemisphere, and on this day clouds shroud the peaks just above me. I'd hoped to make it to the top but I'm low on water and my visa for Mexico is about to expire, so I must turn back. It's a somber day and on this beginning to Semana Santa, the week at the end of which Northerners celebrate Easter, there are lots of pickup trucks grinding up the steep, exposed-rock trail ferrying vacationing Mexicans to the peaks, all making lots of noise. I decide to take the day off, find a secluded campsite, read and catch up on my note-taking. Still, these species add themselves to my list:

32. MOUNTAIN TROGON, quietly perched against background of pink Redbud blossoms
33. HOUSE WREN, little brown wren taking quick look at me from atop roadside rocks
34. TROPICAL PARULA, similar to the Northern Parula but no white eye-ring
35. SUMMER TANAGER, all red, chk-chk-chking from overhead tree
36. BARRED ANTSHRIKE, a black-and-white, zebra-striped bird calling from dense thicket
37. OLIVACEOUS WOODCREEPER, looks and acts like the smaller northern Brown Creeper, hopping long underside of mossy tree limb, but dark, olive-gray head and underparats, with rusty wings and tail

Surely the prettiest sighting of the whole trip will be this day's Mountain Trogon, its green head and back, red bottom and neat white chest band, and that curious black-and-white, bar-coded tail, perched elegantly before a bright pink spray of Redbud blossoms held daintily on slender, black limbs.

At this elevation leafless oak trees are just now bursting their buds, with reddish leaves emerging.

MONDAY, APRIL 10

I begin birding at some cornfields above Alta Cima

38. BLUE-HOODED EUPHONIA, a blackish, finchlike bird with a cinnamon underbody and a bright, almost incandescent, powder-blue crown, foraging in early morning sunlight
39. HOUSE FINCH, bright strawberry red at edge of abandoned cornfield
40. BLACK-HEADED SISKIN like a Goldfinch but black head and chest, large yellow spot on wings, about ten feeding in fruiting, eupatorium-like bush
41. SOCIAL FLYCATCHER, two yellow and brown birds noisily going treetop to treetop
42. WHITE-EARED HUMMINGBIRD, small, greenish, with white stripe behind eye, in flock of next species
43. MAGNIFICENT (RIVOLI'S) HUMMINGBIRD, 5-inch long (Ruby-throats are 3 inches) in a flock of maybe ten birds, including several immatures, some adults calling with amazing, extended chortle-gurgling songs interspersed with metallic, rattle-like calls, the calling and flitting going on for an hour or so, much visiting of a flowering tree and singing all around; I've never seen a hummingbird species so vociferous in such an animated, socializing flock!

Walking through Alta Cima again:

44. BRONZED COWBIRD, four of them in orchard trees
45. INCA DOVE, a small ground-dove with feathers showing a scaled effect, in people's yards

Now descending on the one-lane gravel road toward Gomez Farias (earlier I came up using a steeper but shorter foot trail)

46. PAINTED BUNTING, surely the most rainbow-colored of all North American songbirds, foraging in roadside weeds
47. YELLOW-FACED GRASSQUIT, a finch with an olive body, black chest and head, with very conspicuous orange-yellow throat patch and eyebrows, foraging in roadside weeds
48. YELLOW-THROATED EUPHONIA, black and yellow finchlike bird like the earlier Scrub Euphonia, but with a yellow throat, in bushes along road
49. BLACK-HEADED ORIOLE, yellow with black head, a pair foraging in leafless trees choked with Spanish Moss