Day 1, I flew from SFO to Puerto Vallarta, took a taxi to the Hotel Belmar, which is affordable, reasonably nice for the price, and right near the Rio Cuale, but my room was on the 4th floor and they have no elevator. Once I get situated I went to the Isla Cuale to see what birds I could find. One of the first birds I saw was this LITTLE BLUE HERON (below).
I was here a couple years earlier and was able to find Citreoline Trogon, Green Kingfisher and some other goodies. I didn't find those this time, but GRAY-BREASTED MARTINS were flying around with some Barn Swallows. GREAT KISKADEES, GROOVE-BILLED ANIS, RUFOUS-BACKED ROBINS, and NEOTROPIC CORMORANTS were also present here.
I walked down to the Playa de los Muertos. MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRDS are easily seen overhead and BROWN BOOBIES flying by offshore. Down by the pier, as the sun was setting, dozens of birds were begging for handouts, including Brown Pelicans, Snowy Egrets, and Royal and Common Terns (below).
Day 2 I took the public bus a few miles south to Mismaloya. Immediately, I found dozens of YELLOW-WINGED CACIQUES (which I found to be unwilling photo subjects) and soon I heard 4 ORANGE-FRONTED PARAKEETS and was able to get some decent photographs of those (below)
I walked down to the beach (below), along the stream that leads to the beach, was a LOUISIANA WATERTHRUSH, many Great-tailed Grackles (a major "trash bird" of the area), more Groove-billed Anis, a pair of MUSCOVY DUCKS (possibly feral), and waders such as a Green Heron and Great and Snowy Egrets.
In the trees above the road to the beach I was very pleasantly surprised to find an IVORY-BILLED WOODCREEPER and a BAT FALCON perched on a wire that had caught a mouse or some small rodent to eat. Mismaloya is a pleasant, easy-going beach, and going inland from the highway, I found other good birds, such as MASKED TITYRA, SQUIRREL CUCKOO (below),
GREATER PEWEE (below),
and INCA DOVES.
Back in PV, after eating at Planeta Vegetariano, I birded some more along the Rio Cuale. TROPICAL KINGBIRDS are easily seen here, Yellow Warblers were fairly common, with some NASHVILLE WARBLERS, WARBLING VIREOS, and BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHERS. Another common bird, most places in PV and San Blas, is GOLDEN-CHEEKED WOODPECKER, a beautiful woodpecker that is endemic to Western Mexico (male below)
(and female below)
Day 3 I spent a little more time along the Rio Cuale. Big iguanas can be seen here (below) and are popular among tourists, who seem uninterested in the many beautiful birds that are also present.
I don't know what species of iguana these are or whether they are native. I had read that if you walk inland up the Rio you can get to some good habitat and birds, but I didn't make it very far. I did see a couple CINNAMON HUMMINGBIRDS along here, two ORANGE-FRONTED PARAKEETS, more Yellow and Nashville Warblers, and large numbers of YELLOW-WINGED CACIQUES (finally got a decent picture, below).
I took a taxi to the main Puerto Vallarta bus station, near the airport to catch the bus to San Blas, Nayarit. Apparently, bus schedules are never printed in Mexico or put on the Internet. I had to get the receptionist at my hotel's desk to call the bus station and get the info for the bus. The only bus to San Blas ended up being called the "Norte de Sonora" which was sold at the Pacifico desk via some cooperation with Estrella Blanca. It cost 180 pesos (around $15 US) and took a little over three hours, though Nayarit is in an earlier time zone than Jalisco.
I took a very short taxi ride to my lodgings at Bungalows Casa Roxanna (mid-priced and comfortable). It's only a short walk from there to the waterfront. A kid was throwing some food around, feeding a throng of Brown Pelicans, with Magnificent Frigatebirds circling low overhead (below)
and a BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY was also resting near the jetty (at left in the image below).
I thought the booby might be sick, but it did swim away later toward the ocean.
Day 4
San Blas was "discovered" in the 1960s as an excellent birding location because of the variety of habitats within easy access of the town. Particularly noteworthy in San Blas are the undeveloped mangrove estuaries which attract prodigious quantities of bugs and also birds. For my first morning I walked to area of the cemetery and the old fort and church ruins on a hill that overlooks the town. Along the way I got some good pictures of a SOCIAL FLYCATCHER (below).
The "jejenes" or "no-see-ums" or sand flies for which San Blas is infamous were prevalent at the ruins. I was still able to find some good birds here such as ZONE-TAILED HAWK, (Godman's) SCRUB EUPHONIA, VARIED BUNTING, GREYISH SALTATOR, and a possible GRAYSON'S THRUSH (below).
From the hill near the cemetery I could see that the first couple shrimp ponds on the left across the highway were full of birds, including waders, shorebirds, WOOD STORKS, and ROSEATE SPOONBILLS. So, I walked over there, hoping I could get some access or at least a view. The shrimp pond road didn't have much of a shoulder, so I had to pay close attention to the traffic, but soon enough there was easy walk-in access to the ponds. Typical North American shorebirds were here, a large flock of Blue-winged Teal, and a flock of BLACK SKIMMERS. There were also swallows, and very happily, a MANGROVE SWALLOW perched nearby for a photo (below).
I walked a path with the ponds on my left, mangroves and the road on my right, with some Varied Buntings on the path ahead of me and Tropical and Thick-billed Kingbirds on the telephone lines. Reddish Egret, Tricolored Heron, White Ibis, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, and Great Blue Heron were all present, and eventually several Wood Storks and Roseate Spoonbill (below in takeoff), which were scared into flight by a man hacking weeds with a machete.
The main tourist attraction in San Blas is the boat ride up an estuary to La Tovara, a freshwater spring adjoining a crocodile farm where thousands of birds fly in to roost in the night. The tourist boats go very quickly up the estuary, seeing crocodiles, a few birds, and little else. I needed to get on the birder's version of the boat ride, so I headed to the Hotel Garza Canela, the expensive birder's hotel in San Blas. I met some birders there who agreed to let me go with them on their night boat trip, and I also saw a day-roosting Lesser Nighthawk in the hotel courtyard. Nature photographers enjoy the estuary boat rides because much of the wildlife is very accustomed to the boats and allow close approach. We found an agreeable young American Crocodile (below)
and the SNAIL KITES were especially accommodating (below). Snail Kites and LIMPKINS returned to the San Blas estuaries around the year 2000, because the large snails they eat also returned.
We were very lucky to find a MANGROVE CUCKOO on the boat trip, along with BARE-THROATED TIGER-HERON, ANHINGA (below)
,
RUFOUS-BELLIED CHACHALACA (below), COMMON BLACK-HAWK, and various orioles and warblers.
We stopped to see a sleeping COMMON POTOO along the estuary (below)
and came across a huge flock of Yellow-winged Caciques and also a few COATIMUNDI high in a tree. The night boat trip leaves around 3pm and arrives at La Tovara around dusk. As we neared the spring, the sky turned red, and silhouettes of White and White-faced Ibises flew over us along with Neotropic Cormorants and hundreds of egrets. It was easy for me to imagine the setting as occurring in an ancient world before the arrival of man. A final very special aspect of the night trip is the opportunity to see active Northern Potoos (below).
Day 5
This morning I met up with the birding couple Bob and Gail I had met yesterday to take a morning boat trip up the river with the renowned guide Chencho. Chencho has been leading boat trips for birders in San Blas since the 1970s, and though he can't read or write, he knows the birds very well, and many of their names in English. Chencho pulled the boat into some mangroves and pished in some songbirds including MANGROVE VIREO, the Mangrove form of Yellow Warbler known as MANGROVE WARBLER, and some other warblers such as Tropical Parula, American Redstart, Louisiana Waterthrush, Black-and-White Warbler, and a NORTHERN BEARDLESS-TYRANULLET. But the marquee bird of this trip is the bizarre BOAT-BILLED HERON (below)
which I did not see on the Tovara trip. We also saw large crocodiles (below), Limpkins, Bare-throated Tiger-Herons, and on the way back some peeps and Semipalmated Plovers.
Day 6
I met with Bob and Gail again and a friendly and very inexpensive guide named Francisco Garcia that Hotel Canela Garza had arranged for them and we drove to La Bajada in the early morning for some more upland jungle type birds. Our rental car struggled with the old stone road that leads to the plantations and woodlands, but we did eventually see some great birds including BLACK-THROATED MAGPIE-JAYS, EARED QUETZALS, TUFTED FLYCATCHER, GREENISH ELEANIA, YELLOW GROSBEAK, PALE-BILLED WOODPECKER, PAINTED BUNTINGS, a flyover LILAC-CROWNED PARROT, and several Squirrel Cuckoos. I was unable to get good photos of any these birds, but I did photograph some Erato Heliconian butterflies (below) which are also called Crimson-patched Longwing.
Next, we drove to the crocodile farm, the same one that is next to La Tovara, stopping at a place with good waterbirds including NORTHERN JACANA (immature below), PURPLE GALLINULE, LEAST GREBE, and several types of duck including BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCK.
The crocodile farm itself, in addition to many crocodiles of different sizes had captive coatimundi, peccaries, and other animals, and unexpectedly some wild, sleeping BOAT-BILLED HERONS in the trees overhead (below twice).
Day 7
I met Francisco early in the morning and we walked toward the San Blas sewer ponds. Some areas on this side of town are muddy, so boots are useful. There are a few small ponds on the way, with Northern Jacanas and Blue-winged Teal evident and maybe a Least Grebe or Yellowlegs, along with the common flycatchers. At the start of the trail to the sewer ponds Francisco heard a RUSSET-CROWNED MOTMOT. I got poor looks at two motmots before they flew away. A few trees later, Francisco heard a CITREOLINE TROGON which was agreeable and photographable (below).
The rest of the trail was fairly birdy with flycatchers, orioles, and the like, plus a BLACK-VENTED ORIOLE (below).
At the sewer ponds themselves, Northern Jacanas were abundant, but hard to get close to, a LAUGHING FALCON was perched in a distant tree, a flock of BLACK-THROATED MAGPIE-JAYS flew through, there were Black-necked Stilts, Spotted Sandpipers, Painted Buntings, one crocodile, several butterflies, and hundreds of mosquitoes. If you stood in exactly the wrong spot there was a foul sewer stink, but otherwise no noticeable stink. At the back of the second pond, Francisco led me past a fallen tree to a shaded area with some fresh water. Birds were abundant here, including SINALOA WREN, MacGillivray's Warbler, American Redstart, Northern Waterthrush, Yellow-breasted Chat, Wilson's Warbler, and Green Kingfisher.
Later, as with most of my afternoons in San Blas, I walked along on my own, taking photos, getting some lunch, and looking for whatever birds I could find. San Blas is a very old town and is pretty run down, especially since Hurricane Kenna in 2002. You can walk around town and find some decent birds in the morning, but the afternoons get pretty darn hot. Findable birds include Painted Bunting, (Cinnamon-rumped) White-collared Seedeater, Sinaloa Crow, Rufous-backed Robin, and Orchard Oriole.
Day 8
My last full day of the trip, I walked toward the beginning of the sewer pond trail on my own, and was happy to find a small flock of MEXICAN PARROTLETS (on wire fence, below).
I was also able to photograph a LINEATED WOODPECKER (below), a BLUE GROSBEAK, a STREAK-BACKED ORIOLE, and Groove-billed Anis.
In the late morning, I met Francisco one last time as we took a boat across to Peso Island. Francisco said the birds here are more timid around people, but that he had found good birds there, even in the late morning. We walked for seemingly five or six miles in sweltering heat, surrounded by mosquitoes. Eventually we did find some decent birds such as Gray Hawk, MacGillivray's and Nashville Warblers, Tropical Parula, and even some poor, fleeting looks at Russet-crowned Motmot and Citreoline Trogon. The only decent photos I got were of a Malachite butterfly (below)
and, back on the beach, an AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER (below).
Francisco told me that a birder couple he took to La Bajada the day before was scheduled to take the night boat trip with Chencho this evening and that I could probably tag along. So that's what I did. Chencho took us to a spring area first that had some warblers and a male Painted Bunting. We then tried for Rufous-necked Wood-Rail, and heard one, but it wouldn't come out for us to see. The main part of the boat trip was similar to my first one and still very enjoyable. A new bird for me on this trip was RED-BILLED PIGEON, and we also saw Laughing Falcon, Muscovy Duck, Common Paurauque, and Common Yellowthroat.
Day 9
Took a taxi from the bungalow to the bus station, took the bus to Puerto Vallarta, a taxi to the airport (though bus is doable and much cheaper), and flew home. A very successful vacation, perhaps warmer and less relaxing than I would have preferred, but still very different from back home and a worthwhile and affordable escape.
