Guatemala Day 6

All spare you the details of what all transpired yesterday, but let’s just say that microbes were involved, and I’m on the road to recovery. Oh, and we drove to Antigua, “the capital of the Captaincy General of Guatemala from 1543 through 1773, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.“

This morning, when I got up, I felt a lot better, and I was finally able to pay attention to the critters to be found on the grounds of our nice hotel. This first one might be the only mammal of the trip, looks a lot like the eastern grey squirrels we see in Estabrook, but is far outside their range. Instead, I believe it is a Deppe’s squirrel (Sciurus deppei), which would explain why it is eating what appears to be an avocado.

Here’s another new woodpecker, a golden-olive woodpecker (Colaptes rubiginosus).

As cool as those two critters are, the biggest catch of the morning, at least for me, was this tiny ferruginous pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum). It is only about 6 inches long, and for those of you scratching your head, as I was, “ferruginous” is just a fancy way of saying “rusty” or “rust colored”. In this picture you can even see one little yellow eye looking our way.

I think Anne saw these first, and when I finally laid eyes on what she was pointing out, I thought they were starlings, because they were noisy, large, speckled, and foraging in a group, as I see starlings do. Instead, I am thrilled to report that they are actually band-backed wrens (Campylorhynchus zonatus). They are in the family Troglodytidea, so they really are wrens, but they are in the genus Campylorhynchus, the “large-bodied” wrens, which I did not even know existed.

Finally, we found these two lovebirds on the old colonial central square in Antigua, and they are easily half the size of pigeons, whose tail you can see in the lower right corner of the picture. That’s because they are Inca doves (Columbina inca).

With any luck, we’ll go to see some Mayan ruins tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed.