As I mentioned yesterday, we headed out before sunrise this morning to check on the wildlife at the nearby Laguna de Manialtepec. What I didn’t mention is that Anne arranged for us to take a boat ride with the fabulous Lalo Ecotours, and I must admit it was one of the most amazing tours it has ever been my pleasure to experience. Donna and Mike came with, and you know Donna is a real stickler for not counting a bird that she didn’t positively identify, and we counted 75 distinct bird species, I kid you not.
For example, I’ve been able to show you egrets and herons from around the world, but I had not yet managed to see a reddish egret (Egretta rufescens), until this morning. Here is the second one we saw as it frantically tried to catch the fish at its feet, for which I now read they are somewhat famous. The staid folks at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology write, “in the stately and dignified world of herons, reddish egrets are the swashbuckling cousins.“
I did manage to show you Eurasian spoonbills in South Holland, and I glimpsed a roseate on the way to the airport from the Crooked Tree Lodge in Belieze, but I didn’t stop for a picture, So, here is the very first roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) I’ve ever managed to capture on film.
I did have pretty good luck capturing a wood stork on film as it flew over Grenada, Nicaragua, but it was a real treat this morning to have several subjects to choose from who were nearly stationary and at eye-level.
As if that wasn’t enough. Our guides, Lalo and is son Eve, were also able to conjure a couple of boat-billed herons, so I could update the grainy photos I took outside of Tikal in Guatemala.
Speaking of second chances, they also conjured a pair of ferruginous pygmy-owls, so I could replace those distant shots I got of one outside of Antigua, Guatemala.
I’ve had the good luck of seeing several trogons over the years, but I clearly haven’t seen them all yet, because here’s my very first Citreoline Trogon (Trogon citreolus).
Finally, I’ve seen a couple of butterflies with zebra in their names and a couple more called “longwings”, but this is my first ever zebra longwing (Heliconius charithonia).
Tomorrow, we start our drive back to Mexico City to catch a flight back to Chicago, but along the way were going to stop in Tehuacán for a night to see what there is to see. If we come across anything photo worthy, I’ll be sure to let you know, but I’ve still got a ton of content to mine from the pictures I took today, so I’ll have something to show you either way.
