Short-billed Dowitcher

Xantus's Hummingbird

A chance meeting with a fellow birder led us to the gardens of the Tropicana Inn in San Jose del Cabo where we saw this elusive endemic the morning prior to our departure.

Merlin

Scientific Name: Falco columbarius

Range / Habitat:

Field Notes: Striped tail.

Personal Notes: We've been looking for this bird for a while, but finally found him in the San Jose Estuary.

Blue Grosbeak

Scientific Name: Passerina caerulea

Range / Habitat: Found in forest edge, costal scrub, second growth and similar. Winters in southern Mexico, including Yucatan, down through Central American, and many Caribbean islands. Summers in northern Mexico and southern US.

Field Notes: Large, bright blue passerine with an enormous slate-colored bill and chestnut wing bars. Indigo Bunting much smaller overall and smaller bill.

Personal Notes: We captured the essential parts for identification in this photo from El Rey ruins in Cancun, Mexico.

Costa's Hummingbird

Scientific Name: Calypte costae

Population Estimate: Unknown, but Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Year-round in desert and arid areas of the Baja Peninsula of Mexico, extending inland and up into southwestern US in summer.

Field Notes: Green upper parts and grey underparts. Male with iridescent violet face and gorget, which can appear black in places. Small, straight bill.

Personal Notes: Seen at the Sonora Desert Museum aviary.

Cactus Wren

Scientific Name: Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus

Population Estimate: Unknown, but Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Year-round in desert southwest US and northern Mexico. Requires the presence of spiny cacti.

Field Notes: Large wren with light breast, spotted dark. Long white eye stripe. Brown, barred back and tail.

Personal Notes: A conspicuous resident at the Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson AZ. Later we enjoyed these birds on our hotel grounds in San Jose del Cabo.

Bonaparte's Gull

Scientific Name: Chroicocephalus philadelphia

Population Estimate: 260-530K, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Breeding habitat near bogs or lakes in coniferous forest across western Canada and Alaska. Winters in the Great Lakes, southern Mississippi River Valley, northern Mexico, Caribbean.

Field Notes: Slight, graceful hooded gulls. In breeding plumage (top photo), bill is all black and slender, legs orange / red. Little Gull has more extensive dark hood, no white eye crescents, short / pale wing tips. Black-headed Gull has orange base of bill. Franklin's Gull and Laughing Gull are larger with dark legs.

Personal Notes: Seen on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island. The first good spot after our birding guide ditched us. The day was turning around…. Later seen in non-breeding plumage (bottom photo) on the Salton Sea in California. 

Northern Mockingbird

Scientific Name: Mimus polyglottos

Range / Habitat: Year-round in shrub land throughout the United States and Mexico.

Field Notes: Medium-sized grey songbird with long tail, dark wings with white wing bars, and a black eye stripe. Similar overall appearance to both the Loggerhead and Great Grey Shrike, but the shrikes have slightly different ranges and wide black mask instead of an eye stripe. Townsend's Solitaire is also similar but has a more restricted range, is the same shade of grey all over, and has a white eye ring instead of a black eye stripe.

Personal Notes: It was remarkable to watch and listen to this bird with a seemingly endless array of different melodies.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Scientific Name: Dendroica coronata

Population Estimate: 130M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Summers in western US, most of Canada, and Alaska. Winters in southern US, Mexico and Central America. Preferred habitat is temperate forest.

Field Notes: Full-bodied black, white, and grey warbler. Characteristic yellow forehead, chin, armpits and rump (the latter seen only in flight). There are plenty of other similarly colored warblers but none with this particular distribution of yellow.

Personal Notes: This species has distinct regional morphs: the Myrtle (top) is predominantly Eastern U.S., while the Audobon's (bottom) is overwhelmingly Western

American Mourning Dove

Scientific Name: Zenaida macroura

Population Estimate: 130M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Found anywhere except deep woods in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Year-round in most of the US and into Mexico, but extends north into Canada in the summer and south into Central America in the winter.

Field Notes: A medium-sized graceful dove with soft greyish-brown upperparts and more buffy underparts, with a greyish crown and hindneck, sometimes with a metallic purple or bronze gloss. Small head and slender tail. The eye is surrounded by a narrow ring of bare blue or greenish-blue skin, and there is a small black streak on the cheek. The sorrowful call is distinctive.

Personal Notes: I'm slightly embarrassed to say that when we first started birding we followed one of these birds at dusk, thinking we were hearing an owl call.

Blue-winged Teal

Scientific Name: Anas discors

Population Estimate: 4.6M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Breeds across central North America and throughout Canada, favouring small, shallow freshwater such as the prairie-pothole region. Migrates early to the southern US, Mexico, Central America and northern South America.

Field Notes: Small dabbling duck, much smaller than a Mallard. Breeding male with slate blue head and white crescent behind the bill. Female and eclipse male similar to other dabbling ducks. Both sexes with powder-blue patch on wings in flight.

Personal Notes: Frequently seen alongside the Northern Shoveler on a spring trip through South Dakota. 

Common Raven

Scientific Name: Corvus corax

Population Estimate: 16M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Extreme habitat generalist, found throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Field Notes: Large, all-black passerine with shaggy throat feathers. In flight, ravens have long, wedge-shaped tails.

Personal Notes: It's easy to see why this is such a bird of lore.

Spotted Sandpiper

Scientific Name: Actitis macularia

Population Estimate: 150K, Least Concern status

Range: Summers throughout North America, excepting the southern US. Winters in southern coastal US through Mexico, Central and most of South America. Can be found anywhere near water. 

Field Notes: Medium-sized shore bird with proportionate, orange bill. Bobs tail constantly and teeters when flying. Brown up top and white underneath. White eye ring and eye stripe. Breeding plumage is with prominent dark belly spots as above. Non-breeding with all white breast. Solitary Sandpiper similar to non-breeding form but with dense white speckling on back and no white stripe above eye. Lesser Yellowlegs also similar to non-breeding form but with long, prominent yellow legs and crown speckled grey and white. 

Personal Notes: As stated on the Cornell website: "[a] great ambassador for the notoriously difficult-to-identify shorebirds." Indeed.

Northern Cardinal

Scientific Name: Cardinalis cardinalis

Population Estimate: 100M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Year-round in inhabited areas such as backyards, parks, woodlots, and shrubby forest edges throughout eastern US and eastern Mexico, including the Yucatan.

Field Notes: Unmistakable in range, even the duller female.

Personal Notes: We were waiting for winter to get our dramatic Northern Cardinal photo, and here it is. We were fortunate to come across a lot of different birds at the MN Arboretum feeder.

Tropical Kingbird

Scientific Name: Tyrannus melancholicus

Population Estimate: 200M

Range / Habitat: Subtropical / tropical lowland shrubland throughout Mexico, Central America and South America.

Field Notes: Large flycatcher with grey head, black eye line, yellow breast, olive back. Differentiated from Couch's Kingbird only by voice. Similar to Western Kingbird but tail appears more notched while perched and grey of head does not extend onto chest.

Personal Notes: One of the "usual suspects" of our trips to Mexico and Central America.

Brown Pelican

Scientific Name: Pelecanus occidentalis

Population Estimate: 300K, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Found along southern and western sea coasts of the US. Also along Caribbean, Mexico and Central America coasts.

Field Notes: Large brown water birds with white head and yellow forehead. In flight they glide just above the water and have a roller coaster pattern when they flap their wings (rising up) and glide (falling down).

Personal Notes: A lovely surprise at the Salton Sea in California, they only place these birds are reliably found inland. 

Double-crested Cormorant

Scientific Name: Phalacrocorax auritus

Population Estimate: 1.5M, Least Concern status

Range: Winters in the southern US interior, and more extensively on the coasts. In summer it is widespread throughout North America.

Field Notes: Most common cormorant in North America, found along coasts but also inland. All black bird with hooked bill that is yellow at the base. Juveniles more pale, as in top photo. Often found in groups, these are heavy fliers that cruise just above the water. Great Cormorant and Brant's Cormorant have very limited overlap. The Neotropic Cormorant has a shared range along the Gulf Coast in Mexico, but the Double-crested Cormorant is larger with brighter yellow bill base, and relatively shorter tail.

Personal Notes: The drying of feathers is my favorite pose.

Great Blue Heron

Scientific Name: Ardea herodias

Range / Habitat: The Great Blue Heron is found throughout most of North America, as far north as Alaska and the southern Canadian provinces. The range extends south through Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean to South America.

Field Notes: Very large gray-blue wader. It is long legged and long necked. It is approximately four feet tall or forty-six inches (one hundred seventeen centimeters) with a wingspan of six to seven feet. The bird is about seventy-two inches wide (one hundred eighty-three centimeters). It has a blue-gray color on its belly, body, and wings. The great blue heron is not very blue. The bird's bill is yellow, long, thick, and sharp. The bird's shoulder is black. The bird's back is mainly a slate-gray color. It has a brownish-buff colored neck with a black being a border. White is the color in front of its neck with a vertical streak that is black. The bird's head is white with a black stripe above its eye. The heron weighs anywhere from five to eight pounds (two to three kilograms). A male and female heron generally have the same description.

Personal Notes:

 

American Coot

Scientific Name: Fulica americana

Population Estimate: 6M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Found year-round in a variety of freshwater habitats throughout the western US and into Mexico. In winter found down into Central America as well as in the southeastern US. In summers, throughout the US and up into Canada.

Field Notes: Adults are black, juveniles lighter. The bill is triangular like a chicken, not flat like a duck, white with a red knob at the base in adults. Red eyes. They are diving waterfowl but can also be seen "pecking" at the water. They do not swim as smoothly as ducks and have a lot of forward-and-back head movement that is distinctive when seen from afar. When on land you can seen the feet that give away their Gruiformes taxonomy.

Personal Notes: Top photo with Minneapolis in the background.

Great White Egret

Scientific Name: Casmerodius albus

Population Estimate: 550K - 2.2M, Least Concern status

Range / Habitat: Worldwide distribution near water.

Field Notes: Large white heron with yellow bill and black legs. White morph of Great Blue Heron has heavier, less uniformly yellow bill and pale legs. Snowy Egret is smaller with black bill and yellow feet. Cattle Egret found primarily in fields and is smaller with stockier bill.

Personal Notes: Some sources differentiate the Great Egret and Eastern Great Egret, the latter being found in SE Asia and Australia.