Gomez Farias CBC, Jan. 1, 2009

On New Year's Day Honey and I did the Gomez Farias Christmas Bird Count in southern Tamaulipas, Mexico. This CBC includes the famous El Cielo Biosphere Preserve. Unfortunately various circumstances caused people to not be able to come down so we did the count all by ourselves. Having birded in Mexico many times this was no big deal. It's just hard to cover a fifteen mile diameter circle with one group. We tried our best anyway and got 109 species on the day and a few more for the count period. We didn't find anything really unusual but had a good time anyway.

The beautiful Rio Sabinas yielded a cool Bare-throated Tiger-Heron in the afternoon.





We started the day on the mountain below the vilage of Alta Cima.



Here's a jewel---Canivet's Emerald.



White-winged Tanager likes the higher elevations.



We saw quite a few Blue Buntings.



As we worked our way down the mountain towards the river we saw lots of common Mexican birds. They're a bid deal when they wander up to south Texas. Here's a couple of Social Flycatchers.



Masked Tityra.



Juvenile Roadside Hawk.



I attracted lots of birds by imitating the call of the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. Sometimes it would bring in an owl.

Pine Flycather at Choke Canyon Lake

Back on Dec. 13 Willie Sekula found an interesting "western" type Empidonx at Choke Canyon Lake's Calliham Unit. Martin Reid refound the same bird on Jan 1 and realized the "whit" call it was making was all wrong for a "western" flycatcher and seriously considered the possibility that it was a Pine Flycatcher. Pine Flycatcher is an Empidonax native to mountains of Mexico and has never been recorded in the United States. Consultation with experienced birders has so far upheld the identification. I got to see this tentative Pine Flycatcher on Jan 3. Here are some poor pics.