BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Birding Great vacation spots for birders and others

Anyone know any good vacation spots for birders and your non-birding travel partners? Someone just e-mailed me a suggestion I never would have thought of: Guinea Bissau, off of Africa, which has great birding as well as excellent fishing and good restaurants. Of course, I doubt a trip there would be cheap!

Most of my suggestions were for the East Coast of the US, the area that I'm most familiar with. Does anyone have any other suggestions, particularly for other parts of America or Canada?

San Blas, Nayarit in between Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta has justifiably been called a "birders paradise" as there are over 300 birds in the winter that occur there in multiple types of habitats.

This week I wrote a general article about San Blas and next week I will be featuring an article about birdwatching in San Blas. I just got back from there, it was my second visit, and had a wonderful time birding. Of all the great birds that I saw there, my favorite experience was after getting over my dissappointment (you can get so spoiled there!) of not seeing any American oyster catchers on Peso Island as I had seen last year, I was amazed to see a Colima pygmy owl walking on the high grasses near the beach.

Here is a very partial list of some of the birds that I saw while in San Blas, Nayarit a couple of weeks ago and a year ago- the top 70 in no particular order:

1. Black-necked stilts
2. Northern jacanas
3. Great blue herons
4. Little blue herons
5. Yellow-crowned night herons
6. Roseate spoonbills
7. Wood storks
8. Anhingas
9. Green herons
10. Green kingfishers
11. Colima pygmey owl
12. Tropical kingbirds
13. Painted buntings
14. Citreolene Trogans
15. Groove-billed anis
16. Streak-backed orioles
17. Rufous-backed thrushes
18. Great Kiskadees
19. Social Flycatchers
20. Vermillion Flycatchers
21. White-collared seedeaters
22. Tropical kingbirds
23. Sinaloa crows
24. Black-throated magpie jays
25. Golden-crowned woodpeckers
26. Magnificent frigatebirds
27. Brown Pelicans
28. White Ibis
29. Orchard Orioles
30. Northern Mockinbirds
31. Common black hawks
32. Short-tailed hawks
33. Cinnamon hummingbirds
34. Broad-billed hummingbirds
35. Berryline hummingbirds
36. Violet-crowned hummingbirds
37. Ruby-throated hummingbirds
38. Orange-fronted parakeets
39. Masked tityras
40. Rose-throated becards
41. Red-faced warblers
42. Painted redstarts
43. Hepatic tanagers
44. San Blas Jays
45. Yellow-winged caciques
46. Acorn woodpeckers
47. Ivory-billed woodcreepers
48. Lineated woodpeckers
49. Boat-billed herons
50. American Oystercatchers
51. Military macaws
52. Mexican parrotlets
53. Northern Potoos
54. Bare-throated night herons
55. Mangrove warblers
56. American white pelicans
57. Tri-colored herons
58. Reddish Egrets
59. Crested Caracara
60. Blue mockinbirds
61. Flame tanagers
62. Orange-billed nightingale-thrush
63. Green jays
64. Mexican Woodnymphs
65. White-eared hummingbirds
66. Acorn woodpeckers
67. Varied buntings
68. Slate-throated redstarts
69. Bullock's orioles
70. Squirrel cuckoos

...and my aplogies to the more than 100 species of birds that did not make this list...

If you would like to read more about the birds and birding sites in and around San Blas please click the link below:

Mexico site

In the heart of the Sierra del Tigre, Mazamitla, Jalisco, one of Mexico's "Magic Towns," is a delightful mountain getaway that has excellent birding both in the perimeters of the town and its closeby pine/oak forests. I go there once a year as it is only a few hours by bus from where I live and I will be going there again in a couple of weeks.
While there I hope to see such birds as painted redstarts, slate-throated redstarts, orange-breasted buntings, northern flickers, yellow-eyed juncos, Audobon's orioles, and a variety of warblers and flycatchers.

If you would like to learn more about Mazamitla please click the link below:

Mexico site

The following is the same post that I submitted in one of my own forums about my favorite "retreat" town in Mexico.

I spent three and a half days in Mazamitla birding.
This year the fiestas did not take place as scheduled because there are major public works projects being conducted around town with most of the streets near el centro torn up and the plaza undergoing reconstruction also. Thus, the rustic-style hotel where I always stay at did not bump up their rates and I paid a whopping $16 or so a night for very decent accomodations.

Too many construction vehicles and sand/gravel trucks were going up and down the ruta turistica kicking up storms of dust and making such a commotion where I normally would do the bulk of the birdwatching that I decided to bird instead by a nearby pine grove and in and around the forested mountainous ecological park; I was happy that I did because even though I do not have that much experience birding in pine/oak forests which have decidely different sight lines (not to mention many different kinds of birds)than I am used to, I saw and or heard many species of birds.

My subjective "best" sightings were as follows:

-A pair of adorable, clown-like in appearance acorn woodpeckers protecting their territory by chasing off a squirrel that was encroaching on their tree.

-Every morning on the periphery of the town, seeing at sunrise for all three mornings that I was their between twenty-forty grey silkies (large streamlined flycatchers with almost trogon-like colorful and long tails)perched up high on the same tree-the same tree that they had been on the two previous years when I was there.

Multiple "hearings" and sightings of Mexican Jays/aka grey-breasted jays who mostly loudly (and these are supposed to be among the least loud of the jays!) cavorted in small groups of around six.

- a brief but memorable look at a gorgeous painted redstart.

- Many viewings of Audobon warblers/aka yellow-rumped warblers as they primarily hunted for food on the ground while flocks of their kind-of-look-a-like cousins, Grace's warblers flew in and out of trees.

- Great looks and pictures of an oriole that I am having difficulty in identifying. It looks very similar to streak-backed orioles (of which there are many in Mazamitla) but it has a black head (but it's unlikely that it is a Baltimore oriole).

- At least seeing 5 species of other kinds of flycatchers,including my personal favorite, vermilions, some of which I am not sure of their identity also.

-multiple sightings of different species of robins/thrushes as they foraged on lawns and fields.

As for my dining pleasure, had memorable stuffed gorditas and pizza-like huaraches along with excellent tortas milanesa con queso.
If you like potato chips, most towns in this part of Mexico
have super hand-cut and freshly fried bags of unsalted chips.
Of course,also, I "had to have" one container of burnt cajeta.

Despite the changes going on while I was there, Mazamitla lived up to my expectations of it being my "retreat town."