Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Any ornithologists among our readers?


When Lynn and David were here to visit they gave us a very nice gift – a National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, which includes Mexico. They’re birding enthusiasts, and are able to readily identify most birds we spot on our hikes and walks together. We enjoy seeing birds but don’t know as much about them as we’d like. Today we saw an exquisite bird, photographed it, and then had to spend an inordinate amount of time identifying it because we had no idea where to start in the book. We ultimately decided it was a Hooded Oriole, which is only found in southern Baja during breeding season. Do you agree with our identification Lynn and David?

Secondly, we were in our truck last week with 2 other people, and a Roadrunner ran across the highway in front of us. One of the women in the truck said "Oh!  I didn't know Roadrunners were real birds -- I thought they were just characters in that silly cartoon!"  So, in case anyone else share's her belief, we snagged a photo of a Roadrunner yesterday and will let you see that too.

Finally, we've forgotten what this third bird is called, Lynn and David -- we saw it when you were here. Can you remind us?  Enough about birds for today.

1 comment:

Lynn said...

Yep, looks exactly like a hooded oriole to me. We saw a medium sized orange bird thru the bushes when we were on the walk to El Triunfo, and this must have been what it was as no other orioles hang out in Baja. Great picture! Large raptor is an osprey. We thought we saw several Caracaras when we were there, but they have white wing tips when seen from below. Good picture for IDing osprey too. lynn