Day One of Chiapas: The Lacandon Rainforest and Maya Ruins

There’s something simply enchanting about birding amidst the ruins of past civilizations.

Just don’t tell me too much about the history. Some people just find that it spoils the beauty of the place and the excitement of the birding to delve too deeply into the human stories that emanate from such places as Palenque, Bonampak, and Yaxchilan in southern Mexico. I’ll show an example in a later post.

The first day of my WINGS tour of Chiapas: The Lacandon Rainforest and Maya Ruins was a travel day; as such, we didn’t get in a whole lot of birding, and only a few photos are worth sharing here. The group met in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco, one of Mexico’s major oil regions, and we continued to Las Guacamayas ecolodge in the small village of Reforma Agraria in the far eastern corner of Chiapas.

Early in the morning we had great views of Pale-vented Pigeons, Golden-fronted Woodpeckers, Band-backed Wrens, and Olive-throated Parakeets right on the grounds of our hotel. This Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl came in to my whistling.

We paused for lunch at this nice, wooded retreat along the main highway where Kentucky and Hooded warblers and Northern Waterthrushes roamed the forest understory.

We did make a couple more roadside stops before arriving at our lodge for the next two nights. At one stop we found this Bat Falcon – the backlighting against the sky requiring a bit of overexposure.

Photo at top: Palenque Ruins by Rich Hoyer

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Tagged as: Bat Falcon, Chiapas, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Lacandon, Las Guacamayas, WINGS birding tours