Our hotel for our stay in Tulum was a great little boutique hotel called Villas H2O. It was located in a kind of unglamorous spot in town but was walking distance to many of the good restaurants and the set up of the hotel made it seem like you were in a jungle oasis despite being in town. The kids loved the pool and my wife loved the host. We called him Common cause he looked like a Mexican version of the rapper Common if you can imagine that. His real name was Javier and he was super nice and chatty. The first morning I got up early and the family slept in. The best birding spot around Tulum that I could find in my research was a small town called Muyil just about 20 minutes south. I didn't do enough research to really figure out where to go once in Muyil but I was able to find the good spots just by blindly driving around. The archeological site in Muyil was closed until 8am but a road just south of it looked promising and ended up being great birding.
Green-backed Sparrow is kind of a Yucatan specialty so I was happy to see this one which ended up being the only one I found.
This White-bellied Wren would not cooperate and tricked me into thinking some other species because of the greenish tint on it's shoulder but I believe that is just a light artifact of the leaf in front of it. It was behaving like a wren jumping around frenetically and cocking its short tail.
Yellow-olive Flycatcher - this little guy was really cooperative and appeared to be collecting nesting material.
Tawny-winged Woodcreeper - woodcreepers are tricky because they usually stay in dark areas in the canopy. This particular species was quite common.
Olivaceous Woodcreeper - a species I am well acquainted with from Costa Rica but it was good to catch up on old times.
Prothonotary Warblers were abundant in this swampy area.
Turquoise-browed Motmot - I love motmots, they usually hang out in small groups and communicate with a call that reminds me a bit of my youth. Growing up in Long Island NY we had Ring-necked Pheasants all around and they made that submarine sound which is different but similar.
I reunited with the family, scarfed a delicious breakfast at the hotel and we set off for the famous Tulum Mayan archeological site which is the only set of Mayan ruins overlooking the water. For some reason most of the major sites are far inland. These pics are kind of misleading as they make it look like hardly anyone is around but in reality it was a kind of spoiled from all the people everywhere. Its a good thing they roped some of it off so you can get a feeling for what it would look like without hundreds of tourists.
This is the building where human sacrifices would be offered to the gods.
These lizards were battling right in front the sacrificial building and I could not help thinking they were carrying the tradition on by feeding the stones with blood.
Rose-throated Becard - While my wife did some shopping, I birded the courtyard near all the vendors and was surprised to see quite a few birds in the hot part of the day hanging out right above the circus of tourists.
A fat Social Flycatcher
Grayish Saltator
Orange Oriole - a Yucatan specialty bird.
Our next stop was Casa Cenote which was really more of a mangrove with really clear water connected to the Caribbean by an underwater tube. The locals set up a small dive operation and rented out snorkels and flippers. After much debate all four of us rented snorkels and jumped in. It took a while to teach my kids how to snorkel but finally we worked our way into the mangrove. I was with Luke holding his hand which was good because a Crocodile swam right past us! It was probably only 5 feet long but seeing it up close was kind of unnerving. Luke was pretty calm but I heard a girl further in let out a blood curdling scream.
Here is the small croc that hangs out in this cenote. The guys that rented the snorkels gave us a heads up before we went in so we knew it was not dangerous.
I was looking for Mangrove Swallows but saw a bunch of other species including what I think was a Cave Swallow.
Social Flycatcher
Yellow Warbler
The local race of Osprey has a really pale head.
Great Kiskadee
We had an excellent dinner in Tulum and then called it a day. More to come in the next post...
Green-backed Sparrow is kind of a Yucatan specialty so I was happy to see this one which ended up being the only one I found.
This White-bellied Wren would not cooperate and tricked me into thinking some other species because of the greenish tint on it's shoulder but I believe that is just a light artifact of the leaf in front of it. It was behaving like a wren jumping around frenetically and cocking its short tail.
Yellow-olive Flycatcher - this little guy was really cooperative and appeared to be collecting nesting material.
Tawny-winged Woodcreeper - woodcreepers are tricky because they usually stay in dark areas in the canopy. This particular species was quite common.
Olivaceous Woodcreeper - a species I am well acquainted with from Costa Rica but it was good to catch up on old times.
Prothonotary Warblers were abundant in this swampy area.
Turquoise-browed Motmot - I love motmots, they usually hang out in small groups and communicate with a call that reminds me a bit of my youth. Growing up in Long Island NY we had Ring-necked Pheasants all around and they made that submarine sound which is different but similar.
I reunited with the family, scarfed a delicious breakfast at the hotel and we set off for the famous Tulum Mayan archeological site which is the only set of Mayan ruins overlooking the water. For some reason most of the major sites are far inland. These pics are kind of misleading as they make it look like hardly anyone is around but in reality it was a kind of spoiled from all the people everywhere. Its a good thing they roped some of it off so you can get a feeling for what it would look like without hundreds of tourists.
This is the building where human sacrifices would be offered to the gods.
These lizards were battling right in front the sacrificial building and I could not help thinking they were carrying the tradition on by feeding the stones with blood.
Rose-throated Becard - While my wife did some shopping, I birded the courtyard near all the vendors and was surprised to see quite a few birds in the hot part of the day hanging out right above the circus of tourists.
A fat Social Flycatcher
Grayish Saltator
Orange Oriole - a Yucatan specialty bird.
Our next stop was Casa Cenote which was really more of a mangrove with really clear water connected to the Caribbean by an underwater tube. The locals set up a small dive operation and rented out snorkels and flippers. After much debate all four of us rented snorkels and jumped in. It took a while to teach my kids how to snorkel but finally we worked our way into the mangrove. I was with Luke holding his hand which was good because a Crocodile swam right past us! It was probably only 5 feet long but seeing it up close was kind of unnerving. Luke was pretty calm but I heard a girl further in let out a blood curdling scream.
Here is the small croc that hangs out in this cenote. The guys that rented the snorkels gave us a heads up before we went in so we knew it was not dangerous.
I was looking for Mangrove Swallows but saw a bunch of other species including what I think was a Cave Swallow.
Social Flycatcher
Yellow Warbler
Great Kiskadee
We had an excellent dinner in Tulum and then called it a day. More to come in the next post...
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