Creeping

One of the things that I most love about birding is finding -- or learning more about --  the unexpected. Take the woodcreepers we spotted today in the mountains of Oaxaca.  They look rather like Strong-billed Woodcreepers found elsewhere in Central America (including the eastern lowlands of Mexico); they're huge and rusty, with enormous beaks. They're in the books as Strong-billed Woodcreepers, and listed as "rare in Oaxaca". But their songs are all wrong. They don't sound like their counterparts found anywhere else, so maybe they're not really Strong-billed Woodcreepers after all! Whatever they turn out to be, they're fun to watch. We had four chasing each other around in the moss-draped forest above La Cumbre today, hitching their way up tree trunks and gliding across clearings on coppery splayed wings.