Last day in Mexico

One last day in Mexico, spent around the ancient Zapotec ruins of Yagul and Mitla. The sun rose with a golden flourish, and we enjoyed the warmth of the day, knowing what awaits us when we head north again tomorrow. It's going to be hard to go back to those below-freezing temperatures!

Golden fields surround the ruins at Yagul, full of dried flower heads -- and hundreds of birds feasting on the seeds.

A Curve-billed Thrasher surveys its domain from a convenient candelabra cactus arm.

The old city of Mitla was known as the City of Death. It was where the highest ranking retired priests and rulers spent their final years. Above is one of the palaces, once home to a retired ruler. The stonemasonry is mind-boggling: tens of thousands of individually carved stones, carefully placed together -- without mortar -- and still standing hundreds of years later. Interesting that newer buildings all throughout Oaxaca have fallen in earthquakes while this one still looks relatively untouched.

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.

A day's tapestry

While Cape May shivers through another round of snow and frigid temperatures, I spent the day basking in the sunny warmth of Oaxaca's central valley. It's going to be hard to go back to winter!

Anybody who thinks sparrows are all boring little brown jobs has obviously never seen Mexico's decidedly snazzy Bridled Sparrow.

We took some time out during the hottest part of the day and enjoyed some fine Zapotec cuisine and a rug-weaving demonstration in Teotitlán del Valle. What craftsmanship!

Monte Albán

Today, we visited Monte Albán, the largest (and in my opinion the most spectacular) of the Zapotec ruins found in Oaxaca. The ancient city was huge, containing some 40,000 people and sprawling across four hilltops. The main site measured some 300 meters by 200 meters (roughly 900 feet by 600 feet) and it was leveled completely by hand; the whole top of a mountain was removed and carted off -- and the Zapotecs had no beasts of burden, and no metal tools. I marvel at the vision someone had of what could be, and at the dedication needed to turn that vision into reality.

I've always loved the layered look of hills receding into the distance.  

This is the view from the entrance to Monte Albán.

 The steps up to the north platform, as seen from the main plaza. Once, this whole structure would have been covered with painted stucco.

The ever expanding city of Oaxaca laps at the base of Monte Albán's hills.

For me, birds are never far out of the picture; this aptly named Thick-billed Kingbird was calling and hunting just down the hill from the ruins.

Pining

Today, I was in one of my very favorite places in Mexico -- a lovely pine-oak forest high in the Sierra Aloapaneca mountains in Oaxaca. It's a rumpled mountain landscape, softened by vast stretches of geological time, so that the stony bits have been worn smooth and covered with vegetation. The trees are draped with bromeliads, epiphytes and orchids, lichens and mosses; at times the branches literally disappear under their load of "hangers on". Sometimes the clouds hang low, ghosting along the ridges and tangling among the trees, leaving glistening drops on every pine needle and leaf tip. On other days, like today, the azure skies above seem limitless. The air smells of pine, crisp and clean. Sometimes the grind of a logging truck or the buzz of a distant chainsaw intrudes, but mostly I'm struck by the lack of human generated noise. Other than birdsong, the buzz of passing insects and the sound of wind through the trees, the silence reigns supreme.

Late afternoon sunlight on pine needles turned them a glittering silver. An interesting factoid: Mexico has more species of pine than any other country on the planet.

Oaxaca blues

I'm sure there must be some scientific reason why the sky is a more intense blue at lower latitudes. Or maybe that's so only in low latitude areas with low humidity. Whatever the case, the sky here in Oaxaca today was a glorious azure, with not a cloud in sight. Of course, that's not necessarily good news for reservoirs such as this one (a mere shadow of its former self) just above the famous weaving village of Teotitlán del Valle.

One of the day's treats was a gang of nine Boucard's Wrens that swarmed across a grassy field and bounced along a brick wall studded with protruding rebar. Talk about snazzy! Mexico is at the epicenter of wren evolution. The country has 31 species, including 11 found nowhere else in the world. That's more species of wren than are found in all of Europe and Asia combined!