Super Dulce Birding in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon

Hugo and I drove from Patzcuaro to Monterrey to spend the weekend birding with Adrian Ganem Sada and Rene Sada. These guys are "super dulce" birders!

Many, many thanks to them for their hospitality, incredible birding skills, not laughing at me for frequently performing the lifer dance, and mentoring and including Hugo into the Mexican birding circle.

I would also like to thank Jesus Fernando Cerra Luna for giving me permission to add some of his photos. He is a Super Mega Dulce photographer whose website is http://www.birdsandpictures.com/. My dream is to one day introduce him to the birds in our area. Come on down, Fernando.

Dwarfed by the canyon walls

We drove from Cola de Caballo to Los Lorios with a lunch stop at nearly 11,000 feet for higher elevation birds and a breath-taking view of the valley below. Today we birded La Estanzuela State Park.

Lunch stops don't get much better than this

No birding day is complete without elote smothered with mayonaise and chili

Species seen or heard:

Thicket tinamou (heard)
Turkey vulture
Black vulture
Gray hawk
Short-tailed hawk
Zone-tailed hawk
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
Plain chachalaca
Rock pigeon
Band-tailed pigeon
Mourning dove
White-winged dove
Common ground-dove (heard)
Inca dove
White-tipped dove (heard)
Maroon-fronted parrot

Yellow-billed cuckoo (heard)
Ferruginous pygmy-owl
White-throated swift
Broad-billed hummingbird
Buff-bellied hummingbird
Blue-throated hummingbird
Black-chinned hummingbird
Broad-tailed hummingbird
Elegant trogon
Green kingfisher
Blue-crowned motmot
Acorn woodpecker
Golden-fronted woodpecker
Ladder-backed woodpecker
Hairy woodpecker
Golden-olive woodpecker (heard)
Cordilleran flycatcher
Say's phoebe
Great kiskadee
Sulphur-bellied flycatcher
Cassin's kingbird
Gray-collared becard
Violet-green swallow
Barn swallow
Gray silky-flycatcher
Canyon wren
Spot-breasted wren
Carolina wren
House wren (brown-throated)
Long-billed thrasher
Curve-billed thrasher
Western bluebird
Brown-backed solitaire
Russet nightingale-thrush
Clay-colored robin
American robin
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Mexican chickadee
Bridled titmouse
Black-crested titmouse
Pygmy nuthatch
Green jay
Brown jay
Mexican jay
Common raven
White-eyed vireo
Yellow-green vireo
House finch
Pine siskin
Lesser goldfinch
Olive warbler
Colima warbler
Tropical parula
Painted redstart

Golden-crowned warbler (performing a wounded-bird display that we all agreed was the bird experience of the trip)

Hepatic tanager
Flame-colored tanager

Photo by Wayne Colony, San Miguel de Allende

Yellow-faced grassquit
Rufous-capped brush-finch
Olive sparrow
Spotted towhee
Chipping sparrow
Yellow-eyed junco
Crimson-collared grosbeak

Northern cardinal
Blue bunting
Blue grosbeak
Varied bunting
Great-tailed grackle
Bronzed cowbird
Hooded oriole
Audubon's oriole