Again after I rediscovered birding, someplace in 2012 or 2013, it was arduous to search out anybody right here in Morelia who even knew of this pastime’s existence. Somebody related me with an individual who, they mentioned, was fascinated about birds. It turned out that particular person’s solely curiosity was in falconry, and our encounter was not long-lasting. However he did suggest to me the Morelia-adjacent city of Laurelito, which quickly turned considered one of my favourite websites, and is now on a number of different birders’ common rotation due to my suggestion. So I received one thing out of our encounter. I’m not so certain the identical might be mentioned for the falconer. And it took a couple of yr for that first assembly right here with a “birder”.
Quick-forward greater than ten years to 2025, and you’ve got our first-ever Lake Cuitzeo Christmas Fowl Rely. There have been sixteen of us collaborating, 13 Mexicans, one Cuban, and one American (that’s me), all residents of Mexico. Every considered one of us are keen about birding. Half are biologists, and the opposite half are greater than keen to spend cash, and journey, to see birds. A number of had travelled an hour or extra to be at this Christmas Rely. They had been all so comfortable to be collectively that a number of made plans for the very subsequent day.
All of us care about birds and habitat safety, and are doing our greatest to assist with the trigger. (Writing for 10,000 Birds is a part of my contribution, together with collaborating in citizen science, serving to up-and-coming birders within the space, and donating to Conservation Worldwide and the American Fowl Conservancy.)
I can’t inform you what a sea change this represents. There nonetheless aren’t that many people — a stable twitch right here in Morelia would in all probability not draw greater than 5 individuals — however the enthusiasm and camaraderie you could now discover listed below are so, a lot greater than in earlier years.
An expertise we had on the CBC could recommend the subsequent stage on this progress. After the 4 groups accomplished their separate routes, the occasion organizer Jonathan Vargas took us all to the little city of San Juan Benito Juárez on the lake’s southern shore. He hoped a Semipalmated Sandpiper that he had seen the day earlier than would nonetheless be there, and it was. This was solely the third sighting of this peep for our state. Semipalmated Sandpipers have a whiter breast, darkish legs, and a shorter invoice than our ordinary Western and Least Sandpipers. (Maybe the SPSA is definitely not so uncommon right here, and these refined variations have triggered it to slide by unnoticed.)
My finest photograph of the Semipalmated Sandpiper. Word its very quick invoice.
A Western Sandpiper, within the foreground, with a Least Sandpiper behind it. (Picture mine, from a earlier yr.)
A pair of Least Sandpipers who had been hanging out with the Semipalmated Sandpiper.
As we noticed this peep and plenty of different good species, together with a pair of Wilson’s Snipes, some Ruddy Geese in surprising reproductive plumage, and a flock of Yellow-headed Blackbirds, numerous neighbors got here out to watch our remark. I made a decision to benefit from this case, began chatting with these neighbors, and loaning them my binoculars. Quickly different members of the workforce joined in, and the entire neighborhood was trying by means of a group of binoculars and scopes.
First encounter (photograph by Ignacio Torres)
And shortly everybody was doing it. (Picture by Giselle Castrejón)
They had been amazed when the scopes revealed two rafts with some 10,000 Canvasbacks and 1,000 different geese (Jonathan’s depend) resting on the lake. They confessed that they by no means actually paid any consideration to the birds on their doorstep.
These dots are a couple of of these 11,000 geese.
“You need to come and provides a chat at our faculty about this,” one of many girls mentioned. “So the kids gained’t drop their trash by the lake.” And so we must always.
This put up isn’t actually in regards to the species I noticed that day, however I’ll point out that a number of Marbled Godwits had been my private finest, together with that SPSA. In idea, neither species must be present in our inland area. One other workforce photographed many Wilson’s Phalaropes, which ought to have flown additional south again in October. A couple of Verdins and at the very least one Brewer’s Blackbird had been additionally vital sightings for our space. Over the entire day, the 4 groups noticed 153 species, precisely the identical quantity we noticed two weeks earlier on the Lake Pátzcuaro CBC.
Two of these Godwits
(Picture by Giselle Castrejón)
(Picture by Ignacio Torres; header photograph by Jonathan Vargas)