The Last Guatemala Post

This lousy photo of the only bat falcon I saw in Guatemala is symbolic for me. The bat falcon is a bird I'd always wanted to see well, to luxuriate in for a little while. Thanks to some bad beans, I didn't get to see the bat falcon BOTB and Jeff Bouton digiscoped in Flores. I didn't get to go to Tikal, or take two other birding excursions on the schedule. But I did get to sit on my balcony and see what was going on with a pair of white-fronted Amazons, to watch a Guatemalan golden-fronted woodpecker excavate its nest cavity, to sneak up on a ringed kingfisher, to listen for the black-headed trogon and see his powder-blue eyering, to watch a rufous-tailed hummingbird sing his love song. It was terrific. Would I have traded it all for Tikal, for the company of husband and friends? Well, I couldn't, so I wouldn't. The moral: Lingering is sometimes just what we need (even if dysentery isn't!) Taking in one small scene (especially in lowland Guatemala) can be more rich and fulfilling than walking miles and ticking off bird after bird, but never getting to know any one bird for more than a moment. Lingering suits me fine.

A baby basilisk bites off a hibiscus flower.
He swallows it down, then poses in the sun. Who knew they ate flowers? Basilisks, or "Jesus lizards," are able to run over the surface of the water, light as the Holy Spirit.
A giant oncidium floops over with bloom.
A black-crowned tityra grunts, letting me know he is there. What a pretty little cotinga he is.I find the black-crowned tityra more elegant and cleanly beautiful than the more common masked tityra, with its beefy-red face. Here's another view of the male masked tityra. It's pronounced tit-TYE-rah, even though I thought they were tittyrahs as a freshman in college, before I heard anyone say the name.
A blue-gray tanager thinks about biting into a succulent fruit.
A pale-vented pigeon pants in the afternoon sun.
I was surprised to find a lone red-lored Amazon hanging out by the macaw enclosure, idly clipping off leaves and branches as it whiled part of a day away. I wondered if it was a refugee from captivity, since parrots almost always travel in pairs. Or perhaps, like the white-fronted Amazons of an earlier post, this is a male whose mate is incubating, and he's passing the time until the eggs hatch. I like that theory better. He's got a nice clean tail, undamaged by the interior of the nest cavity, which bolsters the evidence that he might be a mated male, batchin' it for the day. If only he could talk! but then he'd be somebody's pet.Continuing the psittacine theme, a gorgeous white-crowned Pionus fetched up in a treetop. I found myself wondering if all these lone soldiers were males, since it was the start of the nesting season and females were likely to be on eggs all day.

Just look at the color combinations in this glorious bird. Pink eye skin, steel-blue head and neck, bronzy shoulder, leaf-green wing coverts, sea-blue primaries, all underpinned by pink panties! and, I'd note, a perfect tail...
Hey, hon! Happy to bedazzle y'uns!

I most like my parrots on the wing.

As I made my slow way along a gravel road, a smallish buteo swept up and over my head. A roadside hawk! (Buteo magnirostris).
Roadside disapproval. Hey, Mr. Magnirostris, I'm just livin' my life, takin' pictures.

Yes, I was having tons o' fun. A steady pecking near the forest floor resolved into the same lineated woodpecker I had tried to photograph from my balcony--this time in subdued, but better light. Stealing beauty:We'd have to return to the States soon, and while I was sad to have missed the last few days of hanging out with everyone else, I didn't feel the least bit cheated or sad. The birds of Guatemala had stepped in to make sure I had a glorious time. Until next time, pajaritos. Hasta luego.
To all my dear friends in Guatemala: Ana, Marco, Hector, Kenneth, Hugo, Hilda, Claudia, Olga, Irene, Bitty, Estellita, Andy, Monica...thank you once again. I hope birdwatchers from all corners of the world treat themselves to some time in Guatemala with you. No finer people on the planet!
photo by Lisa White

This post is for my DOD, who never left the United States, but knew how to linger, and appreciate what he'd been given. He was born on June 18, 1912, two months after the Titanic set sail, and died April 10, 1994, the same date she sank. I planted snap peas and four kinds of greens, gladioli and tuberoses in his honor today. Called my mom from the cordless phone while standing out in the garden and told her I loved her.

Tottering Farther Afield

Zick with the frond of a cahoon palm, the largest leaf in the world!! Thanks to Jeff Gordon for telling me that tidbit, and to BOTB for taking this shot.

After a day and a half of lying around like a burlap bag, I was really ready to get out and watch some birds somewhere other than off my balcony. My balcony had been beddy good to me, but a girl has her limits. So I wandered alone on and off the hotel grounds, seeing what I could see.

Others have blogged about the crocodile made of dough that greeted us at our first breakfast at PetenItza. Well, that was cute, but I thought this was cuter. A Morelet's crocodile Crocodylus moreletii (an endemic, rare, and sometimes quite dangerous creature native to coastal Mexico, Belize and Guatemala) waits next to the reflection of a sign warning us of its malevolence. Patricia says "Watch this!" and grabs a bun out of our basket and tosses it into the water.

CLOMP!B'bye, bun. Although one of the two Morelet's crocs who live in a small lagoon at Tikal has been reputed to be a man-eater, I felt comfortable walking the edge of this lake, knowing at least one of the crocs had a belly full of buns.

I decided to make a photo safari, to get pictures of as many lakeside denizens as I could. To tell you the truth, since I got a good camera, every excursion turns into a photo safari. I wouldn't know what it's like just to hike, swinging my arms and covering ground, without a lead weight on my left shoulder and my eye always ready for the photo-op. But I'm not complaining. Hunting down and bringing back digital trophies is tons o' fun.

A gray-necked wood rail padded softly by a muddy inlet.
Mangrove swallows, cousins of our tree swallows who've only just arrived in Ohio for the spring, showed white rumps as they waited for insects to fly by their little posts.
Yes, there's something very familiar about this Tachycineta (albilinea).

A northern jacana teetered on spindly legs as it pecked at...buns. I'd love to say it was eating crustaceans, but it was eating part of a bun the croc had missed.
Get a load of that inflated, cushy frontal shield. Oh, I'd love to poke it with my fingertip, to see if it's as soft as it looks. Birds like me, but not that much. Someday, I'll poke a jacana's frontal shield. Before I die. We all must have goals.
Not far from a huge exposed earthen bank along the road, a harsh call rang out. Thirteen "yik's" in a row. Then another 13, then another. A female ringed kingfisher (discernible by her blue "bra," which the male lacks) was perched on a wire, scolding me. I thought she probably had a nest in the bank. For a kingfisher, she allowed a ridiculously close approach. I remember Susan Gets Native's plaintive caption, "Does ANYBODY get a good photo of a kingfisher?" Well, until now, I sure thought not!
You will notice that this kingfisher is huge, and equipped with a dagger for a bill. It's 16" long, to the belted kingfisher's 12". Oh, I would hate to be a fish in a lagoon under a ringed kingfisher.

At the start of each series of 13 calls, she'd jet her tail and let it fall as she yikked her complaint out into the hot, still air.
She perched briefly in a tree, letting me see her brilliant rufous underparts.
Then she flew into the woods, where she could keep scolding from a leafy fastness. What a satisfying encounter with the King Kongfisher.I spent today pulling up last year's vegetable garden, burning the stalks, raking up all the straw and finally rototilling the whole thing. I am semi-liquid, but must gather enough energy for a band practice in 1/2 hour. Oh, and cook dinner in between. Yeah, I'm wondering how I do it all, too.