Club de Observadores de Aves de Nayarit

30/12/2025

Este pequeñín estará presente en el Conteo Navideño de Aves de San Blas, ¿lo harás?

Aún necesitamos más observadores de aves para el Conteo Navideño de Aves de este Viernes, así que si estás por la zona y quieres ayudar, házmelo saber por mensaje aquí o por correo electrónico a [email protected].

¡Todos los niveles de experiencia son bienvenidos! Y quién sabe, quizás incluso puedas desearle a esta pequeña joya un Feliz Año Nuevo en persona.

Yellow-breasted Crake; Polluela Pecho Amarillo; Laterallus flaviventer

Laguna Zoquipan, mpio. San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
23 December 2023

09/12/2025

Ven a contar las aves de San Blas el 2 de enero 2026!

Send a message to learn more

14/08/2024

Here's one photo that shows dramatically a major reason why the birding is so excellent in San Blas. It's a shot I took last December from Laguna de Zoquipan, looking towards the highlands of the Sierra de San Juan. The lagoon is at an elevation of 2 meters (6.5 feet), low enough to have tides, in spite of the 30+ km winding river course it takes to get there (about 9 km as the Sinaloa Crow flies). The top of that mountain is at 2200 meters (7200 ft.) elevation, and is only 30 km (about 18 miles) from where this photo was taken.

In between, there is a nearly complete set of all the habitat types of this part of Mexico. The first trees at the edge of the marsh vegetation are mangroves, and at the top of the mountain are pine forests. In between there are all manner of tropical forests - dry deciduous, semi-deciduous, humid evergreen, oak, and pine-oak.

Over 500 species of birds have been found in the areas seen in this photo - nearly half of all the birds that occur in Mexico.

Laguna de Zoquipan, mpio. San Blas, Nayarit, México
23 December 2023

26/07/2024

In celebration of The International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem (El Día Internacional para la Conservación del Ecosistema de los Manglares), here are four "mangrove" birds that can be found in the extensive mangrove swamps around San Blas. These four birds, three species, and one subspecies, all have "mangrove" in their name, and use the mangrove ecosystem for all or part of their lifecycle.

But they are hardly the only bird species that depend upon this important ecosystem - they are just a small part of the vast number of species of all sorts that benefit from mangroves. One of those species is ourselves, Homo sapiens.

Names and more information for each species are in the captions.

26/12/2023

"Bigfoot"

And my photo of Bigfoot is 100% real, and not faked, though it's owner can also be hard to find and harder to photograph.

This big foot belongs to the tiny, secretive marsh bird know as the Yellow-breasted Crake. It uses those big feet to walk on floating vegetation, as it searches for insects to eat.

This is a species that is widespread in Central and South America, but isn't easy to see anywhere, due to it's small size, and ability to remain hidden in the thick wetland vegetation. Just two years ago, it was unknown from this part of Mexico - with the closest known part of it's range hundreds of kilometers from San Blas. But, as with many difficult to find species, it's range is poorly understood.

The apparently thriving population in the San Blas area has quickly become one of the best, and most reliable places to actually see, and even more remarkably, photograph, this elusive creature.

We'll hope to record it for just the second time on our San Blas Christmas Bird Count one week from today.

Yellow-breasted Crake; Polluela Pecho Amarillo; Hapalocrex flaviventer

Laguna de Zoquipan, mpio. San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
22 December 2023

15/12/2023

Enjoy some cake for breakfast . . .

"Layer Cake"

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck; Pijije Alas Blancas; Dendrocygna autumnalis

Water Hyacinth; Jacinto de Agua; Pontederia crassipes

San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
14 December 2023

13/12/2023