La Trinidad Opal Mines Tequisquiapan

I had a very long walk up to the Opal Mines near Tequisquiapan last week.  This is a popular tourist attraction and the road up goes through some interesting cactus-dominated habitat.  Unfortunately, the weather was poor when I went.  Nevertheless, I found some good birds, particularly at the top when it brightened up a bit.

Blue-grey Gnatcatcher

It's the closest to Tequis that I have found Rock Wrens.  Spotted Towhees, White-throated Swifts, Blue Mockingbirds, Scott's Orioles and 2 Lucifer Hummingbirds were also very nice to see.

Ash-throated Flycatcher is fairly easy to see around Tequis, but the 10 I found up at La Trinidad represents a good number.

Elegant Trogon!

Despite all of the good birds I've seen recently around Tequisquiapan, today brought a new high - a magnificent male Elegant Trogon in the mountains above Fuentezuelas.  I found this bird putting on a show in some tall trees at the base of a cliff over a small stream.

Elegant Trogon

Elegant Trogon

Over the course of a 3 hour walk throughout this undisturbed part of Queretaro, I bumped into other fantastic species.  The Trogon was sharing the cliff face with Northern Cardinals, many Northern Mockingbirds, Phainopeplas, and a nice selection of Warblers including Virginia's, McGillivray's, Nashville and Black-throated Grey.

Northern Cardinal (male)

Virginia's Warbler

In the more scrubby parts of the walk, I found another many Scott's Orioles, Grey Flycatchers and lots and lots of Sparrows (Brewer's, Chipping, Clay-colored, Lark, Vesper, Lincoln's, Canyon Towhees and another Green-tailed Towhee).  

50 species in total.  Definitely be returning soon.  

Rio San Juan - The new River of Raptors?

Left my house this morning to see a big raptor circling in the distance over the Rio San Juan.  Didn't quite look right for the commoner species, so I dashed back to get my bins and camera and drove down to explore further.

I straight away locked onto a couple of raptors - Crested Caracaras perched high up.  Great birds, but not top draw.  Next an American Kestrel mobbing the Caracaras.  Again, not bad.

Lower down in the same tree, though, was the original raptor - showing well and confirming my initial thoughts of Common Black Hawk.

Common Black Hawk

An exceptional bird for this part of Queretaro.  While there are a few plateau records, this species is primarily a bird of the slopes and lowlands - where it is commonly found along rivers and lakes.  

Things got even better when another raptor started mobbing the Black Hawk - a fine juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Another rarish species here, though probably fairly regular in winter.  I've previously seen a couple at Centenario.  This species hunts along rivers and swamps.  After buzzing the Black Hawk, it perched up getting mobbed in turn by the angry American Kestrel.

My species list along the Rio San Juan is now up to 122.  These exceptional raptors go to the top of that list, alongside the likes of Broad-winged Hawk and Dickcissel.