Sounds of the Yucatan (more birding in Mexico)

Sorry for prematurely publishing this last week--inadvertently pushing that enter button will do crazy things sometimes! It's funny, only a few moments before I thought, it would be so easy to accidentally publish before you are done writing..man that would suck....doh!!! Anyways, if this got sent to your feed this is indeed the complete posting and whatever went out before was incomplete!

So let's get back to it! One of the things I noticed right away in Mexico was the SOUNDS. Even though I still feel like a total novice when it comes to identifying bird sounds, it was still very apparent to me that the sounds were so different from 'round here.

mid-squawk

The most obvious one was the great-tailed grackle, which I put in the first post. I kept wishing I had my iphone with me to record the sounds, and I did on a few occasions. One night I just took this vid just to capture the sounds--not much to see in the video, but you can definitely hear them (along with our friends Adam and Michelle).

I've always wondered how people can identify the mockingbird if it just repeats other birds' songs. By the end of the week I could do it easily. The key is that they repeat each song a few times and then switch to another.

Tropical mockingbirds posted in a tree.
I goofed and cut off the one side of the tree so had to create the end of the branch in Photoshop.
 I don't feel bad about since I'm openly admitting :)

 
I did manage to get right beside a tropical mockingbird singing away at the pool and I recorded while he went through a very impressive repertoire of songs! Sorry about the music and people in the background--the pool is a busy spot! OK, promise me you will listen to this one...it is AWESOME! No seriously....CLICK ON IT!


I didn't quite get recording of all the birds I was hoping to--the woodpeckers were also particularly vocal. Normally I would have my phone on me, but since I was avoiding roaming, I left it in the safe most of the week.

Anyways, hope you find these little bytes interesting and that they help you to gain the bigger picture and envision the acoustic landscape. Here are the few others I took. I had really hoped to get the morning orchestra--they would all sing at once and it was just awesome. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to it before we left. :( Enjoy!

More coming up!