grey and yellow flycatchers of Mexico (#217-218)

I finally got my Mexican guidebook back from the library so I can sort out the last of my Mexican birds shots. Of course, since I left them last, they are also the hardest! ha!

Sadly I went down without a guidebook, which, in retrospect, was pretty stupid. Unfortunately I made a rookie mistake of assuming some birds were the same (in terms of differentiating between them--not knowing the little signs to look for, or listening carefully).

Then I get home and find out that there is a page full of birds that look pretty much the same. Ouf! Tough lesson learned. Once I finally decided on the guide I liked, Amazon couldn't get it to me on time...sad face. It's tough buying a guide when you can't look at it, and they don't tend to stock those ones around here. I did see one at the Nature Museum--so glad I didn't buy that one online--when I saw it was so cumbersome and a ton of text, not a lot of illustrations. Go figure, the guide I wanted was out at the library and came in for me 2 days after we left! (thank god I finally figured out how to make stupid tables in blogger...not sure why it seemed so hard)

Not a fan of this one!

Got this one...like it.

I paid for this mistake most with the little black and yellow birds. Seriously, how many kinds can there be? (and why do I have that terrible Wiz Khalifa song coming to mind?

Well, at least this many:

There are a few obvious ones and a few I'm not really sure of. Anyways, I'll share all the pics since they are really lovely birds!

#217: Great Kiskadee; February 15, 2012; Riviera Maya, Mexico

 #218: Tropical Kingbird; February 15, 2012; Riviera Maya, Mexico

More tropical kingbirds? I found this comparison of Western, Tropical and Couch's Kingbirds...it's pretty fuzzy business....This guy's bill seems shorter than the last guy, and the tail seems lighter, but maybe it's even a juvenile.

 

This one is definitely different, but I wasn't able to quite pin it down. If I'd had a shot of the upperparts, it might have helped. The black eye stripe is so striking!

Now that's out of the way, I'm looking forward to new arrivals and some posts on local birds!