Subject: Back from vacation
Date: Aug 17 15:22:10 1995
From: Eugene Hunn - hunn at u.washington.edu


I'm just back from a months working vacation in Mexico. Flew to
Vallarta, rented a VW bug, drove to Oaxaca via Mexico City (on the new
toll freeway system... you can now drive nearly from Nogales to Oaxaca &
beyond on full service freeways (autopistas) but they cost a bundle in
tolls. We did manage to find some muddy back roads, however, that tested
the mettle of the VW bug (now manufactured in Mexico rather than
Germany), which seems capable of heroic feats of cross-country travel.
Lots of rain. Birding highpoints for me were eight Red-billed
Tropicbirds circling a rock about 1/4 mile offshore near Puerto Angel,
Oaxaca (a new addition to Laurie Binford's Oaxaca state list), near
simultaneous comparisons of Ferruginous Pygmy and Colima (Least) Pygmy
Owls near Pt. Angel, the narrowly endemic Blackpolled Yellowthroat
(breeding in the same marsh with Common Yellowthroats at Lago Cuitzeo,
Michoacan), Sierra Madre Sparrow (at perhaps the only reliable spot
known, La Cima south of Mexico City), and Rosy Thrush-Tanager, a singing
male above La Bajada near San Blas, Nayarit. 250 species all together.
Hope I didn't miss anything too exciting here while I was gone.

Gene Hunn, seattle (hunn at u.washington.edu)