Tuesday, January 19, 2010

More shorebirding in Veracruz

Last sunday (january 17), Osvaldo picked me up very early at the hospital (after 24 hours of constant work) and then we headed to Veracruz in order to relocate the American Golden-Plover that has been wintering in the area. We reached the eastern end of the beach (close to the bridge) and almost immediately saw a mixed group of shorebirds, including Black-bellied Plovers with the now-famous Golden-Plover. They were feeding on a sand bank quite far from us, so we started to photograph the other birds that were feeding closer, in the rocks. The most common were the Willets, joined by a group of Ruddy Turnstones and lots of Semipalmated Plovers with Least Sandpipers. These birds were very confident, not even caring about the people at the beach, nor of us with our cameras. While the tide was withdrawing, we were approaching the flock with the Golden-Plover (though they were getting closer too), passing by a group of very shy Wilson's Plovers that only allowed some distant pics, and witnessing how thousands of Neotropic Cormorants were leaving a nearby island with some Brown Pelicans. Eventually, we placed ourselves in shooting range in order to photograph the Golden-Plover, that cooperated very well. Nevertheless, I did not obtain better photos that the previous ones (Osvaldo was luckier). The furious assault of the chiggers prevented me of taking more photos (seriously!) so we moved to the rocks at the opposite end of the beach (finding a Blue-footed Booby very close and a Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture which is very uncommon in this part of the country... and inside the Pacific CBC circle). There we found a group of Collared Plovers (5th plover species of the day), plus Sanderlings, Surfbirds and Turnstones at the rocks nearby. Once again, a nice shorebirding morning in Veracruz.

No comments:

Post a Comment