Birding Muyil, Sian Ka’an

So our time in Mexico is soon to come to and end as we are about to move on to Belize but I was keen for one last birding outing with a guide and Sian Ka’an has a good reputation. 

We found a local bird guide called Eddy (Facebook, WhatsApp ‪+52 983 809 7203‬), and again Eddy was great, really knew his birds and the local area, happy to recommend if you are in this part of Mexico. Eddy is Mayan and shared some of the history of the historical site we visited, he also is good at mimicking birds and fooled Merlin with his Pygmy Owl (and lots of the birds around too judging by their reaction).

We started about 7.30 walking around the village of Muyil. We saw a mix of Orioles, Saltators and Warblers in this early time but the highlight for me was getting my first view of an Orange Oriole, and the outrageous Keel-Billed Toucan. 

After about an hour and a half we moved to a new site with the hope of seeing Collared Aracari and sure enough there were about 9 or 10 of these fantastic looking birds here. In addition we had great views of Morelet’s Seedeater male and female side by side.

There was rumour of a Potoo about and we spend sometime looking for it but with no luck so we moved on to the archaeological site which had some interesting ruins and also a board walk over the mangroves and out to the Laguna de Muyil. As well as the birds it was lovely to see this habitat.

But in terms of the birds we added several including White Bellied Emerald, Squirrel Cuckoo, Collared Trogan (the rarest bird of the day), Turquoise-browed Motmot, Tawny-crowned Greenlet and Yellow-billed Cacique.

Altogether this morning we saw 76 species of which 26 were brand new for the trip. So far in Mexico we have seen 254 birds (of which 232 are lifers for me) – full list of Mexico Birds here. To put this in some perspective, my UK life list is 260 birds, so I have nearly seen that many birds in one month in Mexico. This says something about the size of Mexico and range of habitats but sadly also something about how degraded wild habitats are at home. 

Those who might be tempted to think this 1,000 species is easy as I have 25% already think again. In my first days in Mexico literally everything was new. Today 25/75 were new (ie 1/3). That ratio is going to keep falling, the more birds I have seen the harder it is to see a new bird. But hey, I like a challenge.