Morning in Oaxaca

BirdNote^®

Morning in Oaxaca

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote! 

[Ambient bird calls of Nayarit, Mexico]

Today we’re in the state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. Winter here is a great time to visit old friends—birds, that is—we met in summer, back in the US.

The tops of flowering trees are “busy” with Yellow-rumped Warblers and Western Tanagers [Western Tanager call notes]—northern nesters that winter in Mexico. These northerners get to mingle with Berylline Hummingbirds [Wings] and Gray Silky-Flycatchers, year-round residents of the tropics.

Let’s leave Oaxaca City for the countryside, and ascend through a series of habitats. Here—where tall stands of cactus give way to shrubby oaks—another bird is escaping the northern winter, a neon-orange Bullock’s Oriole, perched in a morning-glory tree. [Call of Bullock’s Oriole]

And, just below, is a Blue Mockingbird, a tropical gem found only in Mexico. [Song of Blue Mockingbird]

Ascending further, to 7000 feet, we’ve entered a misty forest of tropical oaks festooned with bromeliads. Wow! What a flock of warblers working that oak tree! Flashy Townsend’s Warblers and glowing yellow Hermit Warblers [Song of Hermit Warbler], foraging alongside the splendid Crescent-chested Warblers of the tropics.

And listen to that!  It’s a Brown-backed Solitaire singing, a song that fills the Mexican forest as no other can. [Song of the Brown-backed Solitaire]

For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.

###

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Western Tanager call notes, Hermit Warbler song and Brown-backed Solitaire song and song of Blue Mockingbird  and call of Bullock’s Oriole recorded by G.A. Keller. 
Wings and calls of Berylline Hummingbirds recorded by Martyn Stewart of naturesound.org
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson

© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org     December 2014/2015/2018/2021     Narrator: Mary McCann

ID#122705oaxacaKPLU   oaxaca-01b