Birds on Winter Holidays

It seems we are usually too busy to bird when we are at home, so when we go away it becomes a priority. I would love to see tropical birds, but a lot of what we see in Central Mexico are birds, like us, escaping the cold Saskatchewan winters.

We drove to Herbert last spring to see a White-faced Ibis and were excited to see one from a great distance. Yesterday in Mazatlan, Mexico, we saw one less than 20 feet from us. Colours not quite as pretty as the rust of the breeding bird, it was still a very pleasant find. And much smaller than I had expected.

Beside the same small water body, we also saw an American Bittern. This is a bird I don't think I've ever seen in Saskatchewan, though its voice is more often encountered. For a reportedly shy bird, it stayed in sight long enough for me to take several photos. Of course there were no slough reeds for it to hide in here, though I must say, at one point it tried anyway.