Recent bird sightings from Chiapas, Mexico

Chiapas bird news - I have a new bird ID book - A guide to the Birds of Mexico and Central America - it is very large and too heavy to take farther than the porch - someday I will feel courageous and cut it into 3 parts, extracting the center illustrations from the descriptions.

I was surprised yesterday by a Black and White warbler hopping up, and around, the trunk of a tree - acting just like a nuthatch. Two Roadside hawks are patrolling my 2 acres of yard looking for a nesting site. They spotted a Melodious blackbird nest in a ficus tree ten feet from my porch. One hawk landed on a wall just beyond the tree and immediately found itself surrounded and attacked by Boat-billed flycatchers, White-winged doves, Great-tailed grackles, and other blackbirds- all screaming at it. A dive-bombing flycatcher finally sent it off to a distant tree from where it screamed back at its attackers - it was a war. The presence of the hawks has totally disrupted the dove's morning feeding of rice and corn.

I usually put the food on the ground under a tree - NO WAY! They won't go near food that isn't under open sky. The hawks will nest in May - then it will be the Brown jay's turn to do the molesting - they are large, feisty, and can kill hawks. At the moment the jays are eating my mangos and the agoutis (small animals) are eating my squash - there are several wars going on - only the iguanas are peaceful.

Charlotte Hignutt (formally of Denton, MD)