Ep. #63: Birding Southern Mexico

So Caleb, Oaxaca has been on my mind for a long time.

You know, our good friend Chase, we always talk about where do we want to go next? And all these places keep coming up, but Oaxaca is one that Chase has had on his mind for a long time.

And we had been planning this trip to Sani Lodge in Ecuador, But then I went and got engaged, which put a bit of a wrench in that system there.

My reasoning was that if I'm going to go and do an international trip right before my wedding, I don't want to have that potential of yellow fever or whatever other diseases I might pick up in the humid, mosquito-infested lowlands of the Amazon rainforest.

Exactly.

I thought that'd be a good way to really honk off my bride-to-be right before the wedding if I went and got super sick.

I didn't completely avoid that hazard, as I'll get into on this Mexico diversion here.

But we decided to do Oaxaca instead.

I said, guys, I don't think I can pull off South America.

Can we do something a little closer, a little bit more temperate? And they said, sure, let's do it.

So we decided to do Oaxaca and Chiapas.

You know, it's one of these places that as a North American birder, you hear about red warbler, pink headed warbler, rose bellied bunting, all of these absolutely stunning birds.

So we just pulled the trigger and we hired a guide and we went right on down there.

oh my gosh yeah this is this is like uh when people told us in one of those other episodes you guys are sleeping on mexico and we were totally we got we got we got it handed to us like rightly so you are talking about almost the center of it where there's all these cool endemics out in south mexico and up in the mountains and like the dwarf jay and some of the buntings and a whole bunch of other stuff too.

So what a fun trip.

I wish I could have joined you guys on this one, but it's just schedule-wise and there was too much uncertainty in my schedule and my finances.

And I was really sorry to miss it.

But the other thing is you've been so busy since you got home.

I've heard almost nothing about this.

So the listeners are going to be getting the real-time update at the same time I am.

yeah absolutely well man i've got this uh trip report pulled up i thought it's a fun way to visualize these these trip reports if any listeners out there are unfamiliar with this ebird functionality basically you can go in and set your date range and it'll automatically pull all of your checklists and all of your checklist media into a report that'll summarize all the species you saw and you've got this really cool uh map here which shows every single checklist on a map that you submitted so if i uh if i zoom out here You can see that we were kind of in the southern strip of Mexico here, Oaxaca and Chiapas.

We started up in Oaxaca City, and on the first day, we actually went up into these pine forests that are up in the mountains just north of Oaxaca.

And I'll tell you what, I've been so busy, I didn't have time to really prepare and research even where I was going.

So I knew that it was piney up there, but the vibes up there are unlike any place I've ever been before in my life.

Yep.

So Caleb, Oaxaca has been on my mind for a long time.

You know, our good friend Chase, we always talk about where do we want to go next? And all these places keep coming up, but Oaxaca is one that Chase has had on his mind for a long time.

And we had been planning this trip to Sani Lodge in Ecuador, But then I went and got engaged, which put a bit of a wrench in that system there.

My reasoning was that if I'm going to go and do an international trip right before my wedding, I don't want to have that potential of yellow fever or whatever other diseases I might pick up in the humid, mosquito-infested lowlands of the Amazon rainforest.

Exactly.

I thought that'd be a good way to really honk off my bride-to-be right before the wedding if I went and got super sick.

I didn't completely avoid that hazard, as I'll get into on this Mexico diversion here.

But we decided to do Oaxaca instead.

I said, guys, I don't think I can pull off South America.

Can we do something a little closer, a little bit more temperate? And they said, sure, let's do it.

So we decided to do Oaxaca and Chiapas.

You know, it's one of these places that as a North American birder, you hear about red warbler, pink headed warbler, rose bellied bunting, all of these absolutely stunning birds.

So we just pulled the trigger and we hired a guide and we went right on down there.

oh my gosh yeah this is this is like uh when people told us in one of those other episodes you guys are sleeping on mexico and we were totally we got we got we got it handed to us like rightly so you are talking about almost the center of it where there's all these cool endemics out in south mexico and up in the mountains and like the dwarf jay and some of the buntings and a whole bunch of other stuff too.

So what a fun trip.

I wish I could have joined you guys on this one, but it's just schedule-wise and there was too much uncertainty in my schedule and my finances.

And I was really sorry to miss it.

But the other thing is you've been so busy since you got home.

I've heard almost nothing about this.

So the listeners are going to be getting the real-time update at the same time I am.

yeah absolutely well man i've got this uh trip report pulled up i thought it's a fun way to visualize these these trip reports if any listeners out there are unfamiliar with this ebird functionality basically you can go in and set your date range and it'll automatically pull all of your checklists and all of your checklist media into a report that'll summarize all the species you saw and you've got this really cool uh map here which shows every single checklist on a map that you submitted so if i uh if i zoom out here You can see that we were kind of in the southern strip of Mexico here, Oaxaca and Chiapas.

We started up in Oaxaca City, and on the first day, we actually went up into these pine forests that are up in the mountains just north of Oaxaca.

And I'll tell you what, I've been so busy, I didn't have time to really prepare and research even where I was going.

So I knew that it was piney up there, but the vibes up there are unlike any place I've ever been before in my life.

Yep.