A trip to Veracruz, Mexico (7 pictures, 464 KB)

D

Don Luis

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Dec 26, 2002
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I spent three days over at Veracruz, Mexico last week and thought I should share some pictures. This is a tropical forest area known as "Los Tuxtlas" near the center south of the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed at Catemaco, a town on a lake side with about 45,000 population. Mel Gibson was around making a new film.

Luis

View of the town of Catemaco from our Hotel:

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View of the same town from Boat:

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Hey, get off the boat!

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Birds on a tree:

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Don't get too close...

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On our way to the Eyipantla falls:

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View from the top:

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Great Pictures, one day I hope to visit your country and see what it really looks like. Not just the border and tourist versions
 
Looks like a beautiful area, thanks for posting.

The birds in the tree could be cormorants or anhingas, I'm not sure which.
 
Good job. I believe these are cormorants.

I enlarged and cropped one part of the picture. You can see the orange patch under the chin in the adult on the left and the blunt bill. The end of their bill has a hooked knob, which I think would be easier to see in a closer picture. The white and brown one on the right is a juvenile. The question though is which species. Where I live, there is only one, the Double-Crested Cormorant. That's what these look like, but you have several other species in Mexico which I am not familiar with. Could be one of those also.

Anhingas have longer necks, very pointed needle-like bills (like a Spyderco Delica :)), and white outer feathers on their wings. They also have no oil glands, so they often dry themselves by sitting in the sun with their wings outstretched. A person from Florida posted some pics of them awhile back - that is the classic pose that you often see.

You're lucky being in Mexico. You get migrants from both North and South America.
 

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Cormorants, Interesting, there were lots of other birds, including white ones, and ducks and pelicans. I cropped and enlarged the same bird from the original of that last picture for a better view.

Luis

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Don Luis said:
I spent three days over at Veracruz, Mexico last week and thought I should share some pictures. This is a tropical forest area known as "Los Tuxtlas" near the center south of the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed at Catemaco, a town on a lake side with about 45,000 population. Mel Gibson was around making a new film.

Luis

View from the top:

imm3ad.jpg
Click to expand...

Thats gorgeous! I'm sending a box of green chiclets to ya for that one! :thumbup:
 
tarsier said:
Good job. I believe these are cormorants.

I enlarged and cropped one part of the picture. You can see the orange patch under the chin in the adult on the left and the blunt bill. The end of their bill has a hooked knob, which I think would be easier to see in a closer picture. The white and brown one on the right is a juvenile. The question though is which species. Where I live, there is only one, the Double-Crested Cormorant. That's what these look like, but you have several other species in Mexico which I am not familiar with. Could be one of those also.

Anhingas have longer necks, very pointed needle-like bills (like a Spyderco Delica :)), and white outer feathers on their wings. They also have no oil glands, so they often dry themselves by sitting in the sun with their wings outstretched. A person from Florida posted some pics of them awhile back - that is the classic pose that you often see.

You're lucky being in Mexico. You get migrants from both North and South America.
Click to expand...

Looks like Phalacrocorax brasilianus or Neotropic (Olivaceous) Cormorant. Better picture here. Do you agree?

Thanks to Don Luis for sharing the photos.
 
mycroftt said:
Looks like Phalacrocorax brasilianus or Neotropic (Olivaceous) Cormorant. Better picture here. Do you agree?
Click to expand...
Well, I'm reading your links. If it was spring, and they were in breeding plumage, we would be able to tell easier by looking for the white border behind the bill. Since they're in non-breeding plumage, the only clue is whether the throat pouch is yellowish. It does appear that way in Don Luis' enlarged picture, so you may be right.

By the way, that first link mentions that cormorants also lack oil for their feathers. I didn't know that. I thought it was unique to anhingas. I remember reading somewhere that this is an adaptation to swimming underwater. Birds that have waterproof feathers retain a lot of air when underwater, which insulates them, but also makes them very buoyant. So it's harder to stay underwater and takes a lot of energy. If their feathers get waterlogged, it makes swimming underwater easier. The tradeoff is that when they get out, they have to dry off before flying very far.
 
tarsier said:
Well, I'm reading your links. If it was spring, and they were in breeding plumage, we would be able to tell easier by looking for the white border behind the bill. Since they're in non-breeding plumage, the only clue is whether the throat pouch is yellowish. It does appear that way in Don Luis' enlarged picture, so you may be right.

By the way, that first link mentions that cormorants also lack oil for their feathers. I didn't know that. I thought it was unique to anhingas. I remember reading somewhere that this is an adaptation to swimming underwater. Birds that have waterproof feathers retain a lot of air when underwater, which insulates them, but also makes them very buoyant. So it's harder to stay underwater and takes a lot of energy. If their feathers get waterlogged, it makes swimming underwater easier. The tradeoff is that when they get out, they have to dry off before flying very far.
Click to expand...

The double-crested cormorants are common where I live, too. You can always see them standing around in the wing-spread posture drying out their feathers.
 
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