After an excellent few days in Oaxaca (pronounced Wah-hah-kah), we´re moving further East. Though not as quickly as we had hoped thanks to all the buses being full up because of the holidays. Why couldn´t those bastard christians keep their crappy traditions to themselves instead of infecting most of the rest of the world.
Following our excellent day with Eric, we spent the next couple of days wandering around the village of Teotitlan del valle trying to catch up with a few more local specialties. The fields south of the village were fairly quiet but still we saw our first Blue Grosbeak and Western Wood-pewee.
By far the most productive area was around the reservoir just to the North of the village. Wandering around the roadside scrub and following cattle trails up onto the slopes gave us Bridled Sparrow and Ocellated Thrasher, 2 very range-restricted species, along with Audobons Oriole and Elegant Trogon at the southernmost extreme of their range (the birds in Central America are considered a sperate species by many, including me if I see one). We followed the road up the hill a bit further until we found a promising looking dry stream-bed leading up into the woods. Promising it most certainly was, we scored with a couple of Oaxaca Sparrows, a very difficult to see endemic, and I even got some acceptable photos, of which it seems there are none on the internet so far, i´ll be uploading them onto this blog as soon as I get some decent internet facilities, along with heaps of other shots of course.
We´re currently waiting outside Oaxaca bus station for a bus or three towards Palenque, which will be a very uncomfortabe 18 hours i´m sure. It should be worth it though as the avifauna will be totally different from anything we've seen so far, so I should have plenty more to write about. I'm also really looking forward to seeing the Maya ruins that the site is famous for, it will certainly make for an 'interesting' way to spend christmas. Bollocks to tradition!!!!
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