Smartly, 2023 has ended, so it’s time to seem again on the previous yr’s birding. The pleasures of birding are many and sundry, so this sort of put up at all times comes to a listing. On this case, I had now not but written about a few of these sightings, so there’ll in truth be a little of latest data on this put up. I can additionally go back to a number of birds that have already seemed right here. However right here is going, a listing of my favourite sightings for 2023:
You stole my center, you rascal you: We made a big commute to Europe, North Africa, and Turkey in overdue October, November and early December, combining paintings with some down time. The paintings a part of this commute integrated ten days spent in a suburban community of Marrakesh, Morocco. I used to be now not in a position to get out and do a lot critical birding, however thankfully, in Morocco the birds come to you.
I’ve observed few species with the phrase “Area” of their English names (Area Sparrow, Wren, and Finch), in addition to a few “Barn” birds (Barn Swallows and Owls). However Morocco’s instance is by means of some distance the “housiest” of all of them. The Area Bunting is it appears regarded as, relying at the supply, someplace at the spectrum from just right success to divine. Centuries of such attention have produced a fowl that now not handiest happens round properties or nests on their partitions; it in truth is going into properties, with nice self belief. Our hosts’ condominium had an everlasting hole to the outside, so those would fly in once or more an afternoon to try the residing/eating room ground for crumbs. Our hosts weren’t amused. However I used to be.
Sadly, I used to be nonetheless within the procedure of having familiar with a brand new digicam, and didn’t set up any first rate indoor pictures. So that you’ll have to just accept this picture of a Area Bunting on a neighbor’s balcony ledge.
Area Buntings: lovely, heaps of angle, and an overly delightful tune as smartly.
I had waited see you later to satisfy you: In Would possibly and June, I made a couple of business trips to Mexico’s tropical state of Tabasco. Thankfully, I additionally had a touch there who’s an avid birder, and who maximum kindly put his lifestyles on grasp for a few days to take me birding. This was once Mexico’s completely most up to date time of the yr, however a complete 30 lifers made it price it. And a couple of have been birds I had up to now handiest dreamed of seeing:
The Northern Potoo: This “pájaro estaca” (“stick fowl”) has been on my want listing ever since I first noticed footage of it.
The Pink-capped Manakin: Seeing a nesting feminine wasn’t relatively as just right as seeing a male do its well-known and hilarious courtship “moondance”, the megastar of many nature movies. Nevertheless it was once shut.
The Gartered Trogon: In Michoacán, our two trogon species are each purple, white and inexperienced (just like the Mexican flag). So I had at all times sought after to peer a yellow-breasted one. Which I did, in Tabasco.
We have now a number of stunning tanagers in Michoacán. However I had at all times sought after to peer the extravagant tropical tanagers, corresponding to this Golden-hooded Tanager.
I’d have longed to peer you, had I identified higher: As we are saying right here in Mexico, the Lengthy-billed Gnatwren definitely “da honor a su nombre” — does honor its title.
And if I had identified about it sooner than my good friend discovered it for me, the impressive Black-collared Hawk would surely have additionally been on my bucket listing. That is a type of uncommon hawks that most commonly feeds on snails.
Why didn’t you do this the primary time? In 2022, whilst in Turkey for our first time, I noticed my first Dipper, a White-throated Dipper. Nevertheless it was once an surprisingly dry and scorching October 1st, and the lovely fowl was once handiest in a position to dip its head in its shallow circulate. Thankfully, in overdue November of 2023, I used to be in a position to return to the similar website online. This time the elements was once bitterly chilly, and rainy sufficient for localized flooding. So I used to be in the end in a position to peer a Dipper do what has given them their status: submerging themselves totally in frigid, speeding streams. (It will take video to in point of fact display the revel in, so that you’ll must take my phrase for it.)
What the heck are you doing right here? Even though they have been most commonly new to me, the entire species discussed above have been observed precisely the place they will have to be. However the feminine Hooded Merganser that grew to become up in a pond only some hundred meters/yards from the church I pastor had come what may traveled a rustic clear of its herbal vary, making it my maximum peculiar sighting for the yr.
In spite of everything, plenty of go back and forth led to 44 lifers for the yr. 4 have been from the tropical coast of Guerrero state, 30 from tropical Tabasco, 1 from Spain, 4 from Morocco, 3 from Turkey, and handiest 2 from right here in Michoacán state — a Buff-collared Nightjar, and that vagrant Merganser.