Dr Alfredo Barrera M. Botanical Garden

Is a site I wanted to visit previously and offers 60-hectare patch of medium height tropical forest via a 3km of well maintained trails.

In addition to a path through the native forest there are educational dislays of Cacti, Ornimentals, Medicinal plants and a small Maya ruin.

About a 25 min ride from Cancun just south of the village of Puerto Morelos, and cost just a couple of quid in one of these mini busses.

don't get there to early !!

Along the paths most of the American warblers can be seen as well as both Spot breasted and White-bellied Wren, Green and Brown Jay's, both Cinnamon and Buff-bellied hummer's and Lesser Greenlet's up in the Canopy, further along added both Yucatan Flycatcher and Woodpecker.

Magnolia Warbler

American Redstart

Northern waterthrush

In addition to the birds there are many Lizards, Snakes and the occasional Crock!!!

Raptor fest

Added both Marsh Harrier (male) and Red Kite this morning on the patch and all thanks to John Archer who was watching Crossness and both birds crossed the Thames though distant!

Otherwise it was pretty quite migrant wise bar two Chiffchaff and two northen Wheatear, 4 Ringed Plover were in the bay were the only other notables.

XBilled Gull

Came across this Herring Gull a fortnight ago at Pitsea tip, and again yesterday at the stone barges at Rainham where I managed to get some pics of this strange normality, not quite sure why this happens, but sure it may be just as happy feeding in the pine forest's of Scotland!!

cone u believe it!

Nice to hear plenty of Chiffchaffs around at the moment and still at least one Water Pipit knocking around, the Common Sandpiper seen was probably the usual wintering bird.

Lightening does strike twice

It was about this time last year when i was traveling southbound on the M3, and was between Fleet services and the Hook, and as every birdwatcher does is scanning the countryside, its about 7am pretty cool, good light bombing it down lane two when I spot a bird in front about 150yds in from the motorway sitting on top of a dead tree, oh that's a big Buzzard I say to myself, then as I get nearer the scale of the bird then sinks in, it was fucking HUGE, heart racing, eyes starring. As I'm now getting level with the bird I can now see the massive side on bill, OMG its a White-Tailed Eagle. Shit, panic, swerve, then realise I'm still doing 70 and that I'm driving !!

I rang RBA and my local birders who all sounded like they were getting out of bed (not together), and wasn't until then realising its got to be the bird that was seen south of Basingstoke area over the winter and that perhaps it was this bird on the move north?

So back to Friday 30th March Chadwell st mary's (just north of Tilbury, Essex) having been working with Shaunboy the last couple of months it was not rude of us to both be bringing our binoculars to work!

Shaun having spotting a raptor the previous day, turning out to be a Red Kite which gave the most amazing views right above us for five minutes before gaining height and flying west, Awesome.

I walked outside of this house, have a cheeky scan with the eyes, ''Shaunboy quick'', Shaun comes running, ''Look over there'' we both see a large bird circling, shaun runs to the van, I keep watching, slowly making my way to the van.

We both have our bins now and are watching this bird best part of a mile away, mmmm its very big I point out, Its circling on flat wings which kind of ruled out Buzzard, then the thing starts flying towards us its getting bigger and bigger wings still flat, a very powerful shudder of the wings made this bird move quicker. Still not seeing much of a tail another thought was Osprey but we still could see no colour on the bird. By this time the bird was almost above us it opened its wings and began to circle again '' Its a fucking Eagle, its a fucking White-tail, me and Shaunboy are jumping up and down, hearts racing, we try to compose ourselves and note some detail. Enormous wings and very very broad, short wedge shaped tail that had some white mottling, we had clear blue sky so could make out its uniform brown colour which was pretty much the same throughout the bird bar some paler streaks on the belly, on its right wing there was a primary missing probably p7, its circling gaining height still, a large gull sp was dwarfed by the eagle as it drifted west.

Still in disbelief on our sighting we both get on the Phone ringing local birders to try and get the bird seen as it headed London bound, the rest of the afternoon was pretty much a blur..........

Expect the Unexpected

Another Gull ringing session today with the NTGG, this time a bit further along the river to Pitsea landfill site a new venue for me and Shaunboy, after a 7am brief it was onto the tip where thousands of gull were evident, comprising of mainly of Black heads.

setting the net

bait layed

here they come

Two catches were made today and the first about 9:30 was a good mixture of mainly Black-heads, Lesser black backs and Herring with a single Common, up to 3 pairs of Med Gulls were milling around but always just outside the catch!

pair of meds

herring

Common

After the first catch was processed we set up for another and it was evident that more larger gulls had moved onto the tip, so with a fresh delivery of rubbish we wait for the birds to once again feed and settle, all scanning around mr Bonser shouts '' Iceland Gull above us '' we all look up to see this Iceland flying above us in the bright sun light and as we all watch the bird flying around and settle down in better light its apparent that in fact it is actually the fucking 2w KUMLIENS from last week!!

All excited hi fiving we are even more delighted to then see the bird fly into our catch area just in time for Paul to press the magic button........

The KUMLIENS was bagged along with the rest of the catch, bio's were taken of this bird and is now bearing a nice orange ring with NB9.T on it, after some photo's were taken the bird flew off none the wiser to his ordeal.

Paul extracts the bird to an applause!!

beauty and the beast !

showing darker g covs and tail band

Ringing Total's

Herring 128

Black Heads 223

Lesser B B 22

Common 1

Ice/Kumliens 1

A great end to the final winter ringing season which produced a first UK rung kumliens.

the old girl couldn't handle the excitement

On the Beach

A selection of birds found on the beach's of Cancun or what i would like to call Sunbed tick's!

This 1w Ring-billed gull was the only one seen and hung around for all of ten seconds.

Laughing gulls are Common.

Magnificent Frigate birds are seen daily.

Brown Pelicans are obvious.

Sanderling.

Osprey fished the coastline.

Vireo's and Hummer nest

The three commonest vireo species you can see around the hotel grounds are the endemic Yucatan, White-eyed and Mangrove all fairly numerous and vocal.

Yucatan

White-eyed

Mangrove

Found this Hummingbird (cinnamon) nest whilst trying to photograph an Osprey along the beach, it was nesting in the smallest bracken type bush closest to the sea!

I went back another day and patiently waited for the bird to go off to feed before grabbing a shot off the two smallest chick's in the world, No bigger than a thumb nail each! Amazing.