Los Pinos

Today we visited Los Pinos, the pines, north of San Rafael del Norte.  The terrain was much like the pine-oak habitat of southeast Arizona, but rather more open because the land is used for cattle grazing.  It seems most of the green and black warblers of north America like this habitat.  We saw Hermit, Townsend’s, Black-throated Green and Grace’s warblers, all in the pines.  We missed the Golden-cheeked, but it’s sometimes found there, too.  Other birds were the highlights of the visit, though.  Black-headed Siskin, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (for Peggy), and Lesser Roadrunner were the lifers.  Later, at man-made Lake Apanás, we found a group of Grassland Yellow Finches for the last lifer of the day.

We have one more half day of birding here at El Jaguar.  We clearly aren’t going to make my goal of 25 life birds, but we already have 13 and that is quite respectable I think.