Central Mexico & Baja: Birds, Butterflies & Whales

This exciting birding tour in the Field Guides schedule, inaugurated in 2020, promises top-notch birding from mountains and meadows around Mexico City to the coastal deserts and mangrove lagoons near the tip of Baja. Along the way we’ll search for some sweet endemics (Xantus’s Hummer, Belding’s Yellowthroat, and Sierra Madre Sparrow, to name a few) and a multitude of other Mexican specialties. This tour also highlights two of the most remarkable long-distance migrants in the animal kingdom: the Gray Whale and Monarch Butterfly.

Every year Monarch Butterflies find their way to the conifer forests of Central Mexico, where they congregate in the tens of thousands to form hanging baskets that cloak the trees. This is truly one of the most impressive butterfly spectacles in the world. It takes several generations to complete this migration from Mexico to Canada, each generation moving a little farther north, step-by-step, and, incredibly, it is the fourth generation of Monarchs that returns to Mexico, having never been there before. How do they accomplish this incredible feat? At the same time of year, Gray Whales migrate from Arctic waters to the warm lagoons off the coast of the Baja Peninsula, the longest migration of any mammal on Earth, a distance of 11,000 miles. February is the best month to see mothers and calves at Magdalena Bay, where we’ll spend a night at a luxury tent camp on the beach.

In our days of exploring the highlands around Mexico City, we’ll search for the Sierra Madre Sparrow, a bird restricted to alpine meadows in the volcanic belt and placed in its own genus, Xenospiza. Another species in a monotypic genus we hope to encounter is the Striped Sparrow, a spectacular Mexican endemic of high-elevation bunch grass. Black-chested Sparrow, too is on the menu, found in weedy fields at lower elevations along with Rusty-crowned Ground-Sparrow and Banded Quail. Other endemics we’ll search for in the Mexico City region include Black-polled Yellowthroat, Strickland’s Woodpecker, Red Warbler, Golden-crowned Emerald, and Green-striped Brushfinch.

Of the Baja endemics, we’ll focus on Cape Pygmy-Owl, Xantus’s Hummingbird, Gray Thrasher, San Lucas Robin, and Belding’s Yellowthroat and the San Lucas Cassin’s Vireo. The Baird’s Junco is out of our reach because it’s found only at the highest elevations within the Sierra de la Laguna mountains, a hard day’s hike involving camping. We would be remiss not to mention Mexico’s colorful culture and delicious food. Make sure you bring an appetite, as we will be sampling authentic enchiladas, sopes, and tlacoyos. So, grab your binocs and prepare for awe as we explore deep forests, high mountains, arid deserts, and open waters in search of Mexico’s most spectacular natural wonders!