In the 1980s and 90s I spent a lot of time in Mexico leading natural history tours. One place that I spent a lot of time was the archeological ruins of Palenque. The site was quite amazing in itself, and the birds and other wildlife made it even better. Since I was here so often I produced a checklist of the birds, which included notes on other wildlife that we might encounter. The center of the cove was an illustration that I did, and modified of one of the temples. You can see that I added the forested hillside to the background, that was not on the original illustration.
One intriguing mammal, among many including howler monkey and the illusive tapir was the jaguar.
Prior to one trip, while scouting for species in the evening I found several species of owls calling and even better a jaguar, all while safely driving, The owls were pleasnt, although expected, The jaguar was a complete surprise. Fortunately, I was not wandering alone on foot, which I was prone to do in those days.
A few days later, when I had the tour participants with me I took took them to the same spot at 4 am where we heard one of the owls. Then off in the distance I heard a familiar sound and brought the people out of the can. Soon we were listening to distant howler monkeys. Much to our surprise something directly overhead started to shriek loudly. I smiled to myself turning to ask the others if they had heard that (you couldn’t miss it since it was so loud) only to find the road empty and the van full. When I got into the van I asked why they had made such a hasty retreat into the vehicle. To a person they replied that they thought if was a jaguar responding to our presence. I laughed, telling then no. It was the closest that I had even been to a howler. And so the day started.
One aspect of being so familiar with knowing an area well, is knowing where to find certain birds at specific times of the day. There was an area where manakins displayed behind one of the ruins. There was the oropendola colony close to the food stands just outside of the entrance to the ruins. But late in the afternoon, just before the site closed, there were some ruins that you could sit on facing the forest and watch late afternoon foraging flocks of tanagers, parrots, howlers and more. Sometime besides finding a last meal of the day the animals would visit a large tree where the main trunk had snapped leaving a large, and apparently deep depression that filled with water. Here many species would stop to drink. One evening we watched three araçari was they stopped for a late night drink. Here ws the perfect way to end the day.
On another occasion, along the road away from the ruins we found one of the most interesting animals I can remember encountering near Palenque. Of course there was the time I had spooked an adult tapir, allowing me a brief view as it disappeared into the forest before I could show it to anybody. I was surprised at how agile and fast it was. And there were the numerous times that I encountered fer-de-lance, a venomous snake with a nasty reputation. But better than all of those was discovering a tamandua along the main road heading to Palenque. This ws a beautiful arboreal anteater that I had not seen before (even in a zoo) or since.
Next time I write about Mexico I will focus on stories from other sites.
Michael's Place 