Birds and Mayan architecture in the Yucatan

Birds and Mayan architecture in the Yucatán

The Yucatán peninsula of Mexico is a well-known location for tropical birdlife. A geological oddity – almost entirely limestone – and the tropical climate combine to provide breeding space for a fairly long list of endemic species. Its status as a resort destination, however, makes it vulnerable to development. Much of the unique tropical forest remains today, even if locally in decline, so our group of international travelers decided to make it our destination for two-week visit. We found it to be alive with color and bird sounds. The Mayan civilization of past millennia (2000 BCE – 1700 CE) left their mark in structures scattered throughout the peninsula, making for a ruins-and-birding experience that has no parallel. 

Our trip followed a circular route around the peninsula, from Yucatán to Campeche to Quintana Roo. Beginning in Mérida, we stayed at the historic and elegant Hotel del Peregrino. Our capable driver, Omar Orduña, picked us up and whisked us south to the Mayan ruins. (It's probably more accurate to call them "Mayan structures," since they persist to this day.) We visited Xlapak (pronounced shla-pock) and Labná in the afternoon, finding our first antswarm out in front of the Labná gate. It didn't take long to rack up some of the incredible winged colors, with good looks at Lesson's Motmot, Turquoise-browed Motmot, Tawny-winged Woodcreeper, Ivory-billed Woodcreeper, Rose-throated Becard, Spot-breasted Wren, Altamira Oriole, and a handful of neotropical migrants. We were excited to find our first endemics of the trip, Yucatán Flycatcher and Yucatán Jay. Dinner was tasty Mexican-Mayan tacos and poc chuc at a small restaurant on the Ticul plaza.

Uxmal pyramid

Altamira Oriole, Uxmal

 The next morning, we entered the huge complex called Uxmal (oosh-mahl), known for its uniquely rounded-off pyramid. Entered, that is, after being distracted in the parking lot by a feeding flock that included C. Squirrel-Cuckoo, Cinnamon Hummingbird, Olivaceous Woodcreeper, Cinnamon-bellied Saltator, and a gleaming endemic Orange Oriole. The Uxmal site was overwhelming in size, and at least early in the day, we had it to ourselves. This was our first lesson in the fact that some of the best birding is right at the foot of the Mayan structures, where mature tropical trees draw them in. A familiar American Kestrel zipped past us holding something yellow in its talons. We followed it up to a perch in a large tree, where we could see that it had just nabbed a male Hooded Warbler, which it happily devoured. Omar took us to a splendid local lunch spot which had yet more birds in the trees all around. Yellow-faced Grassquits prowled the ground.

3 Orange Oriole

4 Blue Bunting

Yucatan Jay, Uxmal

We returned to the Labná site, where this time we really did have the place entirely to ourselves. There are thousands of Mayan archeological sites, most being painstakingly restored and researched at great cost to the Mexican government. More are being uncovered each year. Mayan artists and engineers developed arches, temples, intricate stone carvings, and pyramidal ceremonial structures independently of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The power and reach of the Mayan civilization was almost incomprehensible. Omar explained that they would have deforested the land to supply fuel to prepare building materials like mortar and fired limestone blocks. Today, the forest has reclaimed the sites. As we walked slowly through the grand architecture at Labná, we got point-blank looks at motmots, an endemic Yucatán Woodpecker, and more flycatchers and warblers.  We had a happy and peaceful night at Quinta Rosita in Ticul. ("Peaceful" in Mexico means roosters, some calling at 2 am.)

6 The quadrangle at the Uxmal site	7 Turquoise-browed Motmot
8 The “gateway arch” at Labná

The next morning we were still not done with the Mayans, so we drove back down to the Kabáh and Sayil sites. There were impressive structures built from a gazillion limestone blocks, and more birdlife. Canivet’s Emerald, Masked Tityra, Green-backed Sparrow, and another Orange Oriole were added to the list. A dark avian creature in dried branches proved to be an endemic Blue Bunting, with plumage glistening with velvet even in the shadows. We motored back to Mérida.

9 “Grand Palace” at Sayil	10 The massive Uxmal pyramid
11 Sculptured wall at Xlapak

 

Early the next morning, we loaded the luggage into the van with one seat left empty. One participant was stricken by a nasty flu virus and would be staying home, a severe disappointment for him and all of us. Driving north from Mérida we spent the early morning on Camino a Misnébalam, a simple country road with lots of birdlife. A Gray-crowned Yellowthroat perched for nice views while a Mangrove Vireo darted between branches overhead, but possibly the best of the day was a Lesser Roadrunner weaving between cows in a pasture. A Ferruginous Pygmy Owl perched right overhead and tooted loudly. We would have this species every day of our trip – they are astoundingly common on the Yucatán.  We drove on to Chuburná and headed toward the beach. I noticed that Omar missed a left turn and we ended up in a scrubby patch of undisturbed vegetation, uncommon in this resort area. I was about to say something when Jim yelled “Stop – get out of the van. Sheartails!” We spent the next 15 minutes admiring a group of 3 or 4 endemic Mexican Sheartails battling for perch sites. This is a truly impressive hummingbird with long tail feathers shaped like the name, and we got brief looks at sunlit gorgets and a curved bill like Lucifer. We heard gnatcatcher noises, and a few minutes of searching turned up a pair of endemic Yucatán Gnatcatchers. What a fortunate missed turn!

12 Mexican Sheartail

13 Ferruginous Pygmy Owl

14 Mangrove Vireo

We made a quick stop at the beach and added gulls, terns, and shorebirds to the list, but those were not target birds. Jim followed his instincts into the coastal scrub, and within a few minutes we were staring at a pair of endemic Yucatán Wrens, together with a chocolate-headed male Mangrove Yellow Warbler, recently split.

15 Yucatán Wren

16 Bird guide in Celestún. Surname Ching?

By late afternoon the van had made it to the coastal city of Celestún. At a stop at “El Mirador,” right beside the highway and at the edge of town, the Ría was properly filled up with herons, pelicans and egrets, one of them (Reddish) within spitting distance. We gazed at our first group of American Flamingos in the scope. A pair of stunning Common Black Hawks soared overhead in the warm afternoon air. Jim kept his eye on the vultures, and quickly found a Lesser Yellow-headed circling right overhead, alongside the Turkey Vultures. Our spartan hotel was beside the beach, populated by Sandwich and Royal Terns. Dinner next door was splendid, but the ceaseless motorcycle traffic next to the hotel was not.

17 Common Black Hawk

18 Celestún tourist center

Lesson's Motmot, Celestún

In the morning we searched the roadside mangroves of Celestún and found Bare-throated Tiger-heron and a perched black hawk, but by 9:00 were aboard a boat cruising into the mangroves. Our driver Mario made quick stops to show us Wood Storks and a Lesser Black-backed Gull in the flock of Laughing Gulls, but the prime objective was a large group of American Flamingos in a quiet inlet of the Ría Celestún. The color of the flamingo plumage is beyond belief, and we were not sad to get beached on the sandy bottom so we could admire and photograph at will. Mario negotiated a narrow stream to show us a dazzling American Pygmy Kingfisher, and a nearby resting American Crocodile.  After a delicious meal at a tiny restaurant on the town plaza, we buckled up for the longest drive of the trip, five and a half hours south. Omar made the miles go by with a playlist of salsa music, some of which featured his percussion.

20 American Flamingo

21 American Pygmy Kingfisher

In Xpujil (shpoo-heel), we had the worst logistical failure of the trip when our appointed hotel, reserved seven months prior, seemed to have lost our paperwork and sent the employees home for the night. Omar saved the day by setting us up at a simpler place a half mile away, Otoch Béek, run by a Mayan family that made delicious Yucatecan food. So we departed at six the next morning into the Reserva de la Biósfera de Calakmul. This is a long morning drive but worth it, since we found our first pair of endemic Ocellated Turkeys, which have an array of colorful spots in their plumage that makes them look to have been victims of a color-blind abstract artist with too many paintbrushes. A Keel-billed Toucan sat placidly in the open at the top of the tallest tree, gleaming in the rising sun. Lesser Greenlets and Stub-tailed Spadebill called, and our park guide motioned us up to a view through branches of an Ornate Hawk-Eagle perched in the high canopy, apparently near a nest site. The birding on the road at Calakmul seemed a bit slow, but when we got to the stone pyramids there was an eruption of birdlife: sabrewings zipped around, Black-headed Trogon, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Pale-billed Woodpecker, N. Plain Xenops, and a Tropical Royal Flycatcher, perching long enough for photos. A Bright-rumped Attila staring at us from a branch at eye level made it hard to keep up with the list. Then a small, large-billed bird zipped onto a branch and Jim called out “Tody Motmot!” I gulped. I knew this species was on our checklist, but I never expected it to be a few feet in front of us, perching for a half minute at a time, daring me to photograph it.

Keel-billed Toucan in the Calakmul reserve

Structure at Calakmul

Tody Motmot in the Calakmul reserve

We climbed to the top of the largest structure at Calakmul. Seeing the continuous forest cover stretching out to the horizon, with the occasional Mayan structure poking through, makes it seem like you’ve been transported to a different millennium, as many tourists have commented before. But even here, the birding did not stop, because the archeologists have left a few trees on the structures at highest levels. A small bird darting around the branches at the top proved to be a Mangrove Vireo – really, way up there! A few Central American Spider Monkeys gazed down curiously at us from branches above as we made our way back along the trail to the van. The day was getting late, but we got stuck at an antswarm beside the trail. A Yellow-olive Flatbill, N. Beardless-tyrannulet, Greenish Elaenia, and endemic White-bellied Wren slowed our progress. A Ruddy Quail-dove took cover next to a marsh, and then after another five minutes’ walk … another antswarm. This time, our first Ruddy Woodcreeper perched in view, and a Gray-throated Chat seemed transfixed by the stream of Ecitons going past. It was the end of a great day, and our park guide made speed records to get us back to Omar’s van at the highway as darkness fell. Back at Otoch Béek for dinner, we celebrated with Mexican tequila.

Ruddy Woodcreeper, Calakmul

The forest at Calakmul, stretching to the horizon

 

Gray-throated Chat, Calakmul

The next morning, our fascination with Mayan sites pushed us into Chicanná and Becán, both near Xpujil. Orioles, warblers, flycatchers, trogons, and a coati decorated the place. A pair of Bat Falcons held the throne on a tree branch and fed each other while we watched. A Gartered Violaceous Trogon was on the ground processing a large katydid, which was gradually worked into its mouth and swallowed whole.

28 Ivory-billed Woodcreeper

29 Gartered Violaceous Trogon

30 Bat Falcon

Another round of Omar’s salsa music propelled the van to Hotel Turquesa Maya in Felipe Carrillo Puerto. The town is named for a Mexican revolutionary hero who aided the Mayans, per Omar. The great restaurant across the street served up tasty alambres. Early in the morning, we made our way out to the well-known birding site, Camino Vigia Chico. We called up a Mottled Owl at 6:30, making their amusing and unique series of hoots. Then we walked along the road and picked up many birds of the coastal lowlands, including Red-billed Pigeon, Yellow-lored Amazon, and Spot-breasted Wren (again). We had another Ocellated Turkey, Roadside Hawks, Lineated Woodpecker, Rufous-browed Peppershrike, a Long-billed Gnatwren pair, and Red-crowned Ant-tanager. An antswarm was being officiated by woodcreepers (Barred, Ruddy, and Tawny-winged). We admired the swarm as it surged onto the roadside before retreating to the forest, leaving all the birders without bites. We returned again after lunch to hear the metallic chur of a Northern Bentbill and photographed a roadside Black-headed Trogon. We stayed until dark, hoping for nightjars but heard none. Overall, this area was not as birdy as previous birders had found, so we tried again early the next morning. We managed to get the soft trill of a Middle-American Screech Owl, followed by the haunting call of an unseen Collared Forest-Falcon. We took a side road that cuts (sadly) into a future residential development, and the forest edge habitat gave rise to a stunning Red-capped Manakin and a Rose-throated Tanager. Jim thought it looked good for antbirds, so we played a few calls and got a response from a Mayan Antthrush. We stepped into the woods and stood quietly, and eventually found the antthrush patrolling the leaf litter.

31 Mottled Owl

32 Lineated Woodpecker

33 Black-headed Trogon

 

We were off in the van again, and reached our next hotel in Cobá. The laguna there is one of Yucatán’s well-known birding spots, and we found a Snail Kite, Limpkin, and herons. An alarmed British tourist scolded us for daring to tread on the hotel’s boardwalk amid the hypothetical threat of a crocodile.  From another boardwalk on the southeast corner, we could see endemic Ruddy Crakes running around in the marsh. We heard Russet-naped Wood-rails call, but would not see them until the next day. One of the locals saw us heading into the forest beside the lake and said, “I wouldn’t recommend that trail. There are venomous snakes in there.” Not an effective deterrent for our herp-crazed guide, but we took his cue to head for dinner anyway. Pauraques rang in the night beside the comfortable Ka’ab Cobá hotel. We tried for night birds before sunrise the next morning, and got a single endemic Yucatán Poorwill circling over one of the Mayan sacbe (roads) at the edge of town. Later that day we spent a few hours at Zona Arqueológica Cobá, another amazing display of the Mayans’ construction prowess. We found Ocellated Turkeys in the parking lot as previous birders reported, but they looked tame to me. A family of White-nosed Coatis quietly dug into the soil as we walked past on the trail. We completed our experience of Cobá by going to a Mayan restaurant for lunch, where the chef (who doubles as a masseuse) prepared pibil, chicken heated by hot coals under the dirt – delicious.

34 Russet-naped Wood-rail

35 White-nosed Coati

36 Mayan pibil - chicken for lunch

 

We bid farewell to Omar at the ferry terminal in Playa del Carmen. We walked our bags toward the dock, and purchased tickets from a loud and insistent guy in uniform. He then rushed us right up to the ferry security gate, going past … the official ticket window! I realized we’d been taken in by a re-seller, who padded the purchase to the tune of 90 pesos per ticket! Alas, the hazards of first-time tourism. Nonetheless, an hour later we were lounging by the pool at luxurious Tamarindo Bed and Breakfast on Cozumel. We were startled to find a White-crowned Pigeon in the courtyard of the B&B! I guess they are fairly well adapted to urban life.

Luis, our taxi driver for Cozumel, picked up the group at 6:45 am and was a little perplexed to hear that this loud group of Americans with expensive optics wanted to head for the tropical island’s picturesque sewage treatment plant. (Birders have no shame.) Under a gorgeous tropical sunrise, we were rewarded with Ruddy Crakes running around in full view, and jaçanas, stilts, ibis, Sora, Green-breasted Mango, and endemic Cozumel Emeralds amply demonstrating the value of the redolent location. A gorgeous Blue-winged Warbler illuminated the forest edge. A mile down the road, we pulled off into an abandoned subdivision, which seems to be a cottage industry on Cozumel. It was happily inhabited by a Caribbean Dove, a Caribbean Elaenia, and more endemics: a pair of Cozumel Wrens, Cozumel Vireo, Black Catbirds, Yucatán Woodpecker, and the Cozumel versions of Rufous-browed Peppershrike and Bananaquit. We had celebratory toasts at a brewpub that night. Wait, a brewpub in the Yucatán? It’s a bit of a luxury enabled by the hordes of beach-seeking American tourists.

White-crowned Pigeon on Cozumel

Tequila sunrise on Cozumel (with apologies to Glenn Frey)

Black Catbird on Cozumel

Luis returned again the next day to take us to a dirt road just east of town, which produced repeat looks at the Yucatán specialties, and Cape May and Worm-eating Warblers pushed the warbler trip list to 21 species. At the shuttered Planetario on the south end of town, the surrounding woods were fairly quiet in late morning, but we enjoyed a few more glimpses of a Cozumel Vireo. A fitting end to two fabulous weeks in Mexico.

In the last several years, Mexico has become the target of ugly and uninformed invective by American politicians looking to create headline shock (even as they descend on the country at spring break to go golfing and water skiing). Our two weeks there revealed a different kind of country. The Mexican people deserve praise for protecting their forests and their Mayan heritage. The trogons, motmots, parrots, woodcreepers, flamingo, and toucan serve as proper symbols of a precious and magical landscape that can and hopefully will survive the centuries to come, as Mexico proudly maintains its place in the global biodiversity order.

The wondrous Ocellated Turkey, Calakmul

 

A real winter, for once

A Real Winter, for once – January 2026

At last, we are having a real winter here. The snow, in some parts of our woods, reaches four feet deep in places. The night-time temperatures have been down to 16 below zero F (-27 C) twice. Since sometime in December, the cold has been maintained consistently, except for one thaw, lasting a day, which created a layer of ice. But even that was quickly covered over by new snow. We are hoping that the consistent low temperatures are doing their job to kill off the insect pests that cause trouble for native trees like White Ash, Hemlock, White Spruce, and Balsam Fir.

Birders always hope that this kind of climate will bring northern visitors down from Canada. I can’t say that has really happened, at least not in the Northeast Kingdom. No Snowy Owls, no large flocks of foraging finches. I think this may partly be due to the historic drought that we had in late summer, which discouraged the fruit trees and might have reduced the seed crop from grasses and weeds. A small group of Pine Grosbeaks has been present on an erratic basis, foraging near the top of hardwoods, but mostly just using our roads for grit.

Pine Grosbeak, female

Evening Grosbeaks have visited our feeders a few times, but since they didn’t stay, I suspect they were transients on their way farther south.

We had one visiting finch from the far north, a Redpoll. It accompanied the more persistent group of about 40 American Goldfinches that use seed feeders in the yard. Redpolls can have big years in Vermont, but this does not seem to be one of them. In February 2021, we had a flock of a few dozen Redpolls. This year, just a single bird has appeared in our yard on three separate days.  It looked to be in the Common Redpoll race. For a long time, taxonomists recognized Common and Hoary Redpolls as separate species, with the Hoary inhabiting the Arctic north. But analysis of the genetics has erased the distinction, and Common and Hoary are now considered to be in a spectrum of regional forms of the single species Redpoll.

Redpoll

The most exciting event of the winter was the appearance of an American Mink. It showed up on the last day of January, and inspected our yard carefully around the bird feeder and wood shed. A pair of Red Squirrels has sought shelter in one of our sheds, and most likely left a lot of squirrel scent all around the property. The mink went around and got up to speed on where they are lurking. I would not be surprised if the mink returns at night to snack on one of them, now that it knows where to look.

American Mink, pausing briefly on its foraging run

It was entertaining to watch the mink bounding through the deep, powdery snow, sometimes moving below the surface for a stretch and then popping its head above to look around.

The mink surfacing after submerging (below, right)

Once it departed, I looked around and identified several mink trails over the deep snowpack. I suspect the mink came up from the creek below our house. It crossed a few hundred meters of open field, a potentially risky maneuver given hawks and Barred Owls on patrol. It looked under our deck and around the house foundation, and then inspected all of the places in the yard that accommodate squirrels. I stepped outside to secure these photos, and even one short video sequence of the lively loping gait of this dark weasel. It created more tracks across the open snow up to the road and back again. Our Red Squirrels must have been petrified, likely holding still high in the trees as this fierce predator made its rounds below. Given the mess the rodents make in our shed, I am dearly hoping for the mink to administer a population control program in the coming months.

This mink is not deterred by four feet of powder snow

 

Woodpecker of the Boreal Forest

Woodpecker of the boreal forest

I live at the southwestern edge of the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. What makes it a “kingdom”? I’m not sure. Perhaps I can report on that in some future essay. But most naturalists recognize that boreal forest is the distinctive characteristic of this part of the state. The Kingdom is not pure boreal forest – rather, it occurs in patches where conditions are favorable. But those patches are particular to the northeast.

For birders in Vermont, there are four reasons to spend time in boreal forests: Canada Jay, Spruce Grouse, Boreal Chickadee, and Black-backed Woodpecker. Their distribution in Vermont is limited to the northeast. (Of course, we could also venture to northern New Hampshire to find all of these more easily, but that means invading the Kingdom of tax dodgers, a distasteful prospect.) The single best place for them in Vermont is Moose Bog, a small state Wildlife Management Area, which has achieved legendary status since many birders manage to check off the Boreal 4 on their annual lists there.

Trees of the boreal forest

I’ve learned a lot about Vermont’s forests from Charles W. Johnson’s 1980 book  “The Nature of Vermont.” Johnson states that boreal forest “is technically defined by the predominance of spruce and fir…. Red Spruce and Balsam Fir are the climax species,” with Paper Birch being a “subordinate companion.” Where the topography allows, water pools into bogs, and Black Spruce and White Spruce join the party, with scattered White Pines that can grow very high (as British ship builders discovered in the 1700s). Sphagnum mosses can cover much of the ground that is not permanently wet.

This particular combination of tree and plant species combines with snow depth and winter temperatures to create good conditions for the Boreal 4 in the Northeast Kingdom. This image of ranges of the four species, which I have extracted from eBird.org, shows how the species favor the northeast corner of the state. Ted Murin and Bryan Pfeiffer, in their 2002 book “Birdwatching in Vermont,” summarize the biogeospatial* overlap of species by stating, “At any time of year the Northeast Kingdom, resistant to suburban sprawl and wary of popular culture, is not only a place for solitude but also home to boreal species found nowhere else in Vermont.”

Ranges of the Boreal Four species in Vermont. From eBird abundance maps. 
Images provided by eBird (www.ebird.org) and created Nov 2025.

In each case of the Boreal 4, there is some leakage into neighboring regions of Vermont. There are a handful of records of Boreal Chickadee in the Green Mountains, for example, although these have not been sustained through time. Being a “Kingdom resident,” then, I have taken special interest in Black-backed Woodpecker, which has found a foothold in a surprising place.

Black-backed Woodpecker in Moose Bog, March

Black-backed Woodpecker in the Steam Mill Brook WMA

Shortly after taking up residence in the northeast, I came across reports of Black-backed Woodpecker at a place far from the well-known Moose Bog. It is a large undeveloped tract owned by the state with the curious name Steam Mill Brook Wildlife Management Area. Comprising 4500 hectares, it has a few small ponds, an expanse of hardwood forest, a trail or two, and no roads. The name sometimes stumps me when I try to describe it to other people, because it seems like three random words, “brook,” “steam,” and “mill” have been stuck together in seemingly random combination. I can only surmise that there was a log mill at one time, probably in the 1800s, that acquired the name “steam mill” early on a winter morning when operating feverishly to produce boards for sale to farmers and local residents. Then the brook feeding the mill must have taken the name, and when state land managers decided in 1971 to take it over for hunting, they used the name of the brook. In any event, I can see the edge of the WMA from my house, and the idea that it harbored one of the state’s rarest woodpeckers took on an air of intrigue.

In recent years, there have been only two places in the Northeast Kingdom where you could reliably find a Black-backed with a reasonable amount of effort: Moose Bog and Victory Basin. (I include the huge Nulhegan Basin of the Conte National Wildlife Refuge with Moose Bog, since they are contiguous with no substantial break in habitat characteristics.) They are nowhere abundant, so a walk in the woods that produces one is a day to celebrate. Moose Bog and Victory Basin are long- established areas for them. But how the heck did they get to Steam Mill Brook WMA?

Sightings of Black-backed Woodpecker in the last five years.
Image provided by eBird (www.ebird.org) and created Nov 2025.

If you got ambitious one day and walked from Moose Bog to Steam Mill Brook, you would find yourself crossing a lot of agricultural land, with patches of hardwood forest riven by creeks and streams. Not the kind of areas for a boreal bird. There is no question that Steam Mill Brook is isolated from the boreal forest patches to the northeast. On the first several hikes into the WMA, I didn’t find anything resembling boreal forest at all. I began to wonder if past reports of the woodpecker here were flukes – wandering birds that were sick and confused. That the birds might never be seen again in this patch.

A portion of Steam Mill Brook Wildlife Management Area.
(Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department.)

On a pleasant day in mid-May, I wandered around Steam Mill Brook, bushwacking my way near the wetlands in the area’s center. A few hours of effort had yielded some nice warblers: Nashville, C. Yellowthroat, N. Parula, Magnolia, Pine, Yellow-rumped, and Canada, with tons of Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue and Ovenbird. Together with vireos, most of these birds were setting up territory, darting between memorized tree branches to facilitate a mad scramble at any future interloper. It was a wonderful reminder of the value of healthy hardwood forest habitat in Vermont. But other than the usual tree-clinging creatures (Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Downy, Hairy and Pileated Woodpeckers), there were none of the boreal type that I sought. Another valiant but fruitless effort, I thought in resignation. The location of the brook in this WMA is at the bottom of a gently sloped area between hills, and the water barely moves at all. It is slightly bog-like, but nothing like Moose Bog or Peacham Bog. I looked around and contemplated future bushwacks in other remote parts of the WMA. I heard a soft “chuck” that seemed to emanate from a small stand of reeds, and thought Red-winged Blackbird  – another one for the day’s list.

Wetlands in the Steam Mill Brook WMA. This is an open area close to my sighting.

I stopped to rest for a few minutes. One of my knees was throbbing. Birding in Mexico a few months earlier, I angled for position to photograph a Strong-billed Woodcreeper, lost my footing, and went down in a heap. A surgeon would eventually inform me that a partial tear in the quadriceps tendon would become a new feature of my biomechanics. On this day, I was starting to think that I had been overly ambitious to take such a sustained bushwack, and that my car was farther from my current position than was probably wise.

I heard another sound somewhere in the trees above. It was the thud of a beak against bark. Maybe another Red-breasted Nuthatch, working away at a pine nut or seed? Then there was movement in my peripheral vision. Now this didn’t seem right. Nuthatches crawl along tree trunks; this was more of a transit flight between tree trunks, and it was too large for a nuthatch. I moved a few steps closer to the base of one tree, and searched through a tangle of branches to the trunk high above. Then I saw the source of the sound. You idiot, I thought – that was not the chuck of a red-wing five minutes ago. It was a black-back!

Working a spruce in the Steam Mill Brook WMA!

The Black-backed Woodpecker has a very distinctive call, a chip note superficially similar to most of the other woodpeckers, but more distinctively like the sound “click.” In dense forest, where I was at the moment, this sound gets muffled, and it can get lost unless you are paying close attention. There was no doubt now: straining my neck to look vertically upward, I was seeing a grayish-white belly with black bars on the flanks. It was roughly the size of a Hairy, but they are not barred. The head was blackish, with only one white stripe from the bill back to the neck. Most of all, that back was one solid stretch of uninterrupted black color! After many hours in the Steam Mill Brook, I finally had my boreal woodpecker.

I managed a few distant photos, but this individual was not being cooperative. The trees here are thick, and a ten-inch woodpecker who calls softly and very infrequently can hide without trying hard. All of my encounters with Black-backs have impressed upon me how secretive they can be. It is a characteristic they share with the closely related species American Three-toed Woodpecker. (The close relationship is emphasized by the old name, Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker.) I will have to return to the spot to secure a high-quality photo. I also need to map out the extent of the boreal habitat here, which is clearly limited in extent (and maybe in boreal character, too).

Why is there a disjunct population of this species? The fact that they are so hard to find here likely means that there are only a handful at the site. Did young woodpeckers disperse from Victory Basin or Moose Bog and stumble upon an isolated chunk of suitable habitat? I think not. Black-backs are not wandering birds. They are very specific to their habitat type – very local. There are few cases of them showing up in a strange place far from known sites. And finding the Steam Mill Brook WMA would require a huge amount of searching, a seemingly futile effort. A more likely explanation for these individuals is that there was a time in history when boreal forests were more extensive than today. Changes in climate could have led to encroachment of hardwood forest, which the Black-back cannot make use of. The birds in Steam Mill Brook might be clinging to a residual piece of boreal forest, a modern-day relic of an ancient, larger stretch that could have been connected to Victory Basin. These woodpeckers might be similar to desert pupfish in the western deserts, now restricted to caves where the water is fed by rare underground springs, and where they perch on the precipice of extinction.

The tangled forest in the Steam Mill Brook WMA. The spruce at center
was visited by the woodpecker that I captured with my camera.

In this era of the mutilation of natural resource science, principally by policy makers deluded into thinking that forests and woodpeckers have negligible value compared to urban humans who are momentarily out of a job, we must commit ourselves to understanding where boreal forest remains, how it is changing, what it needs to survive, and how its creatures make use of the unique vegetation that it contains.

[* I just made up that word. I’m not sure why it’s not found commonly.]