| Daytrips - Birdwatching at La Barra de Potosí |
Daytrips - Birdwatching at La Barra de Potosí
by Kathe Kokolias.
Hundreds of tiny webbed feet slap the water getting airborne, thunderous applause breaking the morning silence. Flocks of cormorants and coots are fleeing, squawking their displeasure in protest to our entry into their private lagoon. Bird books describe the cormorant as silent, but at least in this neighborhood, the Lagoon at La Barra de Potosi, they sound like a pen full of grunting little piglets, causing one member of this group of birdwatchers to quip that maybe pigs do fly.
Our kayaks glide noiselessly through shallow brackish water, slipping through the weeds, past American white pelicans and black necked stilts who are not as easily spooked as their recently departed neighbors. About fifty yards away, a small flock of roseate spoonbill stands feeding in the shallows. We sit up tall, snapping photos with long lenses, and watch these exotic birds, their pink feathers glistening in the sunlight.
Cutting through a narrow channel in the mangroves, we hear the racket before we see the cause of it and emerge cautiously into a small lagoon. Hundreds of snowy and great white egrets and a handful of tri-colored herons are nesting in trees, and strutting in the opposite shoreline’s succulent weed beds, no more than fifty yards from the tips of our kayaks. The males are posturing and craning their necks, the females warily attentive. It seems that spring has arrived a bit early and we are witnessing their initial courtship rituals. They are making so much noise that they can’t hear our spirited chatter or the clatter of our paddles against the mangrove branches lining the cramped entrance channel, and since we are downwind, they don’t get a warning whiff of our sunblock. We sit silently at the edge of the mangroves watching the spectacle before us – The Discovery Channel – Live from Mexico!
Here in the Lagoon at Potosi, thirty minutes south of Zihuatanejo, thousands of birds spend their winter, migrating north from South American, or south from Canada or the U.S. For four seasons, my husband, Brian, has been guiding tourists who are curious enough to get out of bed at 7:00 AM, get into a kayak, some for the first time, and venture into the wilds of the back country framed by the Sierra Madre del Sur to study species of birds which they perhaps have seen only in pictures. In the past few weeks, tour groups have identified fifty or more species per day with a few first-of-the-season sightings thrown in, so our group has high expectations.
The efforts of today’s adventurers are instantly rewarded. On the road in from Los Achotes, we stop the Suburban by a pond to watch sixteen or seventeen different species of birds in search of breakfast: Social and vermilion flycatchers, belted kingfishers, indigo and orange-breasted bunting, white-winged, mourning, and inca dove intent on the task at hand. The pond surface is dotted with several types of grebe, cinnamon and green-winged teal and fulvous whistling duck, all mooning us as they dabble for insects and greens under water. Northern jacana and purple gallinule poke about the shoreline along with a glossy ibis and a single little blue heron. The thermal air currents are starting to build and the black vulture are floating overhead, joined by a pair of peregrine falcons, and then a harrier. We could stay here on the road all morning, binoculars in one hand, coffee in the other, watching the scene around the pond, but we are also anxious to be on the lagoon.
This season is different from any other year that we have been kayaking in the lagoon. The rainfall of last summer was not sufficient enough to blast open the sandbar, the barra, which separates the lagoon from the ocean. Missing is the tidal flow in and out of the lagoon, and, normally, this would mean that by February the water level would be dropping, making part of the lagoon inaccessible. A rainstorm in mid-January dumped seven inches of rain in twenty-four hours, and a second about a month later brought another inch or two, allowing us to explore areas of the lagoon that have been high and dry in years past.
After days of unrelenting sun, this morning’s overcast is a welcomed change. Putting in at the edge of the main channel, we are greeted by brown pelican floating a few yards offshore, and flying low overhead, constantly vigilant for their next snack. Snowy egret and juvenile yellow-crowned night heron sit on the rails of battered wooden canoes or perch on weathered pilings. Frigate birds ride the thermals high overhead, sharing the airspace with black vultures, and red tailed and gray hawks.
Paddling a short distance, we turn into the first side lagoon with a palapa structure on the nearby shore and watch wood stork forage for food alongside willet, western sandpiper and a single American bittern. Deeper into the lagoon, near the flooded salt operations, a reddish egret stands in the same spot every time we see him, in the low weeds, guarding the entrance to his private cove. He allows me to get amazingly close, drifting on a breeze to within fifteen feet, to photograph his colorful plumage.
Later in the morning inside a large hidden back bay off the main lagoon, we stumble onto the drama of a flock of great egret fighting over a fish. One has caught a good size fish and clutches it in its beak, uncertain as to how to turn it around head first to swallow it whole. The mojarra perch is too big to casually flip in the air and gobble in the usual fashion. Other egrets challenge the holder of the fish, and in a series of intense mid-air battles, the birds climb to about twenty feet. Batting each other with wing tips, they duel with their formidable yellow beaks, only to flutter back to the water like leaves in autumn. When the feathers settle, the egret has retained his fish. A great blue heron has been standing patiently nearby watching the chaos, and the victorious egret seems to know that it is still not safe to set his prize down. Suddenly, the larger blue gets impatient, and with a piercing croak swoops down on the egret. Startled, it backs away and drops the fish, which is instantly stolen and swallowed by the great blue. The noisy crowd of birds, the cheering section to the fish drama, instantly disperses once the action is over, returning to the task of finding their own lunch.
Local fishermen have strung gill nets along the mangrove roots and we stay alert as we paddle in the lagoon. One day this winter, Brian was guiding a group from the State of Alaska Fish and Game, when they spotted a brown pelican that, obviously in search of fish, had gotten caught in the weave of the net. Easy pickings or so the pelican thought until he got his head stuck. The group enthusiastically set about rescuing the bird which seemed more miffed to be minus his lunch than the fact that he was being handled, ever so gently, by humans.
Now, several weeks later, the sandbar is still closed and we continue to enjoy the results. The number of birds in the Lagoon at La Barra de Potosi is increasing; they seem content to remain in this ideal habitat with an abundant and constant food supply, and only an occasional disturbance by camera and binocular-toting kayakers. For those visitors who paddled the lagoon this season, they checked off more species in their bird books, got some great photos, and collected a few stories of this little seen part of Mexico to tell their friends back home.
Kathe Kokolias lives in Upstate New York and Ixtapa. She is writing a book about her experiences living in Mexico. Brian Roach lives in Ixtapa. He leads birdwatchers and adventure-seekers on kayak tours in the Lagoon at Potosi. He can be contacted at: Zoe5@aol.com
April 2002
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