Birding

The Cleopatra Bird

August 8, 2024 by Paul Lewis 4 Comments

Some birds are especially exciting, because they are so hard to see. Others are unusually beautiful, or perhaps, just plain unusual. And a few are both. (When they actually afford you a whole new blog subject to write about, that is certainly an extra bonus.)

For years, I had hoped to see a Lesser Ground-Cuckoo, one of Mexico’s more exotic and difficult species. And I even had this species on my life list, but only because in 2017 I had taken several much better birders than I to Paso Ancho, and they heard this bird’s call in the distance. I remember the woman with the best ear saying several times “I hear _____”, and that I would reply “oh”. Or something equally insightful.

But this Monday, I took my ornithologist friend Jonathan, and three other friends, back to Paso Ancho. Jonathan hoped the Sinaloa Martins I saw in July might still be there. (No such luck; they appear to have already flown south.) But on our second stop, we heard not one, but two Ground-Cuckoos giving their high-pitched buzzy trill calls. One sounded like it came from close to our path, so Jonathan prompted it a bit with his best imitation. And suddenly, there it was! At first, all I could see was its richly colored belly. And I would have considered myself fortunate to see even that.

And then, something miraculous happened. With no further prompting, the bird decided it needed to come closer to us. Ground-cuckoo that it was, it had an odd way of walking along branches, as if on the ground, rather than hopping or flying. All of this was amazing, as this species is known for staying on the ground under deep brush, and freezing when it senses a human presence.

As our bird came closer, our view of it became ever clearer. This allowed us to fully appreciate those wild colors around its eyes, as well as the black “eyeliner”, which appeared to come directly from the hieroglyphics on the walls of an Egyptian temple. As Jonathan said, it looked like Cleopatra.

Our encounter with this ever-so gracious bird lasted so long that I ended up taking some 150 photos. And all the while, it never stopped making its buzzy call. I guess you could say that we heard it… squawk like an Egyptian.

And so, it left.

Written by Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis moved from California to Mexico in 1983. He lived first in Mexicali, and now lives in the historic city of Morelia (about halfway between Guadalajara and Mexico City), where he and his wife pastor a small church. He is the author of an internationally distributed book in Spanish about family finances and has recorded four albums in Spanish of his own songs. But every Monday, he explores the wonderful habitats and birds found within an hour of his house, in sites which go from 3,000 to 10,000 feet of altitude. These habitats include freshwater wetlands, savannah grasslands, and pine, oak, pine/oak, pine/fir, cloud, and tropical scrub forests.