chichen

Chichen Itza

The hotel gardens were covered in the first afternoon and first two hours of the next morning, followed by the ruins. Although the latter was the reason for visiting the area, the former turned out to hold the best of the birds - in particular the gardens of the Hotel Hacienda. We hadn’t even booked into the hotel before discovering the potential of the gardens, which had mixed palm and seeding fruit trees with few leaves predominating - better visibility. Yellow-winged Tanager was an early tick, but many different Orioles and Warblers were on show. Not many new trip birds were seen on the afternoon, but the variety and proximity made up. The afternoon ended close to dusk with many small horned bats flying past from the ruins area.

The plan for the following morning was to fill in time around the gardens until the ruins opened at 8am. The ruins were relatively disappointing bird-wise, but, after an early mist, and three Collared Aracaris in the palms of the Club Med, the species in the hotel gardens mounted as the sun broke through. Birds of the morning had to be a final total of seven Aracaris, and also a single Lineated Woodpecker just outside the grounds of the Hacienda. After larking about at the ruins (Grey-breasted Martin & Cave Swallows at eye level from the top of the pyramid), we took one of the tracks from the pyramid which led to a rather impressive grotto. The edges of the woods were covered, with three different Wrens, Yellow-green Vireo, and Masked Tityras seen.