Alongside the toll road to the Pacific coast, on the way to the beach towns of Barra de Navidad, Cuyutlan and others lays the shallow salt marsh of the once great lake Sayula. Nestled in the valley of the Tapapla and Tigre mountains of the Sierra Madre, Sayula was once part of a great inland sea that encompassed Lake Chapala, Lake Cajititlan, and more. It has held great historical significance as a trading post for the Tarascans, who mined the salt in the lake, and traded it with other indigenous peoples. Now, for much of the year, the lake bed is dry. But beginning at the end of the rainy season, water covers the area and provides an important migratory stopover for birds leaving their summer nesting grounds and winging their way south. Literally thousands of avocets, black necked stilts, snow geese and other species over winter at Sayula. Some just stop by as a place to rest and fuel up, and continue their journey to their winter homes. Fifty-six species of waterfowl have been documented there, including 5 species considered at global risk. This past year, Sayula’s ecological significance was demonstrated by its inclusion in the Ramsar convention as a wetland of international importance.
Since the first wave of fall shorebird migration is underway, a group of us drove over to Sayula, to see what birds may have arrived. Southerly shorebird migrations typically begin in mid summer when the breeding adults leave their recently hatched young in the Arctic and start their tremendous journeys.
Some will travel up to twelve thousand miles to reach the tip of Argentina, and they need reliable habitat to stop at along the way to refuel. It is a miraculous feat for these fragile creatures to wing these long distances and survive. So the four of us, Gerry Arthur, John Andersen, Bob Ballard and I also decided to chance death by standing along the busy autopista to birdwatch. We were swaying from the gale force wind generated by the trucks speeding down the road as we anxiously peered towards the water at the little specks in the distance. Fortunately, spotting scopes enhanced our views and we could definitively identify the hundreds of avocets sweeping their slender bills under the shallow water, in search of food. We saw a wide variety of other water birds: dowitchers, greater yellowlegs, ducks, egrets and others. But our gamble with our lives paid off when we found four wood storks, which are fantastic looking creatures standing around three and a half feet tall, with prehistoric type bare grey heads and long, thick bills. Wood storks feed on a wide variety of things, including amphibians, small reptiles, fish, etc. They hunt by wading and probing. From where we stood the birds looked all white, but in fact they have a black tail and a trailing edge of black on their wings. When they fly, their wing span is over five feet wide. They are one of only two stork species that breeds on the North American continent (the other being the jabiru, the bird with the largest wingspan in America). Wood Stork numbers are much reduced from former levels as they are birds of swamps and wetlands, and habitat loss has contributed to their decline. The recent naming of Laguna de Sayula as a critical wetland shows an increased environmental awareness in Mexico and the importance of preserving natural habitat. Hopefully, this newly designated status as a haven for threatened birds like the wood stork will keep Sayula protected from encroaching agricultural use, and leave us these spectacular creatures for generations more to enjoy.
