Nothing inflames the passion of inveterate birdwatchers more than the prospect of finding an unusual bird in their own neighborhood. A rare bird can qualify under several categories: one the birder has never seen before, and thus a “life bird”, or it can be a species one has encountered in other locales, but is not ordinarily present in the area. The pastime of birding awakens a primitive urge to locate quarry, almost like hunting, although the capture involves a bird sighting rather than a killing. Once a person has been bitten by the birding bug, it is hard to shake off.
The possibility of a rare sighting is beckoning several of us hardcore birders at Lake Chapala as we ready ourselves to go in search of the elusive limpkin, an odd, New World long legged wading bird, perhaps familiar to those transplants from Florida, or folks who have birded the lowlands of Oaxaca and Veracruz, but it is typically not seen in western Mexico. The limpkin is approximately 28 inches tall, and superficially resembles an ibis, but is a bit larger. It is chocolate brown, with white streaks or spots on its back, with dark or olive colored legs and has a fairly thick bill which droops downward. It is a unique creature, with only one species in its family, and has been found to be the evolutionary link between cranes and rails.
Some particularly colorful descriptions of its call exist in the bird literature: “its loud, strident, eerie call, familiar at night, in the Florida marshes, sounds like a human in distress…much like a person being strangled…the sound of little boys lost in the swamps forever…. an unearthly shriek with the quality of unutterable sadness.” Needless, to say the sound is unforgettable, but has it been heard along the shores of Lake Chapala?
The range maps in Mexican, bird field-guides indicate not, in fact the limpkin is not shown in range in western Mexico at all. However, in the recent book, A Bird-Finding Guide to Mexico, author Steve N. G. Howell notes that the limpkin can now be found in the tiny state of Colima, and he records it being present at the marshy areas by the Manzanillo airport. That makes sense, as the habitats of the limpkin are swamps and marshes, where it wades and swims in search of snails, frogs, and insects.
But at Lake Chapala? The shore here hardly qualifies as swamp, but it has been developing characteristics of marsh over the past several years. Around the turn of the century, Lake Chapala possessed huge marsh areas that provided winter sanctuary to hundreds of thousands of migratory shore birds, ducks and geese. With the draining of the wetlands approximating a third of the surface area of the lake for farmland in 1908, important avian habitat was lost. But even in its present state of degradation, it provides a winter home to the American White Pelican, and many other species, albeit not in the numbers of years past.
A recent spate of postings on an internet birding site devoted to Mexican birds has sparked the curiosity of one of our area’s most notable birders, Bob Ballard. He has been wondering about a bird he spotted in Chapala, in a marshy area, that he first thought might be a limpkin but dismissed the thought given the improbability of a sighting here, far from previously established colonies. But his ardor for the hunt of a new Lake Chapala area bird has been aroused, and several of us are setting off tomorrow to see if his suspicions are correct.
