MEXICO 2009: Scope for improvement!

A flycatcher of the genus Empidonax. Don't give much away do they? Take Valium with each sighting and you may get through the trip.

Back from Mexico (thanks Aero Mexico and KLM for a good journey) with plenty to catch up on. I don't usually bother with the witty play-on-words title to postings so well used by other bloggers but this one really is appropriate. All will be explained.
A full set of postings from the Mexico trip to follow (and the Guyana and Ecuador ones still to come!), so just time for a preamble here. My third trip to Western Mexico was, just like the previous two, very educational and above all enjoyable. Now the nice thing about birding in Mexico is that apart from a healthy helping of endemic birds to look for you get to see a few N. American migrants. Never having birded in the States before it's a bit of a learning curve for me, albeit an enlightening and pleasurable one. Empidonax and Myiarchus flycatchers are put on this Earth to test our ID skills and especially our patience. Has it got a crisp eye-ring or a "teardrop"? Long wing projection? Broad base to the bill and what colour? Any chance it called by any chance? Hmmm, great fun. But there's also those tricky little humming birds and those streaky little sparrows that are so variable.
Early morning of our last full day was spent at Lago Zapotlan near Ciudad Guzman where we saw large numbers of Yellow-headed Blackbirds coming out of roost, loads of American White Pelicans and a few other bit's 'n' bobs. No problem there then.
Then this sparrow popped out on the path. The strong sunlight bleached the plumage a bit but we could pick up rufous secondaries, strong black malar stripe, buffy supercilia and streaked underparts with a black blotch in the centre of the chest. Those "in the know" (and I wasn't one of them) concluded it was a Fox Sparrow. A species unfamiliar to me.

Savannah Sparrow, Lago Zapotlan, Jalisco March 2009. In this enlarged image you can just make out the yellow-buff on the supercilia just above the eye.

So we happily went off to a bit of desert scrub to make an attempt on stringing some new warbler for me (unsuccessfully I might add) but the sparrow was still playing on my mind a bit. By now it was getting a tad hot in the midday sun so we returned to the bus where I plonked down my 'scope and tripod, guzzled some water and then stuck my head in the field guide, checking out sparrows and some tricky plumaged warblers. I happened to gaze at some record shots of the sparrow as we sped along the highway and noticed that the forepart of the superciliar was actually yellow: Savannah Sparrow then.
So the point of all this rambling is to explain what a clever dick I am then? No. With my head still stuck in the fieldguide I suddenly realised that my trusty 'scope and tripod were no longer at my side!
Sh#t!
About turn and a hasty retreat to the turn-off in the scrub where we'd parked the van was in order. It seemed like we'd only been driving for 5 minutes or so as I thumbed my way through the fieldguide en route to Guzman, but the return drive to rescue the 'scope was taking an age despite our driver's skill.

Lost and found. Just!

Reaching the lay by there was no sign of the tripod but just as we closed in on the turn off it could be seen. Phew! Surely the only factor saving my 'scope from being a very nice free gift for some unsuspecting Mexican was the fact that they'd been speeding past it on a highway.
So all's well that ends well then. Indeed I've been meaning to mention my new project for sometime now (but I forgot). The new "Home for the Bewildered Birder" will soon be open. I shall be one of the first patients at "Seaview", in deepest landlocked Northampton. Inmates, sorry I mean patients will have full use of all facilities including the optics outlet Out of Focus. Theory sessions explaining the everyday use of tertial length, primary projection and other fascinating facets of bird identification will be a regular event. I shall be admitted later this week. Nurse!

More postings from Mexico, Guyana and Ecuador to come.