Sounds of Mexico: Birdsong on the Yucatan Peninsula
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What does one do when visiting Mexico on a family vacation? If you’re me, then I suspect you would beg for a few hours to record sounds and promise to be back before the rest of the family noticed you were missing. And if you’re still me, you decide to leave the resort property and hike into the jungle telling no one, including security, where you were going, but that’s a different story for a different day.
I just returned from our annual vacation to Mexico, where we spent a week in the Playa del Carmen area of the Yucatan Peninsula. If you are picturing miles of beaches with large resort properties filling every nook and cranny of the coastline, then you’re in the right place. I first ventured to Mexico in 1999 when a friend convinced me to fly to San Diego to meet up with some other friends from college for a long weekend. The statute of limitations prevents me from regaling you with stories from that trip, but that quick trip south of the border turned into an adventure that my friends still talk about to this day. That trip began my love affair with the people of Mexico, their rich culture and history and, of course, the food.
This is the biggest Iguana that I have ever seen!! Happily sunning itself on a rock while silently mocking me for sweating so much.
Welcome to episode 22 of the Nature is my Jam podcast! As always, I’m happy to see you again. This week, we are in a small jungle area a few miles outside of the resort where we were staying on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The resorts in Mexico are stunningly beautiful and cater to your every need, but are a horrible place for trying to record nature sounds. Knowing I could not get a clean recording at the resort, I plotted a course to a nearby Cenote that would take me through a couple of small towns and into a more secluded area of the surrounding jungle.
Have I mentioned it was hot and humid? I mean, it was HOT and HUMID. As the sweat soaked my clothes and the sun did its best to bleach what’s left of my hair, I suddenly became okay with, “I’ll just keep going until I see or hear something cool.” I watched Iguanas sunbathing and the cutest rodent I’ve ever seen scurry into the undergrowth as I approached. The animal I later learned is called an Agouti. I have no pictures but they look kind of like a short-haired Guinea Pig to me. The highlight, however, was getting to a Spider Monkey casually stroll past me as I contemplated the ethics of trying to take it home with me.
A weathered sign with the coolest skull and lightning bolts.
Okay, Wassom, six paragraphs in and we still don’t know what you recorded this week. Well, let’s get to it then! I found a small section of jungle where I could hear birds and other wildlife scurrying through the underbrush (is it called underbrush in a jungle?). I recorded for two hours and got some amazing sounds, albeit with a bit of background noise from another resort and what sounds like maybe some construction. I could only identify a Great-Tailed Grackle, Great Kisadee and a Hooded Oriole by sight. Not sure if their sounds are in this recording, though. I heard a member of the Dove family as I was editing this episode but didn’t see any. The database in my birding app is sparse for Mexico, so my apologies that I wasn’t able to provide a species list this week.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for your continued support!
Recording Summary:
Date and Time: 10/30/2022 | 11:00 AM
Location: Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Landscape/Feature: Small jungle area a few miles from a beach resort
Conditions: HOT, HUMID with RELENTLESS SUN
Recording Device: Zoom F3
Microphone(s): Sonorous Objects SO.1
Digital Audio Workstation: Adobe Audition
