Epilogue

Day 66 – March 18 – Pharr, Texas

(Bert) Each of us on this caravan has different interests in nature. Some simply like to see beautiful scenery, without thought about identifying its components. Some are casual birders – Shari calls them Social Birders – who like to bird when the birding is at its best and, preferably at a reasonable hour of the day; they like to know what they are seeing, but don’t bother keeping track of their sightings. Then there are those who will bird anytime of the day or night and most of those keep careful notes of what species they’ve identified, although some are content with only recording their new finds. Of course, we’ve had others that are a combination of the above or don’t fit any categories. Shari certainly is one of them. She “birds” infrequently and restricts her “life list” to only those birds that meet her criteria. So, she has added only these birds to her list: Red Warbler, Solitary Eagle, Orange-breasted Falcon, Stygian Owl, and Agami Heron. Her selective list would be the envy of any serious birder.

At times, I’m all of the above, but mostly I’m a lister and a goal oriented nature observer. So, I’ve dutifully kept track of thousands of daily sightings of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles made by others or me on the caravan. Here are the statistics:

Travel:
By RV = 4010 miles
By auto (mine only) = 2128 miles
Mexico states = 12
Belize districts = 5
Birding sites = 45 named sites + campsites and in transit

Birds:
Combined = 559 species (AOU) + 22 additional subspecies
Mexico only = 471 species
Belize only = 320 species
Number of lifers seen = from 15 (Bert) to 296 (Ron)

Other:
Reptiles & Amphibians = 8 species identified, many lizards unidentified
Mammals = 23 species
Flowers & Trees = 72 species (by Charlu)

Species lists are included in the appendicies.

Appendix A  Table of Contents