March 8-19, 2026 with Dan Lane & Bret Whitney & Alex Sundvall
Oaxaca is well known amongst birders as being one of the best Mexican states for birding. It is situated along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and features the southern extent of the birds in the Mexican Sierra Madres and the northern extent of some wider ranging Central American species. This tour compliments our Oaxaca Valley tour in visiting all the habitats not reached by that shorter tour, and really takes advantage of the incredible diversity offered by this state in a relatively small area. This tour often exceeds 400 species, which for a short tour of Mexico is pretty astonishing! This year was no exception with nearly 430 species recorded during our 10 days of birding. As a group, our favorite birds were the stunning extended views of Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle we had, the incomparable Rose-bellied (Rosita’s) Bunting, the often very shy and reserved Lesser Ground-Cuckoo that walked right across the path in front of us, and the rare and skulking Sumichrast’s Wren.
From Dan, Bret, myself, and everyone here at Field Guides, we would like to thank you for taking this journey of Oaxaca with us. You were a very understanding group when logistics and weather were challenging, and were great with rolling with the punches as we needed to spend more or less time in places! We wish you all happy birding and hope to see you all again somewhere along the birding trail!
Below is a day to day account of our travels throughout the incredible state of Oaxaca (and a little bit of Veracruz).
Day 1: We started our tour through the slopes of Oaxaca with a relaxing walk around our hotel grounds in Oaxaca City. The hotel backed up to a mountain, so despite being in the middle of the city there was still plenty of nature right there on the grounds! Some of the birds we made sure to connect with while we were here were White-throated Towhees (our first Mexican endemic of the tour), Virginia’s Warbler, Thick-billed Kingbird, Violet-crowned Hummingbird, Dusky Hummingbird, House Finch, and Bewick’s Wren. These are all birds more typical of the desert valley around the city, and as we don’t focus on that area at all (that’s for a different tour) this was our only time seeing these on the tour! We also had incredible looks at a pair of Red-lored Amazons (considered feral in the city, but we’ll see wilder ones later!) and a stunning male Lazuli Bunting. After our morning of birding, we packed up and headed southward towards the mountains of the Pacific slope and the Sierra Madre Del Sur. On our way south we quickly stopped on the side of the road for a few things like White-tailed Hawk, Loggerhead Shrike, and Cassin’s Kingbird. We made it to our hotel for the next couple nights in time for a late lunch and were greeted by a thick fog and significantly cooler temperatures than when we left the city some 3000 feet lower. Our first taste of these new mountain birds came with the discovery of a pair of Aztec Thrushes we could just barely make out in the fog. What a bird! This is a sparse and somewhat irruptive species that you can never expect to see anywhere in its range, and is a fairly mysterious bird. We also had our first Brown-backed Solitaires (one of the best singers in all the Americas), Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireos, American Robins, Olive Warblers, and a nice flock of Black-headed Siskins. After lunch and a brief siesta, we battled the fog and attempted to bird some of the roadsides, but it proved mostly futile with the density of the fog. We were able to get some more of these upper elevation pine species like Spot-crowned Woodcreeper, Tufted Flycatcher, Gray-breasted Wood-Wren, Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush, some fabulous looks at Chestnut-capped Brushfinch, Crescent-chested Warbler, Golden-browed Warbler, and the incomparable Red Warbler. We headed back to the Cabañas for dinner, and fell asleep to the sounds of Mexican Whip-poor-wills.
Day 2: Another morning of birding hotel grounds, though everything has changed from yesterday’s lower desert birding. Some of the highlights of this morning’s birds were Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush, Blue Mockingbird, Steller’s Jays (the Middle American ones that are almost entirely blue!), and a distant calling Long-tailed Wood-Partridge. The rest of the morning was spent offsite looking for a very special bird: White-throated Jay. This striking jay is a Mexican endemic that is known only from a few sites in Guerrero and Oaxaca. Thankfully, we were all able to get some really fantastic views of this rare and poorly known species. Some other major highlights of the morning were getting fantastic looks at Ruddy-capped and Russet Nightingale-Thrushes, Bumblebee Hummingbird, Amethyst-throated Mountain-gem, Collared Towhee, Gray Silky-flycatchers, Cinnamon-bellied Flowerpecker, and Rufous-capped Brushfinches. After a long morning, we took a break in the afternoon and after the fog lifted, we spent the rest of the evening walking another roadside. Here we had our first looks at Mountain Trogon, Brown-backed Solitaires, the Southwest Mexican Common Chlorospingus, and enjoyed more Townsend’s, Hermit, and Red Warblers.
Day 3: Today we left the higher elevations behind and headed for the town of Pluma Hidalgo, which exists in a unique elevational band with some incredible diversity and potential for some really unique birds. Our first stop on our way downslope was at a farm where we’ve had luck with Gray-crowned Woodpeckers in the past. Not only did we get the woodpecker beautifully in the scope, we also had our first taste of Wagler’s Northern Emerald-Toucanets (in fact, one time they were in the same scope view as the woodpecker!) Here we also had our first singing Western Warbling Vireos (the ones we’d seen prior were just assumed to be this species), Collared Trogons, and even a Broad-winged Hawk perched on the side of the road. Full of hope for the potential ahead of us, we continued on to the Pluma Hidalgo Road. Once on the road it was quickly evident we had dropped in elevation, as there was nearly zero overlap with where we were the previous days! White-tipped Doves and White-faced Quail-Doves were calling deep in the forest, hummingbirds of six different species zipped around from flower to flower, Orange-fronted Parakeets flew overhead, and overall bird diversity soared. Some of the more interesting birds we had along the road were Acorn Woodpeckers, Fan-tailed Warbler, Tropical Parula, White-throated Thrush, Happy Wren, Golden-crowned Emerald, Banded Wren, Blue Mockingbird, both Long-billed and Plain-capped Starthroats, and Mexican Squirrel-Cuckoos. Here we also encountered a few wider-ranging species that could potentially get split in the coming years. The forms of Bright-rumped Attila (West Mexican), Ruddy Foliage-gleaner (Rusty), Audubon’s Oriole (Dickey’s), Red-crowned Ant-Tanager (Oaxaca), Greenish Elaenia (West Mexican), Green Jay (West Mexican), and Blue Bunting (West Mexican) are all significant, and could all represent their own species. This road is one of the better (or only) places we can expect to get these interesting forms on this tour, and we managed to get them all fairly well! After a roadside picnic lunch, we headed down to a different roadside in the same sort of elevational band looking for a few remaining species. Here we lucked into two of the hummingbirds we missed from the morning: the elusive Mexican Hermit and the incredibly range-restricted Blue-capped Hummingbird! The Blue-capped Hummingbird is a major target for the area as it only occurs in this small mountain chain, and it’s quite a beautiful bird at that! Also on this road were a nice collection of warblers including Golden-crowned Warbler, a rather late Worm-eating Warbler, both Myrtle and Audubon’s Yellow-rumped Warblers, and another couple Fan-tailed Warblers. As we descended farther down the road towards the coast, we stopped near a nice botanical park and birded along an unfortunately busy road. There were lots of birds around however, including Red-billed Pigeon, Inca Dove, Golden-cheeked Woodpeckers, a nice pair of Willow Flycatchers, Blue-headed Vireo, White-throated Magpie-Jays, Yellow-winged Caciques displaying, our first Streak-backed Orioles, a nice Louisiana Waterthrush, and a stunning prolonged view of a Fan-tailed Warbler. As we got into the town of Huatulco for the evening, we were greeted by some of the standard city birds, but also large flocks of Bronzed Cowbirds and Groove-billed Anis (and more importantly, Dan’s lost luggage!)
Day 4: We started the morning birding along a trail leading into the National Park. This was a lowland dry forest with some important targets for us, like Turquoise-crowned Hummingbird (formerly Doubleday’s, a split from Broad-billed Hummingbird), West Mexican Chachalacas, Russet-crowned Motmot, Colima Pygmy-Owl, Citreoline Trogon, Lilac-crowned Amazon, White-lored Gnatcatcher, Russet-naped Wren, the spectacular Orange-breasted Bunting, the Pacific coast form of Olive Sparrow, and the Long-crested form of Northern Cardinal. After a successful first outing, we headed to another nearby trail to specifically target the elusive Lesser Ground-Cuckoo. Not a true Neomorphus Ground-Cuckoo, these small birds have some of the most impressive facial skin colorations of any of the cuckoos and are more often heard than seen. After an extended period of time waiting, we finally were able to get eyes on one of these reclusive birds as it walked up to the path in front of us, briefly sunning itself before continuing on into the forest. What a fantastic morning of birding! We had lunch right on the beach, where we got distracted by the flocks of Royal Terns, Brown Pelicans, Magnificent Frigatebirds, and Laughing Gulls. After an extended afternoon siesta, we headed back out to target a couple more regionally special species: Flammulated Flycatcher and Red-breasted Chat. Both proved to be rather challenging, with the Chat providing better and easier views than the flycatcher. After a picnic dinner at the trailhead, we did the same trail again, this time hoping for some of the more nocturnal species. Right as we started walking, we saw a Lesser Nighthawk fly by, signalling we were starting right on time! Just as it started getting dark we watched a Laughing Falcon fly over, and heard a Collared Forest-Falcon in the distance. The real highlight from this trail was the pair of calling Northern Potoos that we eventually all got views of. What strange birds! Our next stop for the evening was a place where historically we got Mottled Owl. After about 20 minutes of trying and nothing, we were about to give up when it flew in silently right over our heads! The final stop was to look for the local form of Pacific Screech-Owl, which was thankfully much easier than the Mottled Owl, with calling birds immediately after getting out of the vans. Eventually we tracked one down for spectacular views!
Day 5: This morning was devoted to taking a quick pelagic adventure! The seas were a bit choppy, and the wind was not quite from the right direction, so it wasn’t quite as birdy as we were hoping for. However, we did have a fantastic show from some leaping rays! On the bird front, we had one bird we were confident about being Galapagos Shearwater, small groups of Black Storm-Petrels and Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, and a single Cocos Booby. As we were heading into port, we managed to snag a flyover Spot-breasted Oriole, our only one for the trip. After lunch, we left Huatulco behind and headed along the coast towards the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. We stopped briefly at a coastal location where Blue-footed Boobies are known to roost, and we lucked into at least 20 of these strange seabirds. Also present were a smattering of shorebirds, including Pectoral Sandpipers notably, our first Roseate Spoonbills, and a young Harris’s Hawk, a regional rarity. We ended the day along the shores of the Laguna Superior along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which can be fantastic for migrant shorebirds as well as having some unique local birds. The shorebirds showed surprisingly well in the intense wind, with great looks at Red Knots, Marbled Godwits, Hudsonian Whimbrels, a handful of Stilt Sandpipers, and importantly a trio of Collared Plovers. Also present were some roosting Laughing Gulls, Black Skimmers, Gull-billed Terns, Reddish Egrets, a Stripe-headed Sparrow, some Lark Sparrows, a nice flock of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, and a wayward Cave Swallow: another regional rarity.
Day 6: Today would prove to be an incredibly long repositioning day from Eastern Oaxaca to far Northern Oaxaca through the state of Veracruz. However, we started the morning with some incredibly important birding searching for one of the stars of the whole tour: The Rose-bellied Bunting. This bunting was first described by Sumichrast as Rosita’s bunting, because he believed that his wife Rosita and the bunting were the two most beautiful creatures in the universe. And he’s at least not wrong about the bird being exquisite! Said to represent every color of the rising sun in its plumage, with vibrant pinks and magentas on its belly and deep almost purplish blues on its back. This stunning bird is an isthmithian endemic, meaning it’s only found in a very narrow range around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. On our way to our spot for this incredibly restricted species, we passed a series of dikes that hosted our first views of Least Grebe, Northern Jaçana, and Snail Kite. Once at the spot, we had an equally range-restricted sparrow, the fantastic Cinnamon-tailed (or Sumichrast’s) Sparrow, along with some more Stripe-headed Sparrows, a Nutting’s Flycatcher, flyover Short-tailed Hawk and Hook-billed Kite, and more looks at White-lored Gnatcatcher and Banded Wrens. After a short walk, we arrived at the small watering hole where we hoped to see the bunting. It took some time, but eventually a female Rose-bellied Bunting came around to the trees around the watering hole! Feeling accomplished but not entirely satisfied, we decided to wait for a male to come around. As we waited, a few Orange-breasted Buntings came by; a nice splash of color. Then it finally happened, a bright and shiny male Rose-bellied Bunting flew into the watering hole giving us glorious views! After an early lunch, we started the long journey north through Veracruz towards our final destination at the base of the Oaxacan cloud forest. We made one stop for gas and a bathroom at a random Oxxo station on the side of the highway. Most of lowland Veracruz has been degraded to farmland and very few patches of forest remain. Here at this Oxxo however there were still a few trees around a ravine and creek creating a small island of habitat in a sea of agriculture! Everything was surprisingly birdy, with Painted Bunting, Hooded Warblers, Scrub Euphonias, Spot-breasted Wren, White-eyed Vireos, Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, and even a couple pairs of Russet-naped Wood-Rails! After a very long van trip, we finally made it back into Oaxaca to Tuxtepec, our home for the next few nights.
Day 7: This was yet another incredibly important morning of birding, with one target in particular standing above the rest: Sumichrast’s Wren. This endemic has an incredibly tiny range and is restricted to limestone karst forests, an already incredibly restricted forest type in this region. More like a Central American Kiwi than a typical wren, this shy species runs on the ground and sings from rocky outcrops, rarely coming out into the open for long. They are huge, more thrasher sized than wren, with a comically long bill and short tail it holds cocked. It is one of the main targets of the whole tour and because of its habitat specificity this is the only day to get it. This trail also enters some fantastically preserved forest, and because of that there are a number of other species we typically only have here on the tour. As soon as we got out of the vans it was immediately noticeable that the birdlife had changed from the Pacific slope of the country, as we were greeted with calling Plain Chachalacas and a Short-billed Pigeon. As we started down the trail, we noticed a small flock of swifts whirling overhead. We noticed first the massive bodies and obvious markings of the White-collared Swifts, but there was a group of smaller swifts up there with them. When we looked at our pictures, nothing would prepare us for what we saw. We had found a group of White-fronted Swifts, an incredibly poorly understood species known only from a few specific sites in the mountains of Southwestern Mexico and a few vagrant records from Guatemala and a Honduran Island. Officially designated data deficient by the IUCN, it was only even discovered in the early 1990s! These birds were not only a first record for the entire state of Oaxaca, but the entire gulf slope of Mexico! This also represented a strange elevation for the species; typically they are encountered around 1500-2000 meters above sea level and we were closer to 150 meters above sea level. A fascinating and stunning record, and an incredible way to start the morning! The morning was incredibly birdy, and so incredibly different from our species compositions on the Pacific Slope. These Caribbean forests represent the northern extent of a lot of Central American species and families. Four species of Trogons (Slaty-tailed, Black-headed, Gartered Violaceous, and Collared) all graced our presence in the morning, Red-lored and Mealy Amazons called overhead, Mayan Antthrush and Fawn-throated Foliage-gleaners called, Red-capped Manakins snapped in display, and Black-faced Grosbeaks tore through the canopy. We got to a particularly nice rock outcrop and heard our target wren of the morning, so we set up shop and waited it out for the chance of a view. While we waited, a Rufous Piha flew in and blew our eardrums out calling right overhead. This is one of the loudest singing birds in the world after all! Eventually, our wren crawled into sight as it darted from rock to rock, singing loudly each time it stopped. It reminded me a lot of the Australian Scrub-bird family as it ran around on the ground, barely visible most of the time. The best views we had of it were when it decided to run across the path with such speed it had to hold its wings out in order to stabilize itself! We spent a good while watching for this bird and hearing its loud whistled song before walking back to the vans. For only a third of a mile, we managed to squeeze out 85 species in our 5 hours of birding in the morning. With how long the morning was, we took another extended siesta and after the heat of the day had passed we headed back north into Veracruz to visit a patch of marshland. It was yet another spectacular afternoon of birding! A large flock of both Black-bellied and Fulvous Whistling-Ducks greeted us as soon as we stepped out of the vans, with a nice collection of waders around, including Wood Stork, Roseate Spoonbill, Bare-throated Tiger-Heron, and Limpkin. Distantly at the waters edge were a group of White-faced Ibis, American Avocets, and Black-necked Stilts. Being in the lowlands, we also had our first Ruddy Ground Doves, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures, Great Black Hawk, Aplomado Falcons, Fork-tailed Flycatchers, and Common Tody-Flycatchers. One of the other fun birds around was the local East Mexican form of Orchard Oriole, the Fuerte’s or Ochre Oriole. Unlike the northern group we are all more familiar with, the males of this group are a dull ochre yellow, almost like a muted Baltimore Oriole! Most exciting of all however, was a nesting pair of Veracruz Wrens, a lifer for everyone including all three guides! This represents the farthest south record for the species, and a nesting record at that! A completely unexpected species for everyone. As it was getting dark and we were leaving the marshes behind, a few Double-striped Thick-knees started calling, and we found one right in the middle of the road trying to duel our vans as we attempted to drive by! Today was a truly unforgettable day of birding, with over 150 species recorded between the two sites.
Day 8: Yesterday was a tough day to follow, but we started the morning full of promise and anticipation as we started to head higher into the surrounding rainforests of the Caribbean slope. Our first stop of the morning was along a creek crossing where an Amazon Kingfisher was out patrolling for food, and a Common Black Hawk soared overhead. We then spent the next five hours walking about a mile up the road going slowly along different mixes in forests and habitats, amassing nearly 120 species! What an incredible showcase of the diversity here in the tropical lowlands of the Caribbean slope. The highlights were truly too many to count, but the absolute standout was a stunning Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle that hung out with us much of the morning! This is one of the rarest neotropical raptors with very few locations to reliably see it, and incredibly rare in Mexico at the farthest north extent of its range. Unlike the other larger raptors, Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle mostly eats large birds, as it sits at the very top of the food chain. They are known to take very large prey for their size, like Egrets, Macaws, Tinamous, and are even well known to eat other raptors! In terms of rarity compared to the other Hawk-Eagles: it has nearly a third as many reports as Ornate, and under a fifth as many reports as Black! We initially spotted this remarkable bird perched high up on a hunting perch, where we watched it take off and soar above our heads for what seemed like forever! Even though I’ve seen this species nesting in Belize, this was probably my single best observation of the species. Raptors continued to show well on the road, with a stunning flyby of a White Hawk as well! This is one of those birds that looks very different depending on where you are in its range, and these Central American birds are truly snowy white compared to the darker backed and winged birds farther south. Another major surprise for us on the road today was a Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, a bird that is typically confined to the high elevation pine-oak forests! On top of being out of habitat on the wrong side of the mountains, it was also far lower than they should be! A totally unexpected species for us on this tour, as we tend to spend very little time in that habitat. Scrub-Jay taxonomy is a well-known mess, with Woodhouse’s recently having been split from California Scrub-Jay in what was once known as Western Scrub-Jay. However, Woodhouse’s still has more species left to split out; a recent paper confirmed what people have been thinking for years that this southern group of scrub-jays, called Sumichrast’s Scrub-Jay, is in fact very genetically distinct from the northern populations and should be a species in its own right. The highlights continued, with incredible birds such as Golden-hooded Tanager, Giant Cowbird, Rusty Sparrow, White-breasted Wood-Wren, Long-billed Gnatwren (some amazing views of this very skulky species!), my best views ever of Yellow-bellied Tyrannulet, Sepia-capped Flycatcher, Rufous-breasted Spinetail, Bat Falcon, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, both Red-capped and White-collared Manakins, and even a calling Slaty-breasted Tinamou! Yet another fantastic morning of birding. And good thing too, we got rained out after lunch! We managed to scrape together some Blue-gray and Yellow-winged tanagers before the downpour really started, but other than that it was a complete wash. No matter, the successes of the morning were enough to carry us into the next day.
Day 9: Today was our first day of attempting to bird the higher elevation cloud forests of the Caribbean slope. Unfortunately, it was another day of battling damp and drizzly weather. They don’t call this cloud forest for nothing! Our first stop was a bit of an unexpected one, as the lead van spotted a massive Crested Guan perched just off the side of the road! As we got out to look for it, after flying deeper into the forest, we discovered a pair of singing Yellow-green Vireos on territory! These typically arrive right around the end of March so this was a little early, a real treat to encounter. The rest of the morning was dedicated to searching for Tody Motmots along another stretch of road where we’ve had them in years past. This diminutive motmot likes to stay back in the vine tangles, so while we heard them often it took us quite a while to really get a good look at any of them! Thankfully, with enough persistence, we were all able to get some pretty good views of this often secretive species. Some other highlights along this stretch of road seen through the fog and mist were Collared Araçari, Keel-billed Toucans, many Collared Trogons, Golden-olive Woodpecker, Piratic Flycatcher, Scaled Pigeon, Montezuma Oropendola, all three Saltators, and a gorgeous male Painted Bunting! As we climbed higher into the forest, we had our first tastes of Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush, and the fantastic Slate-colored Solitaire; one of the best songs in all the neotropics! We even had a Gray-collared Becard and Spotted Woodcreeper down a small side trail! Unfortunately, while we were able to successfully dodge it in the morning, the rain was really starting to settle in come lunch time, and we had to abandon our birding for shelter. Eventually, we decided to head a little lower down and hit the areas we had wanted to yesterday afternoon while it was raining. Mercifully, the weather was clearer farther down and we were spared getting wetter! The birds weren’t all the most cooperative, but we did get some really nice views of White-crowned Parrots, Rufous-breasted Spinetail, and Yellow-tailed Oriole. We also heard a Thicket Tinamou and a Middle American Screech-Owl, even in the middle of the afternoon! By the time we were done, it was time to head back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for a long day of travel and birding back towards Oaxaca City tomorrow on our final day.
Day 10: Our final day and a long day of travel awaited us as we needed to head back towards Oaxaca City. Thankfully, the weather looked rain-free and we bypassed the lower elevations and headed straight for the higher forests we hadn’t done as well with the previous days. Our first stop gifted us quite a few new birds, with Wedge-tailed Sabrewing, Azure-crowned Hummingbird, Azure-hooded Jay, Scaly-throated Foliage-gleaner, Blue-crowned Cholorophonia, White-naped Brushfinch (the nominate group, possibly a different species!), Bananaquit, and a brief encounter for some of us with a Golden-cheeked Warbler! Higher still, we had an absolutely amazing encounter with a pair of Pheasant Cuckoos, a normally incredibly secretive species that’s often only heard and not seen. Not only did we get prolonged views of a perched bird, we got to watch the pair fly around really showing off that strangely proportioned huge body! We spent a little more time along a side trail attempting to get views of the Black-headed Nightingale-Thrushes, but instead found our only Flame-colored Tanagers and heard a Middle American Leaftosser! As we wound higher and higher into the cloud forest, we started to get high enough to start encountering the higher Pine-oak forests and birds again. At our highest point, we found another flock of Azure-hooded Jays along with a Unicolored Jay, a Northern Emerald-Toucanet, a pair of Amethyst-throated Mountain-gems, and even had a flyby of a calling Barred Parakeet! We stopped for a moment right at the very top of the mountains managing to snag a Chestnut-collared Swift mixed in with some Violet-green Swallows and a Common Raven soaring over. This is a declining species this far south, and is slowly disappearing from the southern extent of its range. We arrived at our lunch spot more around the time of an early dinner time because the birds had just been so good! The birding didn’t stop however because our cozy roadside cafe was situated in an area of beautiful pine-oak forest and had a couple feeders and water dishes set out. Here, we had some amazing looks at things like Chestnut-sided Shrike Vireo, Gray-barred Wren, Olive Warbler, Acorn Woodpecker, Blue-throated Mountain-gem, Chestnut-capped Brushfinch, Collared Towhee, Audubon’s Oriole, and Hepatic Tanager. We also importantly managed to get both Turkey and Black Vultures completing our daily tally of those two species. After a very late lunch, we headed down into Oaxaca City for our final dinner and evening before all flying out the next morning.
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/579769
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/oac26TRIPLIST.pdf
-- Dan, Bret, and Alex