As I said here, I’ve been in Western Mexico the last two weeks (I’m now back home), and I saw some pretty neat rarities!
First, the Berylline hummingbird I saw in Zacatecas. In its normal range it is not a rare bird at all, in fact they are very common in urban West and Central Mexico (they’re the second most observed hummie on iNat in Mexico). But in Zacatecas it’s a pretty rare bird. It’s estimated range only covers a small fraction of the state, but on ebird there are ZERO observations of that species for the state, and only ONE on iNat. And the funniest thing about the sighting is that I stayed a good while in Guadalajara where it is supposed to be VERY common, but I didn’t see any there. Then I went to Zacatecas and saw it the first day of my staying!
Another one was the spotted wren, a bird with a ‘‘variable abundance’’ endemic to Mexican highlands. It can get very common in some areas, but it is also pretty rare in Zacatecas where I saw it, with only THREE iNat observations for the state and ZERO on eBird. I remember seeing him assuming it was a cactus wren, which is supposed to be very common there (I wasn’t very familiarized with the wildlife over there so sorry for my random guesses) and I remembered it’s color pattern very well and took some (terrible) photos. Back home I searched for cactus wren photos online, and saw they looked nothing like my bird. I searched for every Campylorhynchus species found in Mexico and the spotted wren is the only one that matches PERFECTLY.
I also saw some pretty rare saturniid moths and beautiful beetles.