buried mirror: latest reflections

According to the LA Times, that is. It lists six of them: Michoacán’s Million Monarch March: Whale-Watching Sea-Turtle Nesting Beaches Lago Bacalar Copper Canyon Desert Landscapes in Baja Sur What do you think of this list? .

This image of turquoise-browed motmots comes from jvverde’s photostream. .

The New York Public Library has digitized and put online The Orchidaceæ of Mexico & Guatemala by Jas Bateman. This rare book was published 1837-1843 by James Ridgway and Sons. The prints are quite beautiful, as these examples suggest: Oncidium leucochilum. [White-lipped oncidium]: Stanhopea tigrina. [Tiger-like stanhopea] Cattleya skinneri: See the full book here. .

Mexican president Felipe Calderon visited the Sierra Chincua monarch butterfly reserve to announce a new $4.6 million program that will provide equipement and marketing support for the preserve, which is the winter refuge of monarch butterflies that migrate south from Mexico. Without a safe Mexican habitat, the butterflies would be endangered. Calderon noted the significance [...]

Chiminos Island Lodge is located in the remote Petexbatun Region region of the Peten. It bills itself as an “eco-archaeological adventure.” I have never visited, but that seems fair enough based on the evidence of this video. Lodge home page

It might seem an obvious point, but a 2004 report by Anabel Ford, a UCSB anthropologist wroking at the site of El Pilar, confirmed that Yucatan’s ecosystem “bears the evidence of manipulation.” Plants are spread more uniformly that would be the the case in an unmanipulated ecosystem. Many of the “jungle” plants are cultivated species [...]

I took this photo of this colorful creature at the Maya site of Ek Balam in the northern Yucatan.

So colorful! It’s not hard to see why the ancient Maya attached such importance to the macaw.

Endangered white tailed deer were recently released in Guatemala. (I haven’t been able to find details about the release — if anyone knows more, please leave a comment.) Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com. |

This is a watercolor I did some years ago.

This handsome bird is a motmot, who may be seen in thickets and forrests throughout Mesoamerica. His name comes from the sound he makes (often heard in early morning). Listen. I had always heard that the bird modifies his tail himself, plucking away at the midfeather to leave the barbs at the end. But now [...]

This orchid, called the Monja Blanca in Spanish, or White Nun, was proclaimed the national flower of Guatemala in 1934 by the dictator Ubico. (Another version of the Latin name is Lycaste virginalis var. alba.) This rare orchid is found in Alta Verapaz, in the northwest of the country. It is fragrant and showy, but [...]