Category: natural world

Mexico’s best natural attractions

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…

Photo Wednesday: motmots

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

Orchids of Mexico and Guatemala

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…

Protecting butterflies

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,…

Chiminos Island Lodge

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…

The Yucatan as a garden

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…

What is this?

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

Love birds

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

White-Tailed Deer release in Guatemala

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.)…

View of temple 1, Tikal, from east plaza

This is a watercolor I did some years ago.

The motmot

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…

Lycaste skinneri var. alba

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…