Yesterday, just beginning the descent into the Gulf Lowlands, we celebrated 21% of our species being Gulf-Slope specialties. In this second list, taken hundreds of feet lower down the slope in habitats with much more of a tropical element, 38% of the species are Gulf-Slope birds. Northern migrants overwintering here account for 21% of the species. With all the habitat destruction so obvious around me, it's clear to see why the populations of so many neotropical migrants are diminishing.

Despite the landscape being so hacked-over, the list holds several species that would thrill any Northern birder. Foremost among these exotics is the Keel-billed Toucan, sketched at the right..  Add to that the Violaceous Trogon,  the Groove-billed Ani, the White-crowned Parrot and the Montezuma Oropendola, and the Northern birder feels in another world.

Still, most of the species in the list are "weed birds" -- species appearing mainly in ecologically disturbed areas. The toucan, croaking like a frog, appeared in a large avocado tree in a pasture. The parrot was in a coffee plantation and the trogon perched in a young roadside tree.

The list's Roadside Hawk lives up to its name. I've never seen it far from a road. It's an unassuming-looking, upright-perching, squat, brownish bird not as skittish as other hawks.