December 28, 2018

BIRDS OF CHRISTMAS MORNING
Last Tuesday at dawn an exploding rocket in the village reminded me that it was Christmas Day. Of course I remembered with pleasure Christmas mornings of my childhood and Christmas meals with the whole family. But also I remembered how for many years I enjoyed the tradition of walking around on Christmas Day listing the birds I saw.

For example, in the Newsletter of December 30th, 2001 you can see the list of species seen that Christmas, when I was hermitting in the woods near Natchez, Mississippi. I still remember how the Cooper's Hawk flew up from bushes, landed in a nearby Water Oak tree, glanced over his shoulder at me, then silently flew away. That list is still online at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/01/011230.htm

So, I decided to make a list for this Christmas morning eighteen years later.

Before dawn, lying inside the mosquito net, already I'd heard a FERRUGINOUS PYGMY-OWL twittering beside the hut's door, and just as the morning's first light had dawned, the TURQUOISE-BROWED MOTMOT who claims a tangle of roots on the side of the deep pit below the hut patio chortled his hoarse, froggy How-are-yooooo? How-are-yooooo?.

While I poured water onto my morning granola, the HOODED WARBLER who each winter visits at this time came tschk!-tschk!-tschk!ing, and as always I tried to take a picture of him, but as always he flitted around too fast and the light was too dim to get a good shot. About this time also a MELODIOUS BLACKBIRD erupted with a series of sharp weechew-weechew-weechew calls.

It had gotten down to 68°F (20°C), but even in that chill and with the Sun not yet entirely above the horizon, about five WHITE-FRONTED PARROTS flew overhead screeching to one another. Over at the cow pen, a GREAT KISKADEE shrieked ke-awwwwww!. And right when the Sun detached from the horizon, from the abandoned papaya planting, a WHITE-BROWED WREN briefly called, sounding very much like his northern brother the Carolina Wren, though this wee-che, wee-che, wee-che was faster and higher pitched.

Strolling through the abandoned papaya field, I scared up a couple of YELLOW-BILLED CACIQUES, which usually are hard to see, though here we're all used to one another, and I glimpse them regularly. They're like pale-billed, yellow-eyed blackbirds, and normally skulk through deep shadows in the woods, and even these stayed among the trees. Sometimes they make the most surprising loud noises, but these were silent now. In fact, compared to other times of the year, the birds on this morning as the breezes were just beginning to stir and the air heating minute by minute, were all more subdued than usual.

Several YUCATAN JAYS passed issuing their obstreperous, ratchety calls. It's always a pleasure seeing these flamboyant blue and black birds, but this morning I just heard them flying around.

A diffuse gathering of maybe five BLACK-HEADED SALTATORS slowly drifted through the treetops around me, making sharp sounds like that of closely knited fabric being quickly ripped. Seeming to be a part of the group, an ALTAMIRA ORIOLE, brightly yellow and black, foraged atop a Habim tree. A male and female pair of ROSE-THROATED BECARDS seemed to orbit around us, too, keeping to the taller trees. It was the same place where at the beginning of the last rainy season they'd nested in a tall Cedro tree. And a WHITE-TIPPED DOVE called hooing from the woods. Later he'd visit me at the hut, walking daintily and pigeon-toed among dried leaves on the forest floor as I sit reading in the afternoon.

Several bird species clustered around the little pond, and my list would be considerably longer if the dogs hadn't been running back and forth, but still I got to see a silent TROPICAL PEWEE working through the forest's edge and, down in the grass, a YELLOW-FACED GRASSQUIT. A GRAY-CROWNED YELLOWTHROAT flitted about the bushes at the grassy area's edge. Both of these open-area-loving species were silent, but from among some nearby shrubs a WHITE-EYED VIREO issued just one phrase of his distinctive call, then remained silent.

In fact, now at about 9 AM, with the Sun well up and the wind moving tree limbs around, everyone was getting quiet, and becoming more shy, so I figured that that was enough, and went to water the garden.

Making bird lists always is a good idea, and even when you feel pretty good already, compiling a list always makes you feel even better. There's just something magical about walking around looking for birds, and I'm glad I remembered to do it this Christmas morning.

*****

MARLBERRY FLOWERING
At the weedy edges of abandoned Maya cornfields and along fencerows at the rancho, a shrub or small tree has been producing soccer-ball-size flowering heads of little white flowers, a branch of which is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228aa.jpg

The little tree tends to grow in such clutters of weeds and bushes that unless you look closely it's not all that attractive. However, closer up the flowers start taking on character, and the leathery leaves exhibit a dignified simplicity, as evidenced at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228ab.jpg

From a distance, the plant with its inflorescences of small, white flowers looks like a shrubby member of the Nightshade or Tomato Family, but the flowers showed details excluding it from that family, and hinting that here was something special. The detail is clearly visible at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228ac.jpg

The vast majority of flowers of this basic structure -- five-lobed corolla and calyx, five stamens, superior ovary bearing a single style -- have their stamens alternating with the corolla lobes. This blossom's stamens arise opposite them. I can only think of the three families with such flowers, but with stamens opposite corolla lobes: the Primrose Family (whose species are nearly always herbaceous); the Sapodilla Family (usually producing milky sap), and; the Myrsine Family, which I'd not encountered before. Knowing that here I'd need to "do the botany," I looked for more field marks.

The stem was notably smooth and hairless, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228ae.jpg

Gnawing off the top of an immature fruit, I found just one seed inside, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228ad.jpg

Holding a leaf up against the Sun revealed many translucent spots and streaks, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228af.jpg

That confused me because I've only seen such streaks in the Flacourtia Family, but flower corollas in that family produce separate petals, not lobes on a corolla tube, and the stamens alternate with the petals.

In the end that left just the Myrsine Family, of which only one species is listed for the Yucatan Peninsula, and that was ARDISIA ESCALLONIOIDES, which turned out to be our little tree. It occurs in several English-speaking countries, so it goes by several names, the most common one seeming to be Marlberry, also Dog-berry. It's mostly a plant of the Caribbean islands, but also it occurs in Florida, this part of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.

I read that Marlberry grows up to 50ft tall (15m), and that the drupe-type fruits turn from green to red and then finally black. I find no traditional medicinal uses for it. Its fruits are reported as edible, but not good tasting. However, they look just right for certain bird species.

*****

BLUESTEM/ BEARD GRASS FLOWERING
Along the paved entry road to the village of Ek Balam a 7ft-tall (2m) clump of grass leaned with the wind, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228an.jpg

All along the road the species appeared only spottily, but among the little ranches and abandoned cornfields just north of Santa Rita maybe four kilometers away, late I found it to be much more common. One field was so thick with it that it seemed to have been sowed, and maybe it was, as forage, because in one place the rancher had cut an armload of stems and leaves, maybe to carry home for the cow.

The grass looked like one of the bluestems or beard grasses so abundant in North America's dry prairie regions. In the eastern US, the best known of this group is the one known as Broomsedge, which is a yard-high, clump-forming grass that colonizes abandoned fields, indicating poor soil. In late fall and early winter it lends large patches of the landscape a warm, reddish-brown hue. Expecting a challenge in determining the species, I set about photographing its main field marks. You can see the flowering top of one grass at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228ao.jpg

Up closer, you see how the tips of each of the numerous peduncles bear two finger-long items technically called "short paracladia subzones," as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228ap.jpg

Even closer we see other details of the spikelets, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228aq.jpg

And as close as my camera will go, you can see that the spikelets occur in pairs, one on a hairy stem or pedicel, the other without a stem (sessile), as seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228as.jpg

Finally, when identifying grasses, it's always a good to notice the ligules at each blade's base, where it meets the grass stem, and that's shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/181228ar.jpg

Using images of herbarium specimens and descriptions on the Internet, the best I can determine is that this is ANDROPOGON FASTIGIATUS, with no particular English name. Though little documented in the Yucatan, it's very broadly distributed throughout much of tropical Africa, Asia, on Pacific islands, and from Mexico and the Caribbean south through Central America to Brazil in South America.

Because of the few reports of its presence here, I suspect that our plants constitute a small island population resulting from someone sowing the species, or maybe bringing in seed-carrying hay from someplace else. Judging from how it seems to spread easily from field to field and along the road, probably it'll be common throughout the Yucatan before long.

*****

WHICH SPECIES IS THE "REAL" BALCHÉ?
At https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/balche.htm we meet the common Yucatan tree Lonchocarpus rugosus, known here as the Balché tree. I've participated in several Maya ceremonies during which local Maya shamans used the balché drink made from this tree. Nowadays in north-central Yucatan Lonchocarpus rugosus is heavy with its legume-type fruits.

The other day I was talking with our Maya worker Juan, who is very knowledgeable about the traditional Maya names and uses of local plants, and he called our tree by another name. He said that the Balché tree was similar, but hardly ever seen in these parts.

I had no doubt about having seen Lonchocarpus rugosus used in Maya ceremonies, so on the Internet I spent most of a morning researching the matter. I found that the concepts of what the Balché tree is have changed a lot since I produced our Balché page in 2011. What follows is bound to be boring to anyone not curious about which species is the "real" Balché tree, but to a few folks it should be very interesting stuff.

In Suzanne Cook's 2016 masterpiece entitled " The Forest of the Lacandon Maya: An Ethnobotanical Guide," we learn which tree species the Lacandon Maya think of as Balché. The Lacandon perspective is important because these people, occupying part of the Chiapas lowlands across the river from Guatemala, in many ways retain more traditional Maya customs and learning than any other Maya group.

Suzanne Cook tells us that in Chiapas state twelve species of Lonchocarpus are listed, and several of those are known as Balché. In that group, the Lacandons recognize two kinds of Balché: Hach Balché, which means "authentic Balché," and: Ya'ax Balché, meaning "green Balché."

The main "authentic Balché" appears to be Lonchocarpus longistylus, which occurs throughout most of the Yucatan but seems more common in the rainier eastern and southern parts. Our common species in north-central Yucatan, Lonchocarpus rugosus, is regarded as a "green Balché." Suzanne Cook writes that the two kinds of balché are "...differentiated on basis of leaf shape and color, flower color, bark texture, and degree of toxicity of resin in bark."

The Lacandon use species of "authentic Balché" in their rituals and say that "green Balché" species such as our Lonchocarpus rugosus may cause stomach aches and diarrhea. Since mostly I've seen the balché drink used in rituals during which it was poured as a sacrifice toward the four sacred directions, I'm guessing that our "green Balché," Lonchocarpus rugosus, was used because an "authentic Balché" couldn't be found locally. On the one occasion during which we drank balché, the shaman had brought his own balché brew from a different district.

In the Yucatan often we find the prettily flowering species Lonchocarpus violaceus planted as an ornamental. Our page for it is at https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/lonchoca.htm

On that page I point out that Lonchocarpus violaceus is native to the Lesser Antilles and northern South America, and not seen growing wild in our area.

With that in mind, finally in the often updated, authoritative Tropicos name database, I read that the name usually given for the main "authentic Balché," Lonchocarpus longistylus, and the name for our Lesser Antilles species, are now to be considered synonyms of Lonchocarpus punctatus.

In brief, the main "real" Balché is considered to be Lonchocarpus punctatus. However, our commonly occurring Lonchocarpus rugosus also is Balché, and in our area, because Lonchocarpus punctatus is fairly uncommon, may be the most-used species in Maya ceremonies, at least in those in which the drink is not drunk.

*****

SKY
I've read that in the old days certain nomadic tribes wandering the grassy steppes of central Asia worshiped the sky. Nothing in particular in the sky, like the Sun or Moon, but the sky itself.

I like to think about that, about living freely with feet in crushed grass and mud, and the omnipresent upper half of everyday reality being regarded as worshipful. Think of one's psyche in that atmosphere, there on the horizon-to-horizon plains, the godhead not a theoretical presence in a dubious Heaven, but actually right there, the blue sky, the clouds, the chilly winds sweeping across the grass, and rains, starry nights, snow in the night... all God-stuff, all meaningful and awe-inspiring, all the time, even the circling ravens raining down croaks pregnant with godly meanings.

Also here in the Yucatan as the new year begins you can't miss the sky's poetical, mind-stirring grandness, which grows day by day. For one thing, as the dry season sets in the air is less humid, more crystalline, so light dazzles more than ever. Also, with the advancing dry season, deciduous trees start to shed dried-up, brown, or yellowish, or maybe just dusty-green leaves, letting more light reach the forest floor. Around the hut it's noticeably more airy, a kind of wateriness to the light, plus it's the coolest time of the year. Skin in shadow can be cold, even as skin in glaring sunlight sizzles. It feels good after all those months of heat and humidity. Most days, there's even a friendly breeze. Delicious.

At this season the sky-symphony's key accommodates nortes, or "northers," that majestically spread down from Canada and the US, across the Gulf of Mexico, to here, and sometimes even into Guatemala. Usually as the front passes it just grows cloudy, maybe with a brief shower. On the first and second nights after the passage, our coldest hours are at dawn. This week at the hut it got down to 51°F (11°C). When I asked a Maya worker if he suffered much, he replied "Un poquito," "a little." Sometimes people in the villages pile fireplace embers below their hammocks.

The nortes come about once a week now. Right before they hit, it's warmer and more humid than usual, then it's cloudy and a brisk wind blows old broken tree twigs to the ground, then a cold night follows, and next day there's a dark blue sky with skin-burning sunlight. Now as the days pass, each afternoon more and more summery white cumulus clouds grace the sky, and then the next norte arrives, and then the whole thing starts over again, and again. If over the long haul you're paying attention, drinking it all in, it's a bit hypnotic.

This week it's all been accompanied by nights luminous with moonlight. Right next to the hut's open door with moonlight streaming through, I dream dreams seeming to be meant for some other person, dreams populated with people and things I've never seen before. When I awaken, it feels as if I've been listening to the sky, understanding some, but mostly not.

*****

Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,

Jim

All previous Newsletters are archived at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/.