[Birdtalk] New bird for my "bathroom list"

[Mark Stackhouse]

No, I don't mean the list of birds you identified from the pages of  
National Geographic . . .

Let me explain.

Life in the tropics is a constant reminder that you are but a part of  
an ecosystem, that whatever space you temporarily choose to occupy is  
only partially yours. You must share what you call "your" house with a  
great variety of other creatures. In addition to our "invited" guests  
of ducks, rabbits, turtles, and a new puppy, we have many other  
inhabitants that come, go, stay or simply pass through, as they wish.  
Geckos wander freely over our walls and corners, helping keep the many  
species of six-legged residents and visitors at manageable numbers  
(it's especially amusing to watch a gecko try to take a large  
dragonfly). For months a large tree frog would appear nightly to perch  
atop our water jug - where he went during the day remains a mystery.   
A quite large spiny iguana once "hung out' on the iron work of our  
front porch and accepted handouts of lettuce. A smaller one once  
emerged from the sewers through our toilet and accepted a quick  
shooing with a broom.

It puts a whole new perspective on the "ecological" corners, where I  
wouldn't allow my mom to kill the spiders, in my childhood room.

So it really wasn't a shock when our six-year-old, Daniela, ran into  
the bedroom the other day ("Mami! Papi!) shouting that we had to come  
see (Mira! Ven!) the crab that was on our front porch. On occasions  
I've seen rather large land-crabs "booking it" down the street,  
arousing a curious, if cautious, reaction from the neighborhood cats.  
But when we got there, we found not a crab, but the remains of a crab  
lying on our porch. An appendage-impoverished carapace, and some (but  
not all) of the missing limbs were scattered about.

My first thought was that one of the cats had gotten brave (and  
lucky), but  something about these pieces looked strange. Somehow they  
looked as if they had been vomited there. A couple of white spatters  
on the floor turned my thoughts to a different suspect. I cast my gaze  
about, and found myself staring face-to-face with the real culprit - a  
newly fledged Yellow-crowned Night-Heron that was perched on the top  
of one of our house plants just outside the iron work of the porch.

This in itself was not entirely unexpected, since there's a sizable  
nesting colony of the herons in a large tree on the bank of the  
estuary about 30 meters from my front door, and this time of year the  
youngsters take their first ventures out of the nest, usually starting  
on the sidewalks of our street. But I'd never seen one in my house, as  
this one apparently had been.

I went and got my camera, and snapped a few pictures of the invader  
through the grate. Then I stepped outside for an unobstructed view,  
and the heron slipped, like a rail through cattails, between the iron  
bars, dashed across the porch and went into the house through the open  
front door! It went straight through the house and out through the  
back door into the patio (from where there's no exit for an only  
partially-flighted night-heron). After saying "hola" to the rather  
startled ducks and rabbits, it came back into the house, took a tour  
of the bedrooms, and then went into the bathroom, where I was able to  
get his picture in the shower - thus documenting the first bird ever  
on my "bathroom list."

Being a true lister, at this point it held no value, so was quickly  
ushered out the front door and down the street, where it was last seen  
working its way back to the rookery by a climb-flutter-hop up a large  
bush below the nest tree.

Mark Stackhouse
San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
mark at westwings.com

Here's some photos of the adventure:

The evidence:


The culprit:


The "escape" into the house:


In the bathroom:


Free again, and heading down the street:
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