La Noria Ranch, Nayarit

La Noria Ranch is located at the 5,000 foot level deep in the Sierra Madre range.  The road to the ranch winds through five miles of wooded high elevation parkland called Cerro San Juan. Open, rolling land falls away as the road climbs higher to the cool forest above. At our first stop, still at a low elevation, a brown-backed solitaire's pure, trilling call welcomed the pristine morning.  This is what might be called a drab bird, but once you hear his song, you will never think him ordinary.  Unearthly bell-like notes fall and rise on the cool air as his breath becomes visible in the chill dawn air.
 Tiny blue and red salvia blossoms along the roadside attract many hummingbirds.  Some of the highlights were Mexican woodnymphs and the tiny bumblebee hummingbird.  As we climbed higher, Sierra Madre pines became more abundant, and so did the woodpeckers.  We encountered acorn, ladder-backed, and a Mexican endemic, gray-crowned woodpecker.  A pair of stunning, aptly named  green jays called and swooped across a wide canyon, giving us excellent looks.

At our coffee stop, we prowled the dense forest to find an abundance of warblers: red-faced, rufous-capped, crescent-chested.  All as beautiful as their names.

A picnic lunch had been provided and we all found that for the first time, we actually needed another layer of clothing in Nayarit- it was cold in the mountains!  We perched along a fence at La Noria Ranch and enjoyed the cool air and abundant birds. 

We took a different route back to San Blas, arriving about 4:30 in the afternoon at a place called Mirador del Aquila, or View of the Eagles. In North America this would be called a scenic viewpoint.  El Mirador is a pullout at the top of a steep hill on a busy highway.  The forested hills fall away in the distance, soft blue and green in the haze, unspoiled as far as the eye can see.  An hour before dusk, miliary macaws fly into the canyon far below to roost for the night.  Seen from above, they are a gemlike turquoise-green.  They call raucously and settle, fly, then resettle in the forest below. 
Finally, when the light became too poor to pick up the lovely green macaws, we turned the van once again toward the welcoming lights of San Blas.