Feb. 16, 2006 - South Padre Island, Texas

Sunrise and Venus over the Gulf of Mexico
Water...light...a new day...

Feb. 8-10, 2006 - Zacatecas City, Zacatecas, Mexico

These are photos from Zacatecas City in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico, where I recently attended a North American Crane Conference. It was a wonderful meeting, with the chance to interact with biologists from Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Cuba, and even Germany.


And Zacatecas is a wonderful city! It’s located in the Mexico Highlands, with a wonderful mild climate for much of the year. It’s a very friendly, clean, and safe city, with many famous museums and lovely parks. But, the history is what is really amazing...

Zacatecas was settled in the 16th century, and around every corner of the winding Spanish colonial brick streets there is treasure—an old church, a stone wall inlaid with local minerals, a stately government building, even a silver mine dating from the 1500s. Our conference was held in the Rafael Coronel Museum, which is housed in a convent built in 1593!! 1593!! It makes the Texas history that Abby is studying seem like current events.


Anyway, here are some photos of a very lovely city—one that I’d love to revisit with the entire family one day…

Rafael Coronel Museum, Zacatecas--not your usual boring conference site!

Entering the convent/conference site...








The meeting room--presenters had to compete with a ghoulish, yet riveting painting at the end of the room...







Lunches were held on the convent grounds--many enticements to wander away from the meeting...







One lunch break included a tour of the museum, which holds the largest collection of masks in the world, from pre-Columbian to modern...

Feb. 8-10, 2006 - Zacatecas at night

This city never sleeps!

I can understand why--because it's so beautiful at night...












One night we added to the night life by forming a "callejonada," sort of a progressive street dance that wanders around the city led by a burro loaded with mescal. Just the music and fun is intoxicating!

Feb. 9, 2006 - Somewhere in the Sierra Madres, Zacatecas, Mex.

North American Crane Conference field trip...

The conference organizers had a great idea--break up the monotony of scientific presentations by inserting field trips to actually view wildlife on the middle day of the conference. The choices were tough to choose among--visit a distant wetland in the late afternoon to view waterbirds and cranes arriving at dusk; visit nearby wetlands, along with the famous artwork of the Virgen de Guadalupe Museum; visit a historic mine which is now the site of a wildlife sanctuary and zoo; or hike in some of the highlands with a chance to glimpse breeding golden eagles. I chose the highlands, with a hope of seeing both eagles and and a more remote hope of seeing horned lizards in the late winter.

The location was not too distant from Zacatecas, and we made great time while traveling on some of the newer highways. One could almost feel confident about negotiating a tour of Mexico on your own using those roads; however, when we dropped off the main highway to wander our way through a town perched along the edges of a canyon and then found ourselves traveling a dusty gravel road through the yucca and grasses of the Central Highlands, I sobered up a bit on the thought of leading the family on a road trip off the beaten path (especially with my toddler-level Spanish!)

The starting point for our hike was just outside a small settlement of cinderblock and adobe houses. There were "gardens" of prickly pear planted near the homes, and animals were everywhere--small horses (ponies, really), goats, chickens, thin dogs, burros. The homes and people were quite different from the quite affluent and relatively modern population of Zacatecas, though the residents were welcoming and even tolerated my broken attempts at conversation.

Our hike began over some gravelly slopes that were obviously heavily used by the local livestock, but as we climbed higher, more native plants and grasses appeared. Our guides, who included some university students, state wildlife officials, and another fellow who seemed to be a local resident hired to study the eagles, pointed out several distant crevices where golden eagle nests had been found, and then we spotted an eagle soaring high over the ridge of the sierra. Or at least it must have been an eagle--it was large and it was soaring in the place where the eagles were supposed to be...

However, my dreams were realized when someone shouted "here's a horned lizard!" It was a female Mexican Plateau Horned Lizard who might have been venturing out for some of her first sunshine of the year. !
She was probably willing her body temperature to rise and release her from her sluggishness as she found herself surrounded by 20 gringos with digital cameras. However, she held true to the horned lizards' reputation for a placid nature and endured quite a lot of handling and photography. The plateau on which we found her was covered with harvester ant beds. From that point I ignored eagles and kept my eyes on the ground, hoping to spot another, but a single spiny lizard was the only other reptile we saw. Never mind--that one camaleon coronado convinced me that I had chosen the right field trip

Feb. 9, 2006 - More lovely scenes in the Sierra Madres, Zacatecas, Mex.