Notes on Birds of the Lake Patzcuaro Region, Michoacan, Mexico

Because of the diversity of bird life observed by Edwards and Stephen W. Eaton of Cornell University when they visited Lake Pitzcuaro on July 28 and 29, .1946, they considered the region a promising one for study. Further impetus to plans for intensive investigation of the region was afforded by the report of Blake and Hanson (1942) on avifaunal studies in the Rio Tepalcaitepec-Cerro de Tancitaro area. Their paper, which emphasized the fact that little published information on the birds of the state of Michoacin was available, serves as an excellent groundwork for further study in the state. Consequently the Lea-Edwards Expedition with John W. Boehm of Elgin, Illinois, visited PTitzcuaro in the late winter and early spring of 1947, making observations and collecting birds intensively in the region from March 14 to 19 and from April 25 to May 9. The following report, based on 167 specimens of 92 species, also includes mention of 58 species of which we obtained no specimens, but which were observed either by us in 1947 or by Eaton and Edwards during the visit in the summer of 1946. We found that there were no previously published reports of the occurrence in Michoacain of 48 species of the total of 150 species that we recorded. These are designated in the annotated list by an asterisk placed before the species name. Although almost half of them are based on sight records alone, and many are common birds in similar situations in other parts of the central plateau, we feel that it is worthwhile to give them special mention. R. T. Moore (1945:223) apparently has assembled a collection of several thousand birds from Michoacin, taken by Chester C. Lamb, and it may contain many of the species that we designate as new records for the state, since presumably portions of the collection still remain to be reported upon. Three have been recorded by Moore (1945:231-232) as occurring in his Tarascan Faunal District, which consists primarily of a portion of the state of Michoacain, but also includes some of M6xico and Jalisco. All of the observations reported herein were made within the region extending from Carapan and the volcano of Paricutin east to Morelia, and from the Mexico CityGuadalajara highway south to Tacimbaro. However, by far the greater portion of the work was done within a few miles of the lake shore inside the boundaries of the Lake Patzcuaro basin. The surface of the lake is well over 6000 feet above sea level and only once, during a morning's collecting near Tacaimbaro at approximately 5000 feet elevation, did we descend appreciably below this level. The 1947 party entered the Paitzcuaro Lake basin in mid-March by way of Carapan, Cherain, Nahuatzin and Sevina, driving over deep-dusty, rocky roads and ox-trails from Sevina across the mountains to Erongaricuaro, and thence around the west and south shores of the lake to PTitzcuaro. The extensive virgin forests of pine which once supported a population of Imperial Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus imperialis) (Nelson, 1898:218) were no longer to be found between Nahuatzin and Paitzcuaro, the land having been almost completely cleared for agriculture. Even the mountain tops were covered only with relatively small areas of what appeared to be second-growth pine and oak. Campephilus imperialis is undonbtedly completely absent at present from this section of its former range. The extensive marshes near the southeast arm of the lake received the greatest share of our attention, and we made collections there in March, April and May. The marsh along the lake shore consisted primarily of cattails (Typha). Approximately 300 yards