Waterbirds are frequently featured
in Classic Maya Art
Posted September 14, 2020
Wading birds and other waterbirds are the birds most often seen in Classic Maya art of Peten, Guatemala, Copan Ruinas, Honduras, Palenque and other sites in Mexico. Yes, the anciRuinas, occasional vultures and other birds. But waterbirds are by far the most noticeable.
I had a chapter on waterbirds and another chapter on water lily flowers in my PhD dissertation many decades ago. Now I am keen to find more species of waterbirds around Lake Yaxha and Rio Ixtinto, and other species in the Caribbean area of Rio Dulce. There are also lots of waterbirds in the lagoons and wetland marshes and mangrove swamps inland from the Pacific Ocean coast (but this is far from the Maya city states of Peten, Belize, Chiapas, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Copan Ruinas etc.). Lake Atitlan is another place we have photographed waterbirds in past years. Plus Rio la Pasion, Arroyo Petexbatun, Laguna Petexbatun, etc.
One of our goals is to have high resolution close-up views of each species of waterbirds. Resident species are easiest since we find them any month that we do a field trip. It will help iconographers, epigraphers, archaeologists to more accurately identify the species in Early Classic and Late Classic Maya art if there are literally photo albums available for each individual species. So we start with the brown pelican (not many white pelicans in the northern half of Guatemala). But year by year we hope to cover all wading birds, shore birds, and other waterbird species to assist students, professors, and show people around the world that Guatemala is a great place to come to see these birds yourselves and do your own photography. ent Maya also show hummingbirds, occasionally toucans, lots of scarlet macaws at Copan
