I birded a fabulous and, I believe, safe place just outside Mexico City in Oct. 2008 called Desierto de los Leones. It is an old monastery in a gorgeous forest with clean air and some good birding uphill from the parking area. Yellow-eyed Juncos are abundant in the parking lot, due to the food vendors lining the lot. There is a nice paved pathway uphill through some woods that have flocks of small birds including Red Warbler, Hutton's Vireo, Crescent-chested Warbler, etc. As you proceed up the pathway a few hundred feet you come to a small building called the Hermitage. To the right is a small pathway that leads back toward the entry road and has a steep pathway leading down to the road. Along the path in the thickets were Green-striped and Rufous-capped Brush Finches, which with a little patience surrendered fabulous views. Once here, you can't believe a place so beautiful is so near the city.
In the pines below and just south of La Cima birds were abundant with Tufted Flycather, Strickland's Woodpecker, Pygmy Nuthatch, Striped Sparrow, Olive-backed Towhee, Red Warbler and they say Blue Hooded Euphonia (check Mistletoe clumps), but I missed that one. Just up the road on the right (travelling south) at a field adjacent to a wide shoulder pull-off at Coajomulco were Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireo (really cool), Rose-throated Becard, White-throated Thrush, Rufous-capped Brush Finch, Russet Nightingale Thrush, tons of Green Violet Ears and White-eared Hummers, and a litte farther off the road were Cinnamon Flower Piercers. These spot are outlined in Steve Howell's book A Bird Finding Guide to Mexico, which is indispensable. It also gives great details on Temascaltepec, where it is nice to see Berylline and Magnificent Hummers in the trees of the town square from the patio of a nice restaurant! If you do go to Temascaltepec, you can stop on the way at the Almoloya del Rio marshes for Black-polled Yellowthroat.
Best,
Jeff
