Shhh…don’t tell anyone about this place.

It’s settled.

Cancel any other travel plans you might have because I discovered the most relaxing, birdiest place where you could stay.

Seriously. Dump your other plans and listen to what I’m about to tell you.

Just fly into Puerto Vallarta and head south, going up the mountain to a small town called El Tuito. Just outside of El Tuito you’ll find Rancho Primavera, a 200-acre property that has guest houses (three of them) and rooms for groups in the main building and is owned by mother-daughter team, Pat and Bonnie. There is no one around and the place is carpeted by green grass, flowering bougainvillea and provides majestic mountains as a backdrop.

Rancho Primavera had been one of our stops early last year when we took a birding day trip with Ecotours de Mexico on our first trip to Puerto Vallarta. We spent an hour or so looking for birds there and that’s when we first met Bonnie. When I discovered that there were guest houses on the property I told Steve that we needed to come back, so that’s what we did. We planned another trip to Puerto Vallarta and we booked three nights here. (This is where we were staying when I posted my New Year’s post earlier this year.)

The best part of the guest house is the back porch that overlooks the pond and the feeders. We spent most of our time on the porch watching the parade of birds appear. That parade, by the way, included 62 species of birds. (See end of this post for the complete list.)

Show, don’t tell.

Rather than me blathering on about the birds, how about I show you some of the these birds we got to know during our stay at Rancho Primavera.

It doesn’t get much easier than this.

Our guest house had a kitchen and it was wonderful being able to cook our meals and keep fruit on hand to keep the feeders replenished. We were able to get good WiFi and we had superb water pressure and hot water. Booking the guest house was a breeze and Bonnie was excellent in giving us directions in advance, suggestions on where to pick up food in Puerto Vallarta before we made our journey to El Tuito, as well as what we could find in El Tuito. We had rented a car (a Volkswagen Jetta) and it made the trip with no problem. Roads are good.

In the evenings as dusk was beginning to settle in on Rancho Primavera, flocks of  Snowy Egrets and White Egrets flew over the pond then past our porch over to the trees to the left of us, just out of sight, where they would roost for the night. First one group. Then a second. Then a third, and so on. It was this nightly ritual we looked forward to as they settled in after a day of feeding. And as they were hunkering down for the night, the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks skirted over the pond and into the sky, flying off over the field of green, diminishing into little dots in the sky to begin their nocturnal feeding. The gobbling of the egrets as they greeted one another in the trees, and the beating of wings and splashing of the Whistling ducks as they took off to the skies were the evening song of nature as we began to settle into our own rhythm of winding down our night: make dinner, put a kettle on for tea, go through our bird list, post to eBird and read a book as the gecko–our roommate–chirped to remind us that he was there to eat any bugs that made their way in. (The gecko did a find job–I don’t believe I saw one bug in the guest house.)

We didn’t spend our entire time on that back porch. We took advantage of the trails on the property to stretch our legs and see the birds.The property is exquisitely painted with bouganvillia of every color imaginable and a Tom Turkey keeps a close watch on his lady turkey friend, giving you enough attitude as you walk by so you know to keep your distance.

Nature first. Humans second.

There is something very special about this place and sometimes I’ll say that I can’t exactly put my finger on it as to why a place is special. But in this case I know exactly why: Pat and Bonnie have nurtured the land here and brought to it a focus on nature and wildlife first and a retreat for humans second.

So, hey. Let’s not tell everyone about it, right? Maybe we should just keep this a secret between us.

To book at Rancho Primavera, start here to get information on how to do it.

NOTE: Steve and I did not receive any compensation, discounts or in-kind offerings as part of this post. We booked our stay on our own dime. Gushing compliments and reviews here are genuine.

The list

These are the birds we saw at Rancho Primavera.

1. Least Grebe
2. Neotropic Cormorant
3. Great Blue Heron
4. Great Egret
5. Snowy Egret
6. Cattle Egret
7. Green Heron
8. Black-crowned Night Heron
9. White Ibis
10. White-face Ibis
11. Black-bellied Whistling Duck
12. Blue-winged Teal
13. Turkey Vulture
14. Black Vulture
15. West Mexican Chachalaca
16. Sora Rail (heard)
17. American Coot
18. White-fronted Dove (White-tipped Dove)
19. Orange-fronted Parakeet
20. Lilac-crowned Parrot
21. Grooved-bill Ani
22. Cinnamon Hummingbird
23. Plain-capped Starthroat
24. Ringed Kingfisher
25. Green Kingfisher
26. Russet-crowned Motmot
27. Golden-cheeked Woodpecker
28. Tropical Kingbird
29. Social Flycatcher
30. Great Kiskadee
31. Pacific Slope Flycatcher
32. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
33. San Blas Jay
34. Happy Wren (heard)
35. Blue Mockingbird
36. Rufous-backed Robin
37. Orange-billed Nightingale-thrush
38. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
39. Plumbeous Vireo
40. Black and White Warbler
41. Nashville Warbler
42. Yellow Warbler
43. Black-throated Gray Warbler
44. Northern Waterthrush
45. Common Yellowthroat
46. Yellow-breasted Chat
47. American Redstart
48. House Sparrow
49. Yellow-winged Cacique
50. Great-tailed Grackle
51. Orchard Oriole
52. Black-vented Oriole
53. Baltimore Oriole
54. Streak-backed Oriole
55. Summer Tanager
56. Yellow Grosbeak
57. Stripe-headed Sparrow
58. Black-throated Magpie Jay
59. Squirrel Cuckoo
60. Ruddy Ground Dove
61. Tennessee Warbler
62. White-winged Dove