This bird has brown upperparts and white underparts with black streaks. It has a grey face, a long black bill with a downward curve and two white wing bars.
The numbers of this bird declined rapidly when Hurricane Gilbert hit this island on September 14, 1988. Until it was sighted in June 2004, this bird had last been seen in 1995, the same year that Hurricane Roxanne hit Cozumel on October 11, and it was widely believed to have become extinct. It is believed to be the most critically endangered species of bird in Mexico.
Cozumel (Mayan: Island of the Swallows) is an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen.
The Maya are believed to have first settled Cozumel by the early part of the 1st millennium AD, and older Preclassic Olmec artifacts have been found on the island as well.
Diving is still a primary draw, but Cozumel built a deepwater pier in the 1990s (causing some damage to the reefs) so that cruise ships could easily dock there, and it is now a regular stop on cruises in the Caribbean.
The Mayans believed that Cozumel was the spiritual home of Ixchel, the Mayan Goddess of fertility and love, and Mayan women are said to have journeyed from all parts of the vast Mayan empire to worship at her shrines on the island.
In fact, the name Cozumel comes from the Mayan word "Cuzamil-Pectin" or "Land of the Swallows" because, as legend has it, she thanked the women for dedicating temples here to her by sending her favorite bird as a sign of gratitude.
In 1848 Cozumel's population began to grow again as it was reinhabited by Mayan and white Spanish refugees from the long and bloody Caste War on the mainland.
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