I recently spent a morning on the beach at Atotonilco Lagoon learning all about the plight of a tiny waterbird called the Snowy Plover.

Years ago, watercolorist Jorge Monroy took me to what he called a “river paradise” near the town of El Rosario in Nayarit, a two-hour drive from Guadalajara.

The other day I received a telephone call from Raul Campos, member of an organization called Senderos de México.

To call someone a cabeza de chorlito in Spanish is equivalent to calling that person a birdbrain in English. But how did the poor little chorlito (plover) end up with a reputation for not being the sharpest needle on the cactus? Yesterday I found out.

“Bioethanol is coming to Mexico,” said energy researcher Dr. Arturo Sánchez. “Within a few months, you’ll find it at every gasolinera.”

For the moment, this plant-based fuel is mainly coming from the United States, where 30 percent of its corn production is now turned into ethanol. “We don’t produce enough corn to do that,” said Sanchez, “but our sugar cane and tequila industries do produce great quantities of bagasse and 70 percent of it is sugar that’s just going to waste.”

The northeastern “finger” of the strangely shaped state of Jalisco has characteristics all its own. It’s called Los Altos because the altitude is typically over 1,800 meters (1.12 miles) above sea level. The ecosystem there is rather unique: mostly flat grassland, but just about the time you’re ready to pronounce it “boring,” you discover that this prairie land is cut by the deep and dramatically beautiful 150-kilometer-long Río Verde Canyon, dotted with majestic waterfalls and numerous hot springs.