A First Taste of Tropical Birding in Veracruz

We called him Jorge (hor-hay), his given name, but his friends call him Yook, because he comes from the Yucatan region of Mexico. He is a true pioneer, being one of a small handful of bird naturalists in the Mexican state of Veracruz. He is a tour leader for the fledgling Audubon society of Mexico, Pronatura. Twelve of us from the Connecticut River Valley were his charges on an eight-day tour of central Veracruz.

How does a young person become interested in the vast bird life that surrounds us all the time? In the United States, bird watching is one of the fastest growing recreational activities, and young people have more and more models and encouragement to pursue this and other forms of nature study.

The Massachusetts Audubon Society is nearly one hundred years old, but in Mexico such organizations for education and advocacy are just being created. When asked who he birds with in the field, Jorge answers that there is no one. His friend and colleague, Ernesto, is too busy organizing and publicizing the Veracruz chapter of Pronatura.

Ernesto is slim, erect, and handsome, with a flashing animated smile and bright eyes. He speaks quickly in almost fluent English. Jorge speaks softly and slowly, often searching for words, and is more easy-going with a sleepy eyed, slope shouldered look. He would not think of parting with his long wavy black mane of hair. He reminds me of Joe Namath, and in fact is an excellent athlete, having turned down a scholarship to play baseball at Penn State.

Instead he took offers to intern as a bird researcher at various places in the United States. There he honed his skills and increased his knowledge, and now he leads birding tourists around his home state of Veracruz. Much of the budget of Pronatura is provided by such tours, and the publicity has supplied a steady flow of young people from the United States to help in research projects.

In recent years many birders from the United States have been enticed south to enjoy the hottest recreational activity there is, tropical birding. Favorite destinations are Trinidad, Costa Rica, Belize, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia. There the birder is immersed in a world of hundreds of new species to observe and learn, many so colorful and exotic that they astound the senses.

My decision to resist these well-known destinations and choose Veracruz as my first taste of tropical birding was a good one. There, many of the birds are familiar, migrants who breed in North America and return to Central America by October to spend our winter in warmth, with habitat and food in relative abundance.

Jorge knows all these species and he also leads us to some of the tropical endemics that are permanent residents of central Veracruz. He is still finding new species that were not known to be present in this region. One on this trip was the rufous-browed wren, which we spotted on the floor of a mountain pine forest. "Nobody will believe us," Jorge whispered.

We found nearly seventy species not recorded anywhere in the United States. It is hard to pick a favorite. Perhaps it was the huge flock of white-crowned parrots swarming around the trees on the cliffs near the famous waterfall featured in the film, Romancing the Stone. Perhaps it was the blue-crowned motmot in the mountain top park in the middle of the city of Xalapa (ha-la-pa). Perhaps it was the black-headed trogon sitting on a low branch beside the crocodile pond at the La Mancha research station. Perhaps it was the lineated woodpecker spotted in the top of a tree from the roof of the hotel in Cardel.

This roof-top setting is one of the places where the daytime migration of some of our North American birds is observed. Here millions of hawks and vultures fly past each spring and fall as well as many thousands of storks, pelicans, and flycatchers. More about this amazing migration spectacle, called the River of Raptors (Rio de Rapaces) next week.

In the meantime, to support Pronatura, become a friend of the River of Raptors by sending a tax-deductible donation to THE VERACRUZ PROJECT, PO Box 73, Kempton PA 19529.