A River of Raptors Viewed in Veracruz

Last week I wrote about finding seventy new exotic species in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. As exciting as it was, this was not the primary reason for finally deciding to travel to the tropics. I went to see the migration and winter home of the birds of the New England summer. They were there in amazing abundance, the flycatchers, swallows, thrushes, vireos, warblers, tanagers and orioles. We observed more than two hundred familiar species that migrate to and from the tropics. Most of them migrate at night, but we can see some during the day, in the act, if you will.

On the first day of the tour, the sky was overcast and rain threatened. Overhead the sharp-shinned hawks and Cooper's hawks were migrating. They glided low over the treetops, flapping briefly, then gliding in the same pattern they use everywhere, including New England.

When the weather cleared a bit on the third day, the migrants we were hoping for began to move past the hotel roof in Cardel. The broad-winged hawks streamed over in flocks of several hundred. They had left their breeding grounds in the forest of the Northeast a month earlier, soaring and gliding their way south and west, aiming for the Texas coast. These may have been the same birds we saw in Hampden County three weeks earlier.

As they move down over the coastal plain into Mexico, they suddenly encounter a spur of the high mountains of the Sierra Madre, blocking their path almost to the very edge of the Gulf of Mexico. They do not migrate over water, so they squeeze through the narrow gap between mountain and sea, making this part of Veracruz the ideal place to observe and count the river of raptors.

There are three official counters at each of the two observation sites, all with a battery of clickers, scanning the sky and making the best estimates they can. We stood with them and beheld the spectacle of daylight migration. Swainson's hawks and broad-winged hawks are the most abundant, numbering in the hundreds of thousands over a three-week season of flight. They are trying to monitor the entire population of these species.

On the Sunday our tour arrived in Mexico, they had counted 400,000 broad-winged hawks at the two sites, eight miles apart. We were hoping there were some left for us to see. We did have one good flight the day before we left Mexico, witnessing some boiling masses numbering over 30,000 birds. Besides the hawks, there were huge flocks of turkey vultures, wood storks, white pelicans, and anhingas.

Despite my love of hawks, my favorite spectacle was the migration of two species of songbirds which breed in the Great Plains of the United States. Both of these species are rare but regular visitors to New England. One is the dickcissel, and when we heard their calls high overhead, we looked up to see enormous undulating masses of thousands of these small birds, compacted closely and moving as one on their way south.

The other songbird is the scissor-tailed flycatcher. Now this is a spectacular bird, with a pair of foot long tail feathers. It uses them to perform amazing acrobatic maneuvers, usually, but not always, for courtship display. Anyone would fall in love with this showy bird. They roost and migrate in loose flocks, flying low or perching in the open on wires and fences.

On our last day a scissor-tail flycatcher was sitting on the ground in the middle of a field. Its tail and wings were spread on the grass, showing off the subtle, salmon pink sides and underbelly. The pale gray head shown in the sunlight and the bird would suddenly spring from the ground and somersault into the air, catching grasshoppers in mid-flight with ease. Then the rich underwing color would flash brightly and dazzle the eyes.

It was a fitting end to an unforgettable trip. The migration of birds links the Americas in an indissoluble bond, and it reminds us that the human cultures of the Americas must be united as well.

To support the work of 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.