The Birds of Chavarrillo

Every once in a while, I think people need to be disturbed. This is the one-eyed turkey that lived next door to us in Chavarrillo. It actually had more room to run around than this picture makes it seem, but the turkey was continually having the shit kicked out of it by the yard rooster and the hen turkey (I assume this is why his eye is gone), so often he took to taking shelter in this nook. What's even more complicated is that the hen would occasionally let old Tom here mate with her, which makes things awfully complicated. Talk about an abusive relationship. It was very strange to see Tom strutting around, all proudly puffed-up with wings dragging, only to be fleeing his prospective mate in terror a few moments later. Anyways, if you keep any birds, for my sake don't litter their feeding areas with garbage, its just not classy. Watching Muscovy Ducks hungrily eating plastic is not my idea of fun.

But we are not here to talk about abused turkeys or deranged ducks today. I am posting my Chavarrillo bird list, so anyone going to work at Swainson's Hawk Bird Observatory in the future will know what to expect, and to try to motivate some non-Mexican birders to find their way there. It's not really in taxanomic order and I might have some names wrong, but I think its complete. Birds in bold were new for me. All photos were taken in or adjacent to Chavarrillo.

Least Grebe
American White Pelican
Neotropic Cormorant
Anhinga
Great Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Wood Stork
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Grey-necked Wood-Rail
Osprey
Mississippi Kite
Swallow-tailed Kite
Hook-billed Kite
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Gray Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Swainson's Hawk

Broad-winged Hawk (pictured above)
Zone-tailed Hawk
Roadside Hawk
Common Black-Hawk
Short-tailed Hawk
Crested Caracara
Bat Falcon
Merlin
American Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
Plain Chachalaca
Northern Jacana
Solitary Sandpiper
White-tipped Dove
White-winged Dove
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Inca Dove
Ruddy Ground-Dove
Red-billed Pigeon
Rock Pigeon
White-crowned Parrot
Red-lored Parrot

Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (pictured above)
Vermiculated Screech-Owl (heard only)
Mottled Owl (heard only)
Tawny-colored Nightjar
Vaux's Swift (it is possible Chimneys were observed as well)
Greater Swallow-tailed Swift
White-collared Swift
Golden-olive Woodpecker (conspecific with Bronze-winged Woodpecker now, right?)
Smoky-brown Woodpecker
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Lineated Woodpecker
Ivory-billed Woodcreeper
Ringed Kingfisher
Green Kingfisher
Little Hermit (again...anybody know the current taxonomy on this species?)
Wedge-tailed Sabrewing
Azure-crowned Hummingbird
Green-breasted Mango
Green Violet-Ear
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Canevet's Emerald
Broad-billed Hummingbird
Buff-bellied Hummingbird
Squirrel Cuckoo
Groove-billed Ani
Keel-billed Toucan
Gartered Trogon
Blue-crowned Motmot
Barn Swallow
Cliff Swallow

Northern Rough-winged Swallow (pictured above)
Dusky-capped Flycatcher
Dusky Flycatcher
Least Flycatcher
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Western Wood-Pewee
Greenish Elaenia
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet
Eastern Phoebe
Vermilion Flycatcher
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher
Boat-billed Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Social Flycatcher
Couch's Kingbird
Tropical Kingbird
Western Kingbird

Masked Tityra (pictured above)
Yellow-green Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Blue-headed Vireo
White-eyed Vireo
Barred Antshrike
Rufous-browed Peppershrike
Brown Jay
Green Jay
Black-crested Titmouse
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Rufous-naped Wren
Band-backed Wren
Spot-breasted Wren
House Wren
White-bellied Wren
Clay-colored Thrush/Robin
White-throated Thrush/Robin

Long-billed Thrasher (pictured above)
Blue Mockingbird
Gray Catbird
Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
Red-legged Honeycreeper
Greyish Saltator
Black-headed Saltator
Rose-throated Becard
Blue-winged Warbler
Orange-crowned Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Tropical Parula
Northern Parula
Magnolia Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
American Redstart
Black-and-white Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
MacGillivray's Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Rufous-capped Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Grey-crowned Yellowthroat
Slate-throated Redstart
Yellow-breasted Chat
Northern Cardinal
Crimson-collared Grosbeak
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Varied Bunting

Painted Bunting (above, with a Green Heron. Weird mixed flock.)
Western Tanager
Summer Tananger
Yellow-winged Tanager
Blue-grey Tanager
Lincoln's Sparrow
Rusty Sparrow
Scrub Euphonia
Yellow-throated Euphonia
Great-tailed Grackle
Bronzed Cowbird
Melodious Blackbird
Orchard Oriole
Baltimore Oriole
Audubon's Oriole
Altamira Oriole

Montezuma Oropendula (pictured above)
Yellow-billed Cacique
Yellow-faced Grassquit
Blue-black Grassquit
White-collared Seedeater
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch
House Sparrow

167 species, almost all within walking distance from the observatory! Pretty snazzy. For the record, this was from February 24 thru April 28, 2011. Someone who has more free time in the future could easily rack up some more.

Other observers also recorded Yellow-headed Parrot, Black Swift, White-bellied Emerald, Northern Bentbill and Red-crowned Ant-Tanager, among others.

I promise, whether you like it or not, more Mexican content in the near future. I will also officially announce that I am settled here in North Dakota and I seem to have internet access, so it will be a long, bloggy summer. Tomorrow is my first day of paid work since September 30. Sick.

I'm Intercontinental When I Eat French Toast

Some nights big flocks of Swainson's Hawks and Broad-winged Hawks come in to spend the night on the hill above town. As with all the pics here, double click to enlarge the specks.

April 23, 2011.

Five more days.

By the time you are reading this, I will probably be back in the virtual arms of the internet, being cradled by the collective lot of you. You will once again have more than one blog post a week, which I know you must have. No more will your nightmares revolve around the scarcity of photos on BB&B and weird formatting issues that I can’t seem to lose. Expect another interview and some new installments of Birders As Art. The Human Birdwatcher Project will once again rise from the ashes like a socially inept Phoenix, and BB&B will continue on its near-vertical trajectory of becoming the best bird blog. Of course, some would contend that it already is, and to you I say you are Right. But I must spread the word. The blogetite for BB&B is very strong, I know.

I hope you’ve all been birding much.

Besides vultures and birds of prey, other migrants like Anhingas, Wood Storks and these American White Pelicans can be seen flying over Chavarrillo as well.

Carlos is a master bird mimic. This is on top of the pigeon shuffle (which, not jokingly, I believe he does next to people as a territorial display), that all of you should be familiar with. The other mainstay is the rooster crow, which is incredibly annoying when he does it early in the morning in a confined space. Then there is the pigeon/chicken peck, which is how he occasionally eats his food. Yesterday I caught him doing what has to be a Melodious Blackbird song, at the top of his lungs. This is relatively easy to do if you haven’t hit puberty yet. He also displays some strange cat-like tendencies, such as mewing, hissing, lapping water from a wide, shallow bowl, and attempting to catch flies with his mouth.

The day before I leave Mexico I’ll be on the coast south of Veracruz, birding viciously. I haven’t seen the ocean since I flew down here in February and it will be cool to check out a new place. And its avifauna. Obviously. There are rumors of Thick-knees, Fork-tailed Flycatchers and Pinnated Bitterns there. Jesus! Tears are coming to my eyes just thinking about it.

Veracruz state is blessed with a strange mix of birds from both eastern and western North America, like this MacGillivray's Warbler. He is probably sulking about not skulking in this photo.

Standard counting swag. Coffee, data sheet, clickers (for Turkey Vulture, Swainson's Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk and Mississippi Kite, respectively), field notebook, ipod, nerd.

I highly recommend people come down to bird Veracruz state, if they get the chance. The quantity and diversity of birds here is amazing, and I wish I would have had the chance to experience more of it. In the spring, there is the raptor migration here in Chavarrillo to check out, and of course there is the River Of Raptors in the fall. There are coastal mangrove forests, marshes, rainforest, thorn forest, high elevation coniferous forest, and everything inbetween. Robert Straub, bird guru of Veracruz, has a great book on birding sites throughout the state that would be crucial to get your hands on.

The drug war seems like it’s only a rumor from where I stand here, but of course I know from personal experience it is all too real to the north…at any rate the risk of another Tamaulipas Incident here seems quite low. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Montezuma's Oropendulas are common around town. They are huge and ridiculous.

There is a big party building up in the plaza here for Semanas Santos. The godawful loudspeaker tower that is lashed to the roof of a neighboring house has been playing ridiculous music on a loop all morning. The chorus of one song is “I see. I know. Meow meow meow meow.”, followed by a synthesizer making cat-like mew sounds. The rest of the song is in Spanish. Pretty great.

The internet has been elusive for quite some time now. The only place in Chavarrillo with internet has been closed, and a journey to another town specifically for emailing also ended in failure. I must communicate. I guess its back to searching the sky until then.

The Heat And The Clear Blue Skies

One of the many, many Broad-winged Hawks that passed overhead this spring.

April 15, 2011. We are near the end of the peak migration period here, and as an estimate have recorded well over 230,000 migrants so far…I would like to exceed 250,000 before I leave in two weeks, but I’m pretty stoked on what we’ve done here. Last year’s total for this site was under 156,000 for the whole season, so that swells my inner nerd with pride. Especially since I was surprised to find myself being the Lead Counter. That’s a lot of time up on the tower. A LOT. I now feel impervious to the effects of sunlight and shall never get sunburned ever again.

Looking southeast from Swainson's Hawk Bird Observatory.

I was lucky enough to see three (3) Swallow-tailed Kites sail past over the last few days. Things have not been the same ever since. The aesthetic hegemony Swallow-tailed Kites have over almost all other life forms cannot be denied. I look forward to meeting more of them.

Some Mexicans lounging around at sunrise. At top, a Yellow-winged Tanager, a Social Flycatcher on the right and a Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher below.

The Mississippi Kites appear and disappear with a flourish. I only became acquainted them during the Summer Of Steve Y2K9, while crossing the country from Ventura, CA to Somerset, PA. Here, like the Turkey Vultures, Broad-winged and Swainson’s Hawks, they can form huge swarms on their journey north. But, they are swarms of joy, flocks of facemelt, kettles of ecstasy. They move with such style and unpredictably that they are the funnest thing to watch here. When they decide to quit a thermal and hed north, they all move in a huge mass, instead of breaking off one bird at a time like the others do. When they stop to take the elevator to the top of the next thermal, they usually take their time more than the birds, so they spend a little more time with us before they continue to seek the horizon. May you be fortunate to meet some of these birds in the coming weeks.

Seagull Steve with the budding mustache of spring (how embarrassing).

Things are simple now…I am in the proverbial groove. I no longer am the only one on the tower every day, which is nice (although I have taken to sleeping next to it, under the stars). My counting skills are reaching a peak accuracy. I have achieved that rare state of mind to expect the unexpected (a necessity here). Plans have been made for my departure and how to do some bonus coastal birding. Now if only my stomach can muster the strength to make it through….

California does sound good now. Friends, music, girls, cool weather….especially food. Different food. A myriad of foods. Lots of fresh things. Salads. Comida sin tortillas. No more fucking mystery meat! The disappointment amongst the two gueros here is quite tangible when a bizarre looking plate is amiably plopped down in front of us.

Gringo 1: “What is this?”
Gringo 2: “Um, intestines.”
Gringo 1: “What is it from?”
Gringo 2: (sighs) “It doesn’t matter.”.

A juvenile Brown Jay in the killing tree. The Mexican name for Brown Jays is Pepe. Something to ponder.

I won’t do a lot of birding while I’m back in California but I think I’ll be wielding the Leicas over at Mono Lake for a day or two, which is something I highly recommend. When you get to town, just ask anybody where The Grub lives and he will show you many Sage Grouse and purchase you great quantities of drink. For free of course…he is a philanthropist of sorts. Everyone knows him.

When I do get out birding here, its difficult to complain. I got my lifer Barred Antshrike today (finally!) and, unexpectedly, my first Red-legged Honeycreeper. The image of that bird is seared into my retinas (which feels good), and is not something I will soon forget. I also got to add Canevet’s Emerald, Spot-bellied Wren and Blue Mockingbird to my Chavarrillo list this morning.

Wow. This was a really bird-heavy post. Hope everyone’s ok.

Maybe We Weren’t Put On This Earth To Rape And Pillage And Ravage

Social Flycatchers. Ever present companions for birders throughout eastern Mexico. Sick.


*Written during a brief period of Fear and Loathing in early April, 2011.



I can see the home stretch in the distance, just beginning to appear out of the dusty haze. Sometimes it seems so far away though…last night I spent vainly attempting to fall asleep, coated with sweat, blindly swatting at mosquitoes in a blanket of heat, removing small chunks of cement that had fallen into my tiny cot from the ceiling, dreading the inevitable case of food poisoning I could feel gaining steam in my gut. A visit to the bathroom culminates with some long cockroach anteananne waving at me from a crack in the wall. They run things around here, not me.

The night passes.

Field work folks…it may seem glamorous, but shit! At times it can be a bummer. My accommodations here are a far cry from the resort condo in Hidden Valley, PA that Bat Conservation International generously provided, or the legendary Comfort Inn of El Centro, CA, that came complete with the world-famous Zebra Bar…no, those days are long gone, echoes of the past that grow a little fainter every day. I can hear Carlos giddily torturing Sloth right now (Sloth is a cat, not a sloth), and it does not help calm these nerves that have been exposed from constant insomnia and food poisoning. As a result no one was able to man the tower this morning so we probably missed several thousand migrants heading north, which is pretty shitty…but on a positive note, I can say that we’ve counted well over 230,000 migrant raptors this spring already, and have almost no big gaps in our count time, which seems to be the exception more than the rule here…

Right. Where is Lourdes when you need her? What has she been doing since that fateful spring 3 years ago? Does she still commune with Burrowing Owls? Has she forgotten those special moments with Caroline? Jesus, it seems so long ago now…things have changed, as is the nature of Things to do so. Maybe next time you go bird the Salton Sea, please stop into The Zebra Bar at El Centro’s infamous Comfort Inn on a Wednesday or Saturday night, and see who is working…it will undoubtedly be a good-looking girl (they actually advertise the hotness of their bartenders…which is funny for a place like El Centro), but there is only one Lourdes. Please note that this bar has no other redeeming qualities and I give it no further endorsements..unless you happen to be staying at Comfort Inn, then at least you are in a position to appreciate it’s convenient location.

Echoes of a strange and varied past on a cloudy afternoon in Mexico. Rain has been threatening all day. The tanagers, orioles, doves and grackles all seem to be happy with a cool break in the weather, and I’m right there with them. Maybe today will be the day that long-legged fiend called the Crane Hawk makes an appearance…but, if today is at all like the other days, that’s pretty unlikely.

My coworker had an episode of sorts last night, which has perhaps put me in a frame of mind to think of more….heroic times. Said coworker’s event was complete with vivid hallucinations (“Gah! There’s snakes coming out of the walls!”, followed by uncontrollable giddy laughter) and dilated pupils. How embarrassing!

While I’m missing the comparative normalicy of San Francisco’s brand of weirdness, I just finished a Richard Brautigan book (Trout Fishing In America/The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster/In Watermelon Sugar), which was pretty good. Brautigan was one of SF’s late great writers. I’ll end with a poem out of The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster.

The American Hotel
Part 2

Baudelaire was sitting
in a doorway with a wino
on San Francisco’s skidrow.
The wino was a million
years old and could remember
dinosaurs.
Baudelaire and the wino
were drinking Petri Muscatel.
“One must always be drunk,”
said Baudelaire.
“I live in the American Hotel,”
said the wino. “And I can
remember dinosaurs.”
“Be you drunken ceaselessly,”
said Baudelaire.

A Pack of Raging Troglodytes

See? A rain of raptors. Or, in Spanish, un chingo de repaces.

Most mornings now, the skies open up and it rains raptors. Today, when the flood had slowed down to a trickle, a great “sunbow” appeared in the sky. A sunbow is a halo of light that surrounds the sun for reasons that have never fully been explained by science or religion alike. Sunbows are cousins of the moonbow, but are considerably more rare and have the added bonus of having the “bow” essentially being a big circular rainbow. If you have not seen a giant, circular rainbow in the sky, its fucking epic. It blows double rainbows out of the sky and down in to the realm of lowly (albeit awesome) Youtube memes.



I’m getting carried away. At any rate, I was lucky enough to see a few migrants cross the threshold of the sunbow, and I know, deep in my heart of hearts, that those birds are enchanted now. Those Turkey Vultures will find a dead whale in a few days somewhere on the coast of Tamaulipas and never be hungry again. That Cooper’s Hawk will nest next to a bird feeder and have a big happy family with crops full of goldfinches and chickadees. The Osprey will finally get the nerve to start stealing fish from Bald Eagles. The Swainson’s Hawks will come into the United States just as a great plague of locusts sweeps over the country, ensuring a relentless supply of food and, if they can eat enough of them, possible canonization by Mormons. California Gulls have gotten all the glory so far, but nothing makes heroes like a plague.

I can’t help but take this as a sign of sorts…the return of the OVNIs is imminent….

We are essentially working on this project with a skeleton crew of sorts, which has not been boding well lately for maximum birding opportunities. New birds are very near...but who knows how many will come to pass before I am shipped North again. The BB&B spring tour comes to a close at the end of this month, and I will need to prepare for the long North Dakotan summer. There are rumors of staggering numbers of strange flatland birds like Baird’s Sparrow and Sharp-tailed Grouse where I’ll be stationed (performing?), and I must be ready if they are to accept me as one of their own.

Felonious Jive and I are always cooking up plans, and we recently realized that we need to start our own bird observatory. Then the grant money will just come pouring in and we can do whatever research we see fit. Our relative lack of credentials should not be a problem…Felonious is unanimously hailed as The Greatest Ornithologist West of the Mississippi, and I am the Number 8 birder in the nation, after all. It’s the best idea we’ve ever had. The observatory may or may not ever need to physically exist, and/or it can be completely mobile, being transported to wherever Felonious or I happen to be at the time. Ultimately, it just needs a kickass name and maybe a few tee shirts…all in the name of being a birding Zeitgeist. So more on that soon.

Most mornings now, the skies open up and it rains raptors. Today, when the flood had slowed down to a trickle, a great “sunbow” appeared in the sky. A sunbow is a halo of light that surrounds the sun for reasons that have never fully been explained by science or religion alike. Sunbows are cousins of the moonbow, but are considerably more rare and have the added bonus of having the “bow” essentially being a big circular rainbow. If you have not seen a giant, circular rainbow in the sky, its fucking epic. It blows double rainbows out of the sky and down in to the realm of lowly (albeit awesome) Youtube memes.

I’m getting carried away. At any rate, I was lucky enough to see a few migrants cross the threshold of the sunbow, and I know, deep in my heart of hearts, that those birds are enchanted now. Those Turkey Vultures will find a dead whale in a few days somewhere on the coast of Tamaulipas and never be hungry again. That Cooper’s Hawk will nest next to a bird feeder and have a big happy family with crops full of goldfinches and chickadees. The Osprey will finally get the nerve to start stealing fish from Bald Eagles. The Swainson’s Hawks will come into the United States just as a great plague of locusts sweeps over the country, ensuring a relentless supply of food and, if they can eat enough of them, possible canonization by Mormons. California Gulls have gotten all the glory so far, but nothing makes heroes like a plague.

I can’t help but take this as a sign of sorts…the return of the OVNIs is imminent….

We are essentially working on this project with a skeleton crew of sorts, which has not been boding well lately for maximum birding opportunities. New birds are very near...but who knows how many will come to pass before I am shipped North again. The BB&B spring tour comes to a close at the end of this month, and I will need to prepare for the long North Dakotan summer. There are rumors of staggering numbers of strange flatland birds like Baird’s Sparrow and Sharp-tailed Grouse where I’ll be stationed (performing?), and I must be ready if they are to accept me as one of their own.

Felonious Jive and I are always cooking up plans, and we recently realized that we need to start our own bird observatory. Then the grant money will just come pouring in and we can do whatever research we see fit. Our relative lack of credentials should not be a problem…Felonious is unanimously hailed as The Greatest Ornithologist West of the Mississippi, and I am the Number 8 birder in the nation, after all. It’s the best idea we’ve ever had. The observatory may or may not ever need to physically exist, and/or it can be completely mobile, being transported to wherever Felonious or I happen to be at the time. Ultimately, it just needs a kickass name and maybe a few tee shirts…all in the name of being a birding Zeitgeist. So more on that soon.

As always, we here at BB&B hope you are having an incredible day and doing your part to save the world….be it spaying and neutering your pet, simply being excellent to someone, or carrying out vigilante justice. Cheers.

Hybrids Open Up The Door

As far as I can tell, Chavarrillo is known for two things. The spring raptor migration and overall good birding is one. The other…..aliens. Oh yeah. I’m living in the Roswell of Veracruz. As far as I know….I’ve already been abducted.

Legend has it that not long before gringos came here to peer at birds, Peregrine Falcons were not the fastest thing to occupy Chavarrillo’s airspace. No…they were OVNIs. OVNI, short for Objecto Volante No Identificado, is the Mexican equivalent of UFO…many people here believe in them, and don’t consider their existence a matter of conjecture, for they have seen them with their own eyes.

It is said that one day, during a particularly impressive bout of OVNI activity, a large white man came to town. He spoke perfect Spanish, although he claimed to be American. He wore a black suit, black hat, sunglasses….the entire Man In Black getup. His size and ghostly skin tone unnerved the residents of the town, and no one seemed to know why he was here at all.

The mayor of Chavarrillo at the time was very ill. He had The Cancer in his leg. One day, he and the stranger were at Jorge’s Bar, talking over some drinks. “Here”, the Man In Black said. “This will help you…it is The Cure.” He offered the mayor a shotglass full of a mysterious liquid. The mayor hesitantly accepted it, and when he peered into it he could see the entire universe contained within the depths of that shot glass. Obviously, you can’t turn down a drink like that.

The mayor took the drink down (smoothly, I can only assume). The Man In Black continued on….at this point, he made no pretenses about who he was or why he was there. It was understood that he was not a man of any sort, but was an extraterrestrial in disguise. On a bar napkin, The Man In Black even went on to draw the designs of different primary OVNI craft that are commonly used. He may or may not have been borracho (hammered) at this point.

At last call, the Man In Black told the mayor that, if he needed anything else, all he needed to do to summon the extraterrestrials was to climb the tallest hill above Chavarrillo and shine a mirror into the sky. I assume the OVNI summoning process had a little more to it than that, but those were the basics.

Sure enough, the mayor’s cancer went into remission. Strange lights and strange craft flew through Chavarrillo nights for many years to come. In fact, they have only stopped appearing 3 years ago, for reasons no one understands….but there is a general feeling around here that they will be back. The prevailing theory is that they have been coming to somehow extract an energy source in the hills above town that humans do not use. I hypothesize that it is coffee….everyone grows it here but no one drinks it….its the damndest thing. When they are running low on caffeine, or whatever it may be, they will be back….

There are other stories of course. A woman from the town was abducted for 9 days. When she returned (sans memory of recent events), she had a small chip implanted in her head. She was able to summon the OVNIs with this chip….unfortunately, her current whereabouts are unknown, otherwise I would be busy persuading her to summon some benevolent OVNI folk. It should also be noted that a friend of the raptor project’s has an actual picture of an alien taken right in the middle of town. Hopefully seeing it won’t result in my abduction as well.

Of course, I can’t pass up the chance to mention that there has been a chupacabra sighting here as well.

So there you have it kids. Call me Fox Mulder. Beware The Smoking Man. Trust No One…

A Single Flourish Of His Tail

Sharp-shinned Hawks are common migrants here, frequently terrifying songbirds in the local neighborhood on their way North.

Sunday, March 27. The iconic Mexican sun is really living up to its reputation today…it is relentless. We are a rocking a 100% shadeless bird observatory (partially because the tarp that’s available fills my heart with hate, partially because you see a lot more birds when you can look straight up without obstructions), and the withering sun is causing the mind to wander…..what, exactly, does it take to die from exposure? What am I doing here, in this god forsaken place? When will I wake up?

Melodious Blackbird!

Not only is El Sol a source of physical discomfort for the hawk counter, it can cause great mental anguish as well. On most cloudless days it seems the big migrant flocks either choose different routes to take, or they fly so high that it can be impossible to spot them against a bright, big blue sky. Today seems to be a big exception. While its still morning here, I think we may already have our biggest flight day of the spring (15,600 was the previous high)….with over 8,000 Turkey Vultures cruising northward in the last hour alone, we should have a nice, fat total of TVs, Swainson’s Hawks and Broad-winged Hawks at the end of the day. Other birds going north include a Hook-billed Kite, a trio of Common Black-Hawks, a few Ospreys…..

Counting hawks is strange. It involves no physical activity whatsoever. That is pretty great for slothful people like me, but it also aggravates my mild (self-diagnosed) ADD. Ten and a half hours of counting….day after day….hours of boredom punctuated by massive, fast-moving flocks of raptors that come fast and low over the surrounding hills, as if to take us by surprise…it frays the nerves.

The glorious tower. Where I spend all day, every day.

Another thing that doesn’t help the situation is that one of the dudes I’m working with is a really good birder and is going out every day to the edge of town to band passerines, often finding birds that I have yet to see (Yellow-headed Parrots, Barred Antshrikes, White-bellied Emeralds, etc). I fiend for these birds….I am a junkie, after all. You don’t become Number 8 in the nation without powerful feelings for seeing as many birds as possible, at all times, at all costs.

Ok. Time to write some love letters. Keep your heads up, people.

Same Cars Same Clothes Same Desires Same Woes

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This Is Not A Model Fit For Any Mold

The view of Chavarrillo looking west from the tower.

Wooooooooooooo I love fast internet connections! I finally found one. Expect a few more posts in the near future. I wrote this a while ago (we are getting a lot more migrants now) but I can only do what I can....obviously. Hope ya´ll are well!

Greetings from Mexico, bird addicts. I am now a resident of Chavarrillo, which is about 20 minutes southeast of Xalapa, all in the state of Veracruz. The town is very small, but pretty clean and welcoming. Aside from a hawk bander, almost no one speaks English…which makes everything unnecessarily complicated, but my tortured Spanish gets a little bit better every day. However, my habit of not being able to remember people’s names compounds my communication problems here….it is awkward to ask about someone whose name you should know (but you don’t) and so you must resort to describing them (badly)…then trying to spit your original question out….this is what a lot of my conversations amount to.



I live in a very Mexican house. Its very cobbled together, with bizarre additions, lots of exposed wiring, dirt floors, etc. At the moment I live in a sort of bunker on the ground floor….unpainted cinderblocks, a hole in the wall where a window could be, and a bare cement floor. Today a cat came through the hole, peed on the floor, and promptly left through said urinal portal. Our bunker is adorned with a bare light bulb and some nails sticking out of the walls. The household cat (not the previously mentioned urinting criminal), a young tabby we named Sloth due to its ability to sleep everywhere at all times, often sleeps with me. Of course, I am grateful for his fleas that he freely loans to me every night…they just add to the atmosphere. Some serious placemaking is going to be done here. One of these days I will even attempt to find a mirror and shave…but I’ll probably wait for the house’s water to start working again.


I am not getting paid anything, but I do get lodging in The Bunker and a lot of really good, home-cooked food. A couple noteworthy meals were caldo pescado and a raccoon. The raccoon was quite tasty, surprisingly, and I would not hesitate to eat it again….typically, I have not had a single meal so far that did not involve tortillas.

Short-tailed Hawks are common residentes around town.

 

My job here, of course, is to be El Contador….one of the hawk counters on the tower that is built on top of the house. The operation here is closely aligned with and supported by Pronatura, which from what I can tell is the big bird conservation entity in Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of hawks and vultures pass over Chavarrillo every spring…this may not match the numbers of the nearby River of Raptors in the fall, but from what I’m told gets the highest numbers of migrant birds of prey anywhere on the continent! Hopefully I won’t be the only person in the tower when the big numbers start moving though…so far, it’s paltry numbers of Broad-wings, Cooper’s, Sharp-shins, Red-tails. There have been a few big Turkey Vulture flocks going north though (I bet you’re excited about that, Americans).

Right next to my end of town is a big, heavily forested hill that is brimming with birds. It has fucking toucans! TOUCANS! I shit you not. I can’t believe there are wild Keel-billed Toucans 5 minutes from my house. Other lifers so far have been Bar-backed and Boucard’s Wrens, Green Violet-Ear and Little Hermit, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and Greater Swallow-tailed Swift. I expect other bizarre southern species will abide soon enough.

Lastly, I scored a job with USFWS as a Piping Plover biologist during the summer. I will be relocating to exotic…….NORTH DAKOTA! North Dakota….The State Where Nobody Goes….rumors of grasslands and corn…Sharp-tailed Grouse and Baird’s Sparrows….farmer’s daughters......um.....I don´t know what else is there but I will soon enough