Boletin Audubon
November 2007
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The Newsletter of Sociedad Audubon de México, A.C.

Audubon Goes to Veracruz
By Carol Wheeler

In four days of intensive bird-watching, you finally begin to figure out how to focus your binoculars on the bird in question, and really see it. That's what I found, anyway (and I'd had a lot of trouble with that basic skill in the past). It also took two expert guides, two perfectly-aimed 'scopes, a lot of ideal walking terrain and a unusual variety of delicious Mexican food to get me in the right frame of mind.

But we had all that, and more, on the Audubon trip to Veracruz. From October 17th to 22nd, 12 of us lucky Audubon members were in the more than capable hands of Pronatura Veracruz, an organization that works in every possible way to maintain a green Veracruz, especially in regard to birds, especially including the raptors that fly over a well-traveled path known as the River of Raptors there every year, traveling south from their summer homes in El Norte.

We checked off 145 distinct species of birds on the trip, from Least Grebe to Montezuma Oropendola--in between were such delights as the Olivaceus Woodcreeper, the Marbled Gatwing, the Keel-billed Toucan... I could go on for pages, the names alone are poetry, the sight of these creatures, one after another--sights unseen unless you know how to look-- is awe-inspiring.

Our guides, Eduardo and his assistant, Lionel, were all that anyone could want in a guide. Eduardo was astonishingly knowledgeable, not only about birds, but about which tree they were sitting in (usually briefly), and about much of the flora and fauna in our vicinity. He knew everything, he spoke perfect English, and yet he was delighted to learn new words and he seemed to enjoy the trip every bit as much as we did (though he'd obviously done it many times before).

Along the way, we dropped in on a magnificent waterfall at Texolo, a place where Eduardo told us they filmed Romancing the Stone and Clear and Present Danger. One could see why--it looks perilous as well as spectacular. In fact, as long as you avoid the old bridge (easy if you're not a Human Fly) to the falls, it is utterly safe and utterly beautiful (if a bit buggy). The "new" bridge was built by the American Bridge Co. of New York in--1908!

Our first day of bird-watching took place in the middle of Xalapa--in Parque Ecologico Macuiltepetl--a beautiful and extensive city park on the remains of an extinct 30,000-year-old volcano, as rife with butterflies as with birds. As we listened to Eduardo's bird calls and looked through the trees, the citizens of Xalapa walked and jogged past us. Some of us, I think, envied their access to such a fabulous nature preserve on a daily basis.

While we were in the town of Xalapa, we spent an afternoon at the impressively handsome Museum of Anthropology, the home of some of the most important pre-Columbian art in Meso America. Beginning with the area's famed, immense Olmec heads nearly three meters high, created more than 3,000 years ago, the collection covers everything from statues of sacrificers wearing the skin of their victims (somehow related to the earth’s shedding and renewing its skin with the seasons) to charming smaller ceramic animals and toys. Toys with wheels were an amazing sight--early inhabitants knew about wheels but as far as we know used them only on toys.

The middle three days of the trip were spent in Cardel, a tiny and somewhat unremarkable town near the Gulf Coast, chosen by Pronatura after it was chosen by the raptors as a flyway. As a novice, I saw only the town and looked up and saw only the sky. Where were these hawks and vultures and cormorants? Aha, I discovered, you've got to know how to see them.

Invisible to the naked eye (at least to mine), they fly over in giant groups of hundreds of birds, but until you get used to raising your binoculars to just the right height (quite high--sometimes we feared we'd fall over backward), you see almost nothing. But when you find them, it's bird after bird after giant bird, catching the air currents to glide overhead. "Turkey Vultures, Black Vultures, Lesser-Headed Vultures," the experts would cry, and we would strain to see them.

We walked paths and railroad tracks and dirt roads and sidewalks and steps, but never steep inclines or gullies or ravines, so the hiking never seemed a stretch (and our Mercedes van took us from one high spot to the next in total comfort). We were never far from another unusual, interesting, delicious Mexican comida or dinner, either, which also added to our delight. And our forays into orchid nurseries and coffee tiendas (Veracruz is noted for both) were further highlights of the trip.

Wherever we went, whether it was Cortez's onetime home (now more of a tree house), a boat ride on a river, the seashore, a dirt road through a tiny town to a pond, or the garden of a 16th century hacienda, there were birds, more birds than I've ever thought possible. Now that our consciousness has been raised and our skill level is at least somewhat noticeable, I think all of us will see more birds now, even in San Miguel, which is, after all, our native stalking ground. 

If you’re interested in a similar trip, watch this space and pay close attention to your Audubon e-mails. There are sure to be more excursion like this one in our future.

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AT LAST! A BIRD BOOK WILL SOON TAKE FLIGHT

As a bird watcher, an environmentalist or just an appreciator of nature, you wouldn’t be the first person to wish there were a field guide to the birds of San Miguel—and to be disappointed when you found it didn’t exist. Your time is coming! Audubon is at work right now on a field guide to our abundant, beautiful local birds. The guide will follow the style of Flores Silvestres de San Miguel de Allende, the wonderfully successful and useful field guide to our local wildflowers that appeared in 2006—sized to fit in a pocket, with full-color pictures and brief descriptions of each bird (and a ruler on the back). We’re hoping to have it available some time this year.