River of Raptors

 A few weekends ago, I went to Veracruz with Valentina to see one of the most magnificent wildlife spectacles imaginable - the migration of the North American birds of prey.

A massive percentage of North American raptors pass over a small corridor of land on the Veracruz coast each Autumn.  Mississippi Kites pass through in mid-September, followed by masses of Broad-winged Hawks in late-September.  Later on it's the turn of Swainson's Hawks and Turkey Vultures.  This is without mentioning the other goodies like Ospreys, Peregrines, Aplomado Falcons, Hook-billed Kites, Northern Harriers, Cooper's Hawks, Sharp-shinned Hawks and Zone-tailed Hawks.  In total about 5 million raptors move through each autumn.

We caught the peak of Broad-winged Hawk migration.  The flocks below contained about 40,000 birds..

Broad-winged Hawks, Veracru

Broad-winged Hawks

The 'river' in full flow

One of the great things about the viz-migging here is the comfort in which you can watch the birds.  One of the main watches is from the top of the Hotel Bienvenido in the town of Jose Cardel.  You can lay back with a cold one whilst watching the streams of raptors pass overhead.  We also got lucky with big movements of Anhingas (below), as well as many Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and other passerines.

Anhingas

In the afternoon, things tend to heat up at Chichicaxtle, a site about 10km inland from Cardel.  This is a great spot, with an observation tower, a shop and an informative visitor centre.  Lots of education programmes and good stuff going on here.