My time in Mexico (part-3) – Tecolutla

In the late 1980s I had reach what Steve Howell (author of The Birds of Mexico) wrote in Aves Mexicanas about bird migration at the fishing village of Tecolutla. Needless to say I wanted to go there. It was around 1990 that I contacted my friends Jerry, Jody and Sue and asked if they were up for an adventure. They had all traveled with me to the UP, Ontario and Texas and I knew that they had traveled together elsewhere. I told them that I didn’t know what to expect, but knew that we’d all have fun. They were indeed up for an adventure. I have old slides from that trip, but not as scans, so my little paintings will have to suffice.

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Just visiting this small town was adventure enough. I was able to find nice places to eat as well as great places to see birds, including the Pemex gas station at the intersection at the main highway. The little watercolor below was from several years later when I had a larger group down to help count migrating bird.

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During my free time, when there was no obvious migration happening I could get out around town and draw. The variety of tiles and fences here was wonderful. In lieu of barbed-wire at the top of a cinderblock wall, broken glass was set in concrete as a deterrent to climbing.

But we were here to see birds and butterflies. At the mouth of the Rio Tecolutla and the ocean we always had interesting shorebirds including sandpipers, plovers, avocets and Black-necked Stilts.

The rhythm of migration was that we had lots of birds passing from the south, heading north just before first light. Our day often started with tens to hundreds of thousands of swallows. By the end of the day the flight again picked up with tens of thousands of White Pelicans strung out in long undulating lines. As I tried sketching this, I realized that I didn’t have a pencil, so I had to settle for drawing the with pen.

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But we were here for the “promised” hawk flight, and we were not disappointed. Often, in the morning there was an early flight of falcons. This was dominated by American Kestrel (one morning we had a thousand pass in one hour), Merlin, Peregrine Falcon and Aplomado Falcon. Watching the peregrines hunting tired migrants was always a highlight. Mid-morning one year we had a major flight of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers (1200 in an hour), some landing nearby as the hawks started to migrate. Typically, the hawks started moving in numbers once the air started warming and thermals started to rise.

While the hawk flight often included thousands of Mississippi Kite, the few Swallow-tailed Kite that appeared always got the attention of everybody.

What we al wanted to see though was the flight of Broad-winged Hawk and Swainson’s Hawk. These two species could appear in huge numbers – and frequently did. The best flight that we had over the years was of near a half million hawks, mostly these two species. They would form swirling kettle of birds in the rising kettles.

Oh I do miss those days. There are so many stories from there still to tell.

Tomorrow, back to life on a sand dune…