A Trip to Veracruz, Mexico

Map of Broad-winged Hawk migration paths.

 MIGRATION!!!!

In early September the four birds we satellite-tagged left Pennsylvania, and every day since we have been 'web map' addicts..(you too?). All four birds moved down the Appalachians and then lingered several days to over a week in large forests of southern Virginia... perhaps feeding and getting ready for the next big flight.  In mid-September Kit began to move but we quickly lost contact with her possibly due to transmitter failure.  There are still chances we will get some signal from her in future, assuming the transmitter had a malfunction.

The other three birds moved steadily southwest into Texas and then Mexico, almost on parallel tracks!

On September 30, 2014, a small group of birdwatchers from Hawk Mountain woke up in Veracruz, Mexico ready for the annual hawkwatching ecotour. Before we had left Pennsylvania, I had checked the progress of our three tagged broadwings and saw that all three had roosted somewhere north of Veracruz city in coastal plain east of the Sierra Madre mountains. Could we possibly SEE the marked birds fly over the Veracruz River of Raptors watchsite in the narrow bottleneck in eastern Veracruz between Sierra Madres and Gulf coast!??  I was hoping to time our visit for that event, but not sure the birds would wait. We arrived in Cardel later that morning and headed to the roof of Hotel Bienvenidos, to join the hawk counters. That day we had some kettles of broadwings pass overhead along with vultures, peregrines, and kites.  Because signal was sporadic we did not know until later that Hawkeye had headed west into the mountains, but America and Abbo were still roosting to our north. The winds were southerly so perhaps they were waiting for better conditions.

Broadwings over Veracruz on October 1, 2014 (by B. Moroney)

The next day, October 1st, we arrived to the hawkwatch by mid-morning and suddenly the skies filled with streams of broadwings flying off the foothills to our north and coming over right above us!  Within two hours the counters tallied more than 50,000 broadwings and by day's end the two watchsites had tallied more than 100,000 birds. As we gazed up at the kettles we kept imagining we might see our Hawk Mountain birds, but they were too far away to see any antenna and moving steadily past.  After consulting the maps that night it was clear that America and Abbo had passed right over the HMS tour group in one of those  amazing streams of migrants!

It was very exciting to know our tagged birds were soaring with such a great concentration of other broadwings, and that they likely passed right over the River of Raptors while we were down below watching!

Broadwings gliding over Veracruz, 10/1 (by N. Bolgiano)

Since then America and HawkEye have been moving around forests of southern Mexico, perhaps resting and feeding or possibly this is where they will winter?  Abbo has kept moving south and is currently in Colombia. Where will she spend the winter? !!! Time will tell!

We have learned so much already from the four birds we tagged. First, that they definitely stop en route and seem to use large forest habitats. Even the adult spent several days in Virginia and in Mexico and Panama before moving again. HawkEye's path was different than others, and surprising to us.  Perhaps the east winds influenced her?

So many questions to answer and pursue.  This project is breaking new ground in understanding long-distance migration in raptors. No one has ever satellite-tagged juveniles and we have tagged both adult and juvenile from same latitude! so much to learn! Thank you for joining us on this journey.. and stay tuned for next reports from our intrepid migrants!