One of the easiest hummingbirds to see on last week’s birding tour in Mexico were migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds. Right now they are still moving south but in only five months they’ll be on their way north again. Here’s where they are this week (4 Oct) on the eBird abundance map.
Over the winter most ruby-throats stay in Mexico while others continue as far south as Costa Rica. By early February they are restless. Some of them mass at the Yucatan north coast, preparing to take the shortest route over the Gulf in a non-stop flight that takes 18 to 24 hours.
As hummingbirds approach the U.S. coast they encounter many oil and gas rigs, the green dots on this map by NOAA NCEI.
Sometimes they are attracted to red colors on the rigs, as seen in the video below:
On 21 February 2018, Chuck, working on a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, noticed humming birds hitting him on his red bandana and red coveralls. He saw another group hitting a fire extinguisher. He decided to get a cup of sugar water and watch what happened next.
“Sky island” in Puebla as seen from Veracruz, probably Volcán La Malinche, 4 October 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
8 October 2026
The mountains in Veracruz are very beautiful. On the morning of 4 October, fog shrouded the valley so that Malinche(*) was literally a sky island. (* I am not sure I’ve correctly identified this peak.)
Also from our elevated vantage point, we saw snow-covered Pico de Orizaba above the crest of the intervening hill. Click here for a marked-up photo indicating where to look.
Snow on Pico de Orizaba as seen at the crest of the near hill, 4 October 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
In our travels we often saw Cofre de Perote in the distance.
Cofre de Perote, 3 October 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
On sunny days the air heated quickly, rose from the valleys, and flowed over the mountains to generate afternoon thunderstorms on the eastward side. Even if it didn’t rain in Xalapa loads of water came barrelling down the steep watersheds and flooded roads in and near Xalapa.
No one waited for the floods to end. They drove right through them.
Flash flood on 2 October, Xalapa, Ver, MX (photo by Kate St. John)
Notice the substantial rocks being carried by this flood across the Puebla-Xalapa Road on 4 October.
Flash flood on 4 October on the Puebla-Xalapa Road, Ver, MX (photo by Kate St. John)
On 6 October, our last full day on tour, we spent 2 hours at the Cardel Hawk Watch on the Hotel Bienvenido roof. Between noon and 2:00pm53,715 broad-winged hawks kettled up and streamed out in a River of Raptors! What a thrill!
Watching the River of raptors at Cardel Hawk Watch at Hotel Bienvenido, 6 Oct 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
A few days earlier, on 1 October, Moe Bell filmed this video of a kettle when the birds were closer.
Hawks — mostly broad-wings — kettling up at River of Raptors, Hotel Bienvenido, Cardel, 1 Oct 2026 (video by Moe Bell)
I first became hooked on the River of Raptors when I saw this video (below) in 2013 but I did not act on it until this year. 100,000 raptors(!), tropical birds, and so much more!
Did I see what this video promised? I’m glad I came.
Birds in order of appearance in the video, include 4 occurrences of broad-winged hawks.
Broad-winged hawk
Common squirrel cuckoo
(not a bird. a tabby cat)
Blue-gray tanager
Boat-billed flycatcher
Osprey
Broad-winged hawk
Black vulture
Broad-winged hawk
Broad-winged hawk
Ferruginous pygmy-owl
Fork-tailed flycatcher
Crested caracara
Gray hawk
Great kiskadee
Hook-billed kite
Laughing falcon
Masked tityra
Lucifer hummingbird
Northern harrier
Peregrine falcon
Red-legged honeycreeper
Roadside hawk
Rose-throated becard
Ruby-throated hummingbird
Veracruz wren (split from rufous-naped wren in 2009)
Yellow-throated euphonia
Short-tailed hawk (white belly & throat with brown nape and head)
Swainson’s hawk
MYSTERY BIRD! Looks like a Common buzzard to me (Eurasia+Africa). It might be a very pale red-tailed hawk … but it has no patagial stripes.
Tropical/Couch’s kingbird
Turkey vulture
Wood stork
Zone-tailed hawk
Background music on the video is a 1992 song by Maná called Vivir Sin Aire (Living Without Air), a song about love lost with an apt line: Cómo pudiera un ave volar sin alas = How could a bird fly without wings?
1 October 2026, WINGS at Veracruz: Day 3, quiet beach roads, lowland areas, and savannah hotspots
Today and tomorrow morning we’re visiting hotspots in the lowlands near metro Veracruz. As you can see in this eBird screenshot the best lowland hotspots are near the coast and include beaches, marshes and migratory flyways.
In our travels we’re expecting to find three kinds of birds:
Migrating birds from North America,
Resident birds who don’t migrate though they have either Caribbean or Central and South American ranges, and
at least two endemics
The Endemics
The Veracruz wren used to be lumped with the Russet-naped Wren (Campylorhynchus humilis) which is grouped with the larger Rufous-backed Wren (Campylorhynchus capistratus). However, DNA tests indicate these three are separate species.
The wren got its name, Veracruz, because its tiny range is confined to central Veracruz state from sea level to 300m (984 ft). It spans only about 80-90 miles north-to-south. Click here for the wren’s eBird occurrence map.
In 1945 the blue-capped motmot (Momotus coeruliceps) was lumped with other species and called the “blue-crowned motmot.” Then in 2009 he and his fellow motmots were split into 5 species based on a thorough study conducted by Stiles. The split made the newly dubbed blue-capped motmot instantly endemic to Mexico. He inhabits lowland forests, shady second growth and gardens. He was the only one in the group with a Blue Clown.
As I mentioned yesterday we are past the peak of Mississippi kite (Ictinia mississippiensis) migration but I have never seen an adult of this species. Note the red eyes! I’d be thrilled to see one perched above me, pausing on its way to the Pantanal.
Last year this same tour saw flocks of dickcissels (Spiza americana) migrating south across the lowlands. Some dickcissels spend the winter in Mexico and Central America, others migrate to northern South America. Since the most dickcissels I’ve ever seen at the same time is 2, a flock would be fantastic!
Dickcissel singing in western PA, 10 June 2017 (photo by Anthony Bruno)
Scissor-tailed flycatchers (Tyrannus forficatus) migrate to Central America for the winter after breeding in the southern Great Plains and adjoining states. A few of them wander so I’ve seen one as far east as Ocean City, Maryland. But I’ve never seen more than one at a time. Last year this tour saw flocks of them in migration. Fingers crossed.
A lot of birds live year round in Mexico because the food supply — especially that of insects, reptiles and amphibians — does not drop for the winter. For most of the residents in this slideshow, Mexico is the northern edge of their range, South America is the southern edge. Three are Caribbean: limpkin, double-striped thick-knee and northern jacana.
Plain-breasted ground dove
Ruddy ground dove
Limpkin
Double-striped thick-knee
Collared plover
Northern jacana
Bare-throated tiger-heron
Lesser yellow-headed vulture
Ferruginous pygmy-owl
Ringed Kingfisher
Barred Antshrike
Boat-billed flycatcher
Social Flycatcher
I hope to see all 18 birds pictured in this article but it will take some luck. Fingers crossed!
30 September 2026, WINGS at Veracruz: Day 2, Veracruz River of Raptors hawk watch plus shore and marsh hotspots
On migration from North to South America raptors choose routes that require the least exertion. Avoiding open water they use thermals and tail winds for lift and push as they follow the edges of mountain ranges and coastlines. Inevitably there are geographic pinch points where they’re funneled into a narrow corridor. That’s where the best fall hawk watches are.
Southbound raptors leaving Texas for eastern Mexico fly over a wide coastal plain that increasingly narrows to a bottleneck between the mountains and the sea north of Heroica Veracruz. To their west is a wall of mountains where Mexico’s Sierra Madre Oriental meets the Central Volcanic Belt. To their east is the Gulf of Mexico. They stream through the gap by forming a river of raptors.
This migratory phenomenon was well known and potentially endangered when ProNatura Veracruz, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and HawkWatch International launched the Veracruz River of Raptors Project in 1991. In fall 1992 they established two permanent hawk watch sites just south of the pinch point. Cardel is 7 km (4.34 mi) from the coast on the roof of Hotel Bienvenidos in downtown Cardel. Chichicaxtle is 17-18km (10-11 mi) inland on a tower by the town’s soccer field.
In 2024 Jess Cosentino made four videos for weeks 1 through 4 of fall migration at Veracruz River of Raptors. This video is Weeks 3 and 4 at the peak of Mississippi Kite migration.
We will miss the kites’ peak since we are here for Week 7 and part of 8. But we will see the broad-winged hawks’ peak, weather permitting.
Broad-wings peak at Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania for a 2-week period in mid-September. From there it takes them 12-20 days to get to Veracruz. It’s likely that some of those who flew past Hawk Mountain will fly by while we’re watching the Veracruz River of Raptors. “Migration is a Moving Experience.”
Even though it’s September Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock is building in the East End. I don’t know where they spend the day and I’m not sure where they spend the night but last evening I counted 600 flying by while I was eating dinner.
If you’ve been following armadillos in the U.S. you’ll notice that their official name has changed and is no longer the “nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus).” In June 2024 the species was split into the “nine-banded” who lives only in South America and the Mexican long-nosed armadillo (Dasypus mexicanus) who lives in Central and North America. No matter what they’re called they do have long noses. 😉
The armadillo range map looked like this twenty years ago: 2006 in red, >2006 is pink. Today’s news is marked with a circled asterisk at Oxford, Ohio .
In fact, armadillos have outpaced our predictions. This January 2025 USGS map of documented armadillo occurrences shows they’re (unexpectedly!) in Iowa.
What about those dots in Ohio in January 2025? Those animals are believed to have been hitchhikers on vehicles. This month’s first naturally occurring armadillo probably walked east from Indiana, based on their current range in that state.
Read more about armadillo range expansion in this 2023 article (which uses the old species name).
We think nothing of birds flying from one continent to another but the idea of a mammal walking from Europe to North America boggles the mind. There is no dry land between the two continents, only ice that thins in autumn.
In 2018 polar researchers Eva Fuglei and Arnaud Tarroux tagged a young female arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) with a satellite transmitter to see where she would go when she dispersed from her natal home on Spitzbergen in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. They were in for a surprise. 76 days later she settled in Canada.
From 26 March to 1 July she traveled 76 days, put 4415 km (2743 miles) on her feet, and averaged 46.3 km (28 miles) a day. At top speed on Greenland’s ice sheet she traveled 155 km (96 miles) in a day.
Finally on 1 July 2018 she stopped walking and settled down on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. Here’s an animation of her daily movements from Polar Research.
Not only did the fox make a big journey but she was in for a change in diet. At Svalbard there are no lemmings so Arctic foxes eat marine food. At Ellesmere Island lemmings are a significant part of their diet.
And she probably looked different. She was a blue morph like the fox pictured below. So she would never turn all white like the fox pictured at top in Nunavut, Canada.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) are heading south now to their winter homes in Central America. This week they are still abundant in Pittsburgh but their numbers will wane rapidly. They’ll be gone by the end of the September.
Eventually they reach the Gulf coast and pause to fuel up for the next leg of their journey. They swarm these feeders in Mississippi (filmed 4 Sep 2026).
Ruby-throats are known for flying for 20 hours non-stop over the Gulf of Mexico in spring, but it appears most of them take the overland route in the fall. I reached this conclusion by watching the week-by-week abundance animation from eBird Status and Trends. Notice their abundance in spring and fall at 3 places: the Yucatan Peninsula, Louisiana, and Central Mexico. None travel through Central Mexico in the spring (because they fly over the Gulf), but they do in autumn.
Peregrine on board ship in the Labrador Sea off the coast of Canada (video by Mango Julee on YouTube)
14 September 2026
On Sunday Malcolm Kurtz alerted me to a most unusual eBird checklist of four peregrine falcons that joined a ship in the open ocean at the Sargasso Sea. He found the checklist when he looked at ocean sightings of peregrines on eBird’s species map and clicked in the Atlantic.
4 [peregrine falcons] Observed from off our ship the MS Rotterdam sailing from Amsterdam to Fort Lauderdale via the Azores and Half Moon Cay Bahamas. They were with us for four days. 18 October – 21 October 2023. …
These birds knew exactly how to survive in the far distant open ocean. (On the 18th we had more or less entered de Saragossa Sea.) They were Catching Flying Fish (see photograph) and small migrant birds or sea birds lured to the ship’s lights at night time. On one day one Peregrine Falcon attacked a Masked Booby. The latter turned around, squeaked, and dove off. The Peregrine followed but had lost too much momentum to be able to catch the Masked Booby. They would hunt and catch off the ship. And pluck, and rest on the ship. …
It appeared that one of the Juveniles stayed close to one adult as if it was learning the hunting techniques. …
18 October ship’s coordinates. Here they had first come on board. 28.9716N, -54.78708W
Who were these peregrines? Where did they come from? Where were they going? Why was a juvenile with an adult?
In late September around the equinox, peregrine falcons that breed in Arctic Canada leave on their long migration to South America. Their time in the Arctic is so short that sometimes their youngsters are not independent so a youngster stays with its parent. They often travel south over the Atlantic, following flocks of potential prey which they capture in flight and eat on the wing. Read more at I’m On a Tight Schedule.
By mid-October these Arctic peregrines are streaming past the Florida Keys Hawk Watch where observers routinely count 100+ peregrines a day. See A Hundred Peregrines a Day!
Some of the falcons counted at Florida Keys had flown further out to sea, then course-corrected to the west to make their transit over Panama on thei way to the west coast of South America. I learned about this migration route in 2008 from the Southern Cross Peregrine Project, Falcon Research Group (no longer on the web). FRC tracked an Arctic peregrine, Elizabetha, on her journey south from Baffin Island, Canada in 2008.
She began her journey on September 23, two days after the equinox. …
On October 17th she spent the night in northern Maine at Moosehead Lake. The next day she began a 2-day power flight that set all records, flying 1,416 miles in the most amazing trip anyone has ever seen [described below].
She left Maine on October 18th and was clocked near Quabbin Reservoir in western Massachusetts at 5:00pm, but she didn’t stop. Eight hours later, at 1:00am October 19th, she was nine miles off the coast of New Jersey flying south at 55mph. She had a good tail wind and – though we didn’t know it – she planned to fly all night. From the coast of New Jersey until she roosted 24 hours later at Ft Pierce, Florida she flew 954 miles over the open Atlantic. Don McCall speculates on the FRG blog that she was helped by the north winds behind Hurricane Omar.
My hunch is that the MS Rotterdam peregrines were from the Arctic on their way to (maybe) Chile. Here’s one of the many photos of the juvenile.
Thanks to Malcom Kurtz for sending me the checklist. Wow! Peregrines always amaze me.
p.s. The peregrine video at top (by Mango Julee on YouTube) was taken in the Labrador Sea off the coast of Canada. Peregrines join ships anywhere that it’s convenient.
