Hawkwatching at its Best

What could be more fun than floating on your back in warm waters of the Caribbean and watching thousands of raptors swirl overhead above you? This was just one of the many highlights from HMANA’s recent birding and hawkwatching tour to Costa Rica last week.

Where to even begin?! We journeyed through the country exploring the Central foothills and highlands, Caribbean lowlands and the Pacific slope. Overall our group saw or heard an amazing 393 species of birds. Among those were 31 species of raptors, 26 hummingbirds, 21 antbirds, 35 flycatchers, 29 warblers and 30 tanager species. It was 10 glorious days of colorful birds, beautiful rainforest and coastal landscapes, good coffee and lots of fruit.

But the grand focus of this tour was spending 2 days at the Kèköldi Hawkwatch inside the Kèköldi Indigenous Reserve on the Caribbean slope. This has always been a very special place to me. From my first season spent counting there in 2001, and then again when I returned to do peregrine falcon research in 2005, I have been itching to get back. And as always, it was just as magical as ever and did not let us down.

The hike up to the watchsite involved a lot of mud, sweat and thorns. What would be the fun of seeing all those migrants if you didn’t have to work for it, right? We wove our way up the mountain through an abandoned cacao plantation, stopping of course to sample the sweet and tangy fruit along the way. Black and green poison dart frogs hopped across the trail and laughing falcons called from the canopy. I could spend all day on this 2km long trail, studying leaf cutter ants, the towering strangler fig trees and the huge diversity of understory species like antbirds, tinamous and hermits (hummingbirds). Looking up at any one time, we saw glimpses of swirling kettles through the canopy, reminding us of what was in store and to pick up the pace.

As soon as we reached the top of the hawkwatch tower and were catching our breath, the counters handed me a clicker and said, “You’re in charge of peregrines!” Just like old times. For the next few hours, I counted over 100 peregrines passing overhead. Some scattered over the ocean, others kettling up over the mountains in groups of 5-10.
Turkey vultures were the dominant migrant during our visit but mixed in were thousands of broad-wings and Swainsons hawks with the occasional Mississippi Kite, osprey or merlin. At times, the skies would be full of solely broad-wings or Swainson’s as if they were very courteously taking turns using the sky.

The phrase, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god” was a common one, as tour participants shifted from kettle to kettle, trying to take in the sheer magnitude of the movement. Aside from raptors, chimney swifts and various swallow species swept past in the millions. By the end of the day, 70,000 raptors had been tallied.

To anyone who visits, it’s easy to see that Kèköldi is a truly remarkable place. As with many hawkwatch sites, Kèköldi is struggling to stay afloat and is in need of more financial and volunteer support. The two to three volunteer counters this season are overworked and overwhelmed by the volume of birds coming through. This site requires a team of at least 4-6 counters to effectively cover the skies.

Several brainstorming sessions took place amongst tour participants and Daniel, the project coordinator (& our local guide) on how to help this project succeed long-term. It was great to see people eager to share their thoughts and ideas on how to build upon this important project with outreach and fundraising strategies. HMANA is currently working with Kèköldi to find ways to offer support. Hopefully one way we can continue to offer support is through more tours like this one!

Following Raptors South - A Glimpse of Migration in Costa Rica

Many of us are deeply absorbed in the passing of migrants each fall. Here in New England, we treasure those crisp days bright with red-shouldered hawks and changing foliage. A kettle of 50 broadwings overhead may be all you need to get you through the week. But when they leave us in chilly New England, do you give thought to where they are heading? As I watch an osprey soar overhead in New Hampshire, I can’t help but envision its route…island hopping from Florida through the Caribbean until it reaches South America and shooting straight through Brazil. Or a merlin, forever in a hurry, tearing down the Atlantic coast and hugging the gulf until it settles somewhere in central Mexico.
HMANA’s http://www.hawkcount.org/ website is a phenomenal resource for pulling together all the pieces of this puzzle. It is one of the best tools we have for understanding the big picture: what species are moving, how many, where they are going, and when they are moving. How great to be able to learn of raptor movements all over the continent with a few clicks of the mouse.

When we think about migration on a different scale, massive movements of raptors passing in the tens of thousands a day, we often think of Gulf coast sites or Veracruz, Mexico, well known for tallying an astounding 5 million raptors each fall! Well, I wanted to briefly highlight a migration monitoring site that doesn’t get much attention but has a lot to offer and is located in one of the most biologically and culturally rich sites in the world - the Kekoldi Hawkwatch in Talamanca, Costa Rica.
Here, tucked into the rainforests of the Caribbean lowlands inside an indigenous reserve, stands a canopy tower perfectly situated for monitoring migrants. All southbound birds are funneled through a narrow 5 km stretch between the Talamancan Mountains and the Atlantic coastline. In addition to millions of raptors, swallows and dragonflies cover the skies, warblers pour through in waves, intermingling with resident forest birds and common nighthawk counts have reached 20,000 in one day.

Since 2000, Kekoldi has been a volunteer-run site active during most fall and spring seasons. However, it struggles at times to find enough counters. This is unfortunate, given its biological significance and history of counting 2- 3 million raptors of 15+ species. I was lucky enough to spend two seasons at Kekoldi, assisting in the count and collecting data on Peregrine Falcon migration. The potential for research at this site is outstanding and it is critical to pursue for our understanding of raptor populations and movements in the tropics. Currently, HMANA is striving to assist the Kekoldi hawkwatch in adding data to the HawkCount database and by establishing continuous counts and so it can become a contributer of long term data.
To put this all into perspective, when we are swimming in broad-winged hawks up here in the northeast, the Kekoldi watchsite has already counted 200,000 Mississippi kites. As we welcome late season redtails and goshawks in mid-October, the skies above Kekoldi are covered in one million broad-winged hawks. By October 25th, a half a million Swainson’s hawks will be passing overhead. By the time November rolls around in New England, we are packing it in, or maybe withstanding the last few cold days, hoping for a golden eagle or two. But in Kekoldi, turkey vultures are just getting started and will total over one million by mid-December.


I think it’s important to keep these migration schedules in mind. It gives me a new perspective on migration and reminds me of the bigger picture. It also makes me value the count data I collect daily, and the feeling that I’m contributing to something larger.

Interested in visiting this secluded raptor hotspot? A HMANA tour to the Kekoldi Hawkwatch may be in the making for fall 2010. Stay tuned!