The turkey vultures are headed south

Martha Knies recently advised me that the Mexican free-tailed bats continue to emerge each evening from under the Cypress Creek bridge in downtown Wimberley. However, the turkey vultures that once flew into nearby cypress trees each evening have disappeared.

If you are wondering where those vultures went, I suggest you look south. This is the time of year when about one million turkey vultures from the U.S. and Canada begin sailing over Veracruz, Mexico, on the way to winter homes in South America.

In addition to the turkey vultures, a veritable river of raptors passes over Veracruz, including Swainson’s and broad-winged hawks and Mississippi kites. These raptors flow through a natural gap between the Sierra Madre Mountains and the gulf coastal plains. In all, over four million raptors will pass through, the most concentrated assemblage of raptors in the world.

I’ve been to Veracruz, but not during hawk migration season. I drove down in a brand new red Corvair and promptly became stuck on a sandy Veracruz beach.

Some teenage boys pushed me to solid ground and refused any monetary reward. Unbelievable.

If you go down to see the “river of hawks,” in Veracruz, tell the good folks there that Jerry sent you. And thanks a bunch.