VERACRUZ 2010: Coffee, Cortes and the Coast

Always one of the special days of our Veracruz tour is our visit to the El Mirador Ranch with our host Jorge Muller (above). From Cardel on Oct 4th, we drove up to 1100 meters and the Muller’s family ranch and 19-century hacienda to be warmly greeted by Jorge. After some hot home-grown coffee, and a few birds including a very nice look at Audubon’s Oriole, we soon loaded into his 1971 Volkswagen Safari. We headed into the organic shade coffee ranch, with wonderful old oaks and other trees that are used to shade the coffee, where the remnant mature forest and beautiful forested canyons, still thrive with native habitat.

The birds were wonderful, including Gartered Trogon (above), a perched pair of Bat Falcons, a calling Collared Forest-Falcon, amazing flocks of warblers, euphonias, and Red-legged Honeycreepers. We continued our hike through the coffee plantation and forest and saw a group of White-winged Tanagers, the male first spotted by Jorge. As we walked we found individual birds and mixed flocks, which included both Collared Aracari and Keel-billed Toucans (the first toucans for Micha and Pete!), White-tipped Dove, a lovely look at the miniscule Stripe-throated Hermit, Olivaceous and Ivory-billed Woodcreepers, and our first looks at White-breasted Wood-Wren (a change from the Gray-breasted in highlands).

After our lovely walk, we enjoyed a great lunch at the hacienda to equal the great birding. We were joined by Emege, Jorge’s wife, and their giant Great Dane, Taiga, and also their tireless Belgian Shepard. After delicious tamales, a Mexican corn-pie of sorts, a few other nice dishes, beer, a lovely dessert and great coffee, we said our good-byes to all, and headed back down the mountain to Cardel in time for our boat trip to the La Antigua River.

We usually take the boat trip at the beginning of the tour, but water levels were too high at the time. Water levels have since dropped, so we made the trip. We felt mixed emotions, as we saw the destruction (above) from the recent hurricane, with some huge trees having been knocked down in this normally shady town, where now few shade trees remained. Fortunately the house of Hernan Cortes faired well, with the large strangler fig trees having withstood the wind. With the rains after the hurricane the river here had risen many meters and actually went half-way up the riverside restaurant where we normally have dinner. Our boatman explained that he used streets as canals to rescue stranded residents. The staff of the Las Delicias Marinas restaurant was busy cleaning up and were glad to see us, as returning tourists. The boat ride turned out to be a success, and a nice economic plus for our boatman.

We went fairly quickly to the mouth of the river, watching several herons and egrets along the way. At the sandbar near the mouth we were greeted by large numbers of Brown Pelicans, Gull-billed, Royal, and Sandwich Terns, and a large group of Black Skimmers. We spotted several shorebirds including Long-billed Curlew, Whimbrel, Willet, and large numbers of Black-necked Stilt (above) and American Avocet. We then motored into the small side creek where we had several Amazon, Ringed, and Belted Kingfishers.

Our amazing day highlighted the diversity of Veracruz, where in a short distance we traveled from shade coffee at 1100 meters to sea level and a wonderful boat trip. We encountered toucans, honeycreepers, and woodcreepers, as well as kingfishers, egrets, and curlews, for a total of 103 species for the day!