I have taken a hiatus from the birdwatch weblog, but I am back. A little over a month ago, I rented a small apartment in Paso de Ovejas. Paso de Ovejas is located about forty minutes from the port city of Veracruz ( to the northwest), on the old highway that goes to Xalapa. I am here in preparation for the fall raptor migrations, River of Raptors .
For those who don’t know, I am a struggling nature photographer and birding guide and for most of the year I live in Tlacotlapan Veracruz ( a nice expanse of tropical wetlands located about two hours to the south of Veracruz)
I will be dividing my time between four weblogs, Birdwatch, Veracruz Hawk watch, Adventures in bird digiscoping and River of Raptors Veracruz. I will share photos, birding observations and try to give you some insight as to my daily life here in Mexico. I appreciate comments and feed back. I do this because I love it. I am currently involved in preparing bird conservation lesson plan material in Spanish. The first step to conservation is education.

Paso de Ovejas
My first apartment experience here was fraught with errors. My idea was to rent a small basic little space, that I could use as a temporary base for the fall hawk watch tours. What I ended up renting was a small solar heated asbestos roofed sauna/oven! I lived there for two weeks. The price was right $35 dollars a month. During the day it was so hot that even the bugs had to step out to cool off. During the day I was out birding., when I returned in the afternoon I had to “psych up” just to walk in the apartment. In the early morning things would cool off to a low of 85F (this is with 3 fans going full blast)
One evening 7:00p.m. with the temp 92F while sitting in front of the blank computer screen in only my underwear , I experienced an epiphany, a still small voice in my head spoke “You cannot live here anymore, IDIOT, what in the hell were you thinking?”
A room with a view.

The next day while walking in town, I glanced up and notices a “for rent” sign in a second story apartment. In four days time I was living in the new space. Two bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, two balconies, excellent lighting, BREEZE. The price was a budget breaking 100 dollars a month. I will figure it out. The greatest feature of the apartment is the roof. I am located on a hillside have a virtually unimpaired 360 degree view of a sky that in the fall will provide spectacular views of the fall raptor migrations! I am located precisely in the middle of the stream of “River of Raptors”.