Azacuanes

“There were days of thousands of Broad-winged Hawks (Buteo platypterus), great ‘kettles’ made up of hundreds. But these hawk flights were insignificant compared with the azacuanes—enormous flights of great streams of birds at mountaintop height in El Salvador. The azacuanes are an amalgam of several species—Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura), Swainson’s Hawks (Buteo swainsonii), Broad-winged Hawks, and a few other species tagging along. The flights of azacuanes are fairly predictable. For generations, rural Salvadorans governed their activities by the azacuanes; northbound azacuanes heralded the onset of rains and the time to plant, while southbound azacuanes meant that the dry season and harvest time were at hand.

“Autumn flights of azacuanes are spectacular. For hour after hour, day after day, flocks of these birds pass along the peaks and ridges of El Salvador. In 1971 I saw azacuanes daily at Cerro Verde between October 10 and 24. They came in flocks of 100-1,000 birds, with stragglers from one group almost overtaken by the next. Between 8 am and 4 pm there was almost never a moment when at least one flock was not visible.

“Between October 12 and November 4, 1925, A. J. Van Rossem saw flocks of 200 to 1,000 birds at Divisadero. He identified Turkey Vultures, Broad-winged Hawks, Swainson’s Hawks, and some Red-tailed and a few Marsh hawks (Buteo jamaicensis and Circus cyaneus). ‘The hawk migration reached its peak on October 21 in an enormous flight, or rather series of flights, which occupied the greater part of the day. It was not possible to make any estimate of the number that passed, but it must have been in the tens of thousands,’ he wrote.”

“Birds in El Salvador, 1966-1980,” Walter Thurber