EVERY DAY A SURPRISE AT KÉKÖLDI HAWKWATCH

Being at the tower makes you see how different every day in your life can be. At the beginning everything seems to be the same. You hike up the trail a million times, the air is heavy, the cocoa fruits every day riper, and I think about the “Chocolate Making” Workshop we’ll hopefully have at the end of October. But even so, the day seems to start the same way as always.

As soon as you step on the top floor, everything can change. Sometimes it is just the breeze you were hoping for, some other days a pair of Parrots flies from a near tree, calling loudly. It can be that cup of coffee that just makes you feel good, or Broad-winged Hawks already flying around the tower, anxious to be on the way south, one more day of migration.

Then you sit down, start writing down the data for weather that hour: Temperature: 24ºC; Wind speed: 1; Wind Direction: SW”. There’s a silence full of noises. Birds are already awake, sometimes you can hear the ocean waves in the distance, the leaves singing in the gentle wind. There’s even one mountain, Kamuk, which you can only see in the first hours of the morning, for pretty soon it is covered with clouds and you will only see it the next morning, if the weather allows it. It always looks blue and mysterious, and the Kekoldis speak of it in their stories. It is the second highest mountain in Costa Rica (3200m), and one day I would like to climb it. See the tower in an early morning, but from high above and far away.

And then, once the birds are high in the sky there is no moment to stop and enjoy the landscape, although you’ll enjoy it when you rest your eyes from the lenses you are using; just looking at the mountains or sometimes at the floor, just to rest your eyes for a second.

Yesterday, at the end of the day, tired of counting so many hawks and Ospreys and Peregrines… I though I saw a familiar silhouette on a tree in the distance. 500 m away, there was a pair of Peregrine Falcons perched on a tree. I could see them preening and their white breasts were shining. One second later, still amazed by the discovery, we saw another falcon, this time a Merlin, perch less than 50 m away, on a dead branch, wit a dead swallow on his talons. He looked scared, and we were frozen, not moving one finger, to see if he would stay and eat his evening meal next to us. It was amazing watching him take the feathers out, the wings and eat the whole thing in 15 minutes, always looking around to make sure he was safe. Merlins come all the way from the Arctic to pass their winters in the Tropics. Like Peregrine Falcons they follow other birds migrations, so that they can eat while the move.

What a beautiful bird it was… and what a beautiful sunset. We left the tower smiling and describing that moment to each other, as if to make sure we wouldn’t forget anything, we even tried to look for the tree where it was perched, when we started heading down the trail…

What a day! I wasn’t even supposed to be at the tower on that day… but because one of the other counters couldn’t make it, I took his place.

I spend less time in the field now, but maybe just because of that, I enjoy every moment I have at the observation tower… every sunrise, every bird I see, the coffee cups, the blazing sun. This IS an amazing place, it makes you feel alive, and it makes you believe that there are places in the world where you can work and enjoy nature every day, while helping the word be a better place around you.

Take care and hear the birds singing around you! Most of them will be going south soon and the winter will be silent without them.