Mexico’s ‘bird boys’ handle tasks with pride

ABASOLO, Mexico – The word “huachale” – pronounced “watch-a-lay” – sends an electric charge through any white-winged dove hunter who hears the battle cry of every bird boy I’ve met in over 25 years of dove hunting south of the border.

Bird boys are a Mexican tradition. At Rancho Caracol, each hunter is assigned two bird boys. Their job is to retrieve fallen doves and assist the hunter in any way they can.

The term “bird boy” may sound demeaning in a culture that’s banning native American sports logos as culturally insensitive. But Dean Putegnat said the bird boy title is exalted in rural Tamaulipas where men as old as 30 and as young as 10 are eager for the job.

Putegnat is the manager of Rancho Caracol, a wing shooting resort 150 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. He was raised in a Rio Grande Valley family that’s been hunting in Mexico for more than 50 years.

Rancho Caracol recommends a $10 per hunt bird boy tip. Young men who work both the morning and the afternoon hunt make well above the region’s average daily income of $10 to $12. When a bird boy shows initiative, many Americans tip more than the recommended amount.

For each of my hunts, I was accompanied by a dignified, mustachioed young man named Antonio. His English was no better than my Spanish, so we didn’t have much of a conversation. Antonio was a hard worker, however, who tutored the younger boys who accompanied us – a different youngster on each hunt – and led by example.

Antonio boldly entered thick brush after fallen doves in areas where I thought he had no chance to find the bird. He usually proved me wrong. Antonio earned $40 a day during my stay.

I saw bird boys using machetes to chop through brush for a retrieve.

Rancho Caracol is one of the top employers in the Abasolo area. Nearly 50 local people work fulltime for the ranch. In an average day of white-winged dove hunting, the ranch employs nearly 100 bird boys. Half of those come from whatever rural area the ranch decides to hunt that day. The jobs are spread across community farms that encompass more than 500,000 acres.

Competition is fierce, even for the job title of “bird boy.” As Harold Inman, Rancho Caracol’s hunt manager, said, the Mexican “bird boy” is a tradition as old as whitewing hunting.

“Nobody down here minds being called a bird boy,” Inman said. “If we were hunting in the States, they might be called avian retrieval specialists, but the job would be the same.”