[obol] Buy shade-grown coffee--it works!

[Wink Gross]

We just got back from our annual week in Oaxaca, MX.  This
year local guide Roque Antonio and I spent three days birding
the Pacific slope of the Sierra del Sur, including the region
around Pluma Hidalgo, a major coffee growing region of Mexico.

Much of the coffee there is shade-grown, so the understory of
the forest was pretty much all coffee plants.  However, the
canopy trees of cecropia, ficus, coral-bean, etc., were left
intact.

That canopy was full of birds: tanagers (Western, Flame-
colored, Summer), warblers (Nashville, Black-throated Green,
Townsend's, Wilson's, Blue-winged), flycatchers (many silent
empids), orioles (Audubon's, Bullock's, Baltimore, Streak-
backed, Orchard), just to list a few.

I have been buying shade-grown coffee for several years now.
Nice to finally see with my own eyes that shade-grown coffee
plantations really do provide habitat for many species of
birds.

And, oh yes, ¡El café fue maravilloso!

Wink Gross
Portland