Guyana Birding Tours - Beginning in October or November 2009 we plan on offering a birding tour to Guyana. One of us (Jim Wittenberger) visited Guyana on a familiarization tour in April 2008 at the invitation of the Guianan Tourism Ministry and funded in part by USAID with a group of other tour operators from Europe and the US. He was impressed with the birding opportunities in this as yet little known birding destination. The group saw or heard 319 species during 9 days, including specialty birds and endemics such as Black Curassow, Harpy Eagle, Little Chachalaca, Gray-winged Trumpeter, Black-headed Parrot, Caica Parrots, Tepui Swift, Crimson Topaz, Guianan Puffbird, Guianan Toucanet, Blood-colored Woodpecker, Rufous-bellied Antwren, Todd's Antwren, Yellow-throated Flycatcher, Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock, Capuchinbird, Tiny Tyrant-Manakin, Cayenne Jay, Finsch's Euphonia, and Red Siskin. For a complete report of this trip, CLICK HERE.
Galapagos Cruise - We are again offering a Galapagos cruise to the major islands in November 2008 in conjunction with an Ecuadorian birding tour company. The tour will again be led by one of South America's top birding guides, Lelis Navarette. For more information about this tour, click on the sidebar links.
Peru Birding Tours - We are offering birding tours to Peru beginning in August 2008 as a joint venture with a well established Ecuadorian birding tour company. Our tours go to Machu Picchu, Abra Malaga, the Manu Road, and Manu Biosphere Reserve. Tour prices are the same whether you book with us or our Ecuadorian partner company. For more information about this tour, click on the sidebar link.
2008 Spring Photo Tours - We began offering bird and nature photo tours to some of our favorite destinations in spring 2008. On our Costa Rica tour we made numerous excellent photographs of forest birds including Resplendent Quetzals and hummingbirds at famed Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, water birds including Jabirus during a boat trip through Palo Verde National Park, and various lowland tropical birds at Carara National Park. On our Panama tour we made photographs of numerous tropical birds along famed Pipeline Road, on the Caribbean side of the Canal Zone, and in the western highlands of Chiriqui Province. Some of the notable birds we photographed were Harpy Eagle, Mealy Amazon, Spectacled Owl, Black-throated and Western White-tailed Trogons, Ocellated Antbird, White-whiskered Puffbird, and several species of hummingbirds.
2008 Spring Birding Tours - We conducted spring birding tours to both Costa Rica and Panama. Our Costa Rica tour visited the top birding locales at Carara National Park, on the Caribbean slope including La Selva and Braulio Carillo National Park, the Talamanca Mountains, and the lowlands around Los Cusingos. Certainly one of the most notable birds we saw on the tour was the very hard to observe Three-wattled Bellbird. We also saw Resplendent Quetzals and some 300 other species. Our tour to Panama had only 2 participants signed up, so they enjoyed a private tour with our guide. We did not accompany the tour but we know they had a great time and saw many good birds.
January 2008 Belize Birding Tour with H. Lee Jones - Three Canadians joined us for an excellent birding tour of Belize and Tikal. The tour was led by H. Lee Jones and a second guide, Wilfred Mutrie. In total we saw 277 species of birds during the tour plus several additional species seen by our tour participants on Caye Caulker before the tour started. During the tour we stayed at wonderful Hidden Valley Inn in the western Maya Mountains, the Jungle Lodge at Tikal National Park, Mama Noot's Backabush Lodge near Mayflower-Bocawina National Park, and at Bird's Eye View Lodge at Crooked Tree. Everyone was most pleased with the accommodations as well as the food throughout the tour. For a complete report of this trip, CLICK HERE.
December 2007 Ecuador birding tour - Our birding tour to northern Ecuador in December 2007 was a resounding success. Six participants joined us on the tour, led by master guide Willie Perez, and we saw or heard 561 species in 14 days of birding. We spent 4 days birding the western Andes including Yanacocha Reserve, Mindo Valley including a morning at Finca Angel Paz, Rio Silanche Reserve and Milpe Bird Sanctuary farther downslope, and Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve. We then spent 6 days birding the eastern Andes including Antisana Reserve, Papallacta Pass, the private reserves around Guango Lodge and Cabanas San Isidro, Guacamayos Ridge, the upper Loreto Road, the Archidona Road, and El Para Reserve. Finally, we spent 5 days including transfer days birding in the Amazon headwaters of the Rio Napo while enjoying Napo Wildlife Center. We enjoyed fine accommodations and fantastic food throughout the tour. Everyone was tired by the end, but the fantastic birding made all our efforts worthwhile. For a complete report of this trip, CLICK HERE.
November 2007 Galapagos Islands birding and nature photo tour - Our 2007 birding tour of the Galapagos Islands was a co-marketing venture with Neblina Forest. The tour was led by Lelis Navarette and was a great success. We saw 65 bird species in total, including all the Galapagos endemics except the rare Galapagos Martin. We also saw a variety of seabirds from the boat as well as nesting colonies of seabirds on the various islands. In addition to birds, we saw several other specialty animals of the Galapagos. We of course saw many brightly colored Sally Lightfoot Crabs that are found on many rocky shorelines throughout the islands and everybody raves about. We also saw numerous marine iguanas, Green Sea Turtles, Galapgos Sea Lions, a variety of dolphins, and some Southern Right Whales and Giant Tortoises. Those with cameras enjoyed fantastic opportunities to photograph birds during the tour, not to mention the crabs, marine iguanas, and Giant Tortoises. For a complete report of this trip, CLICK HERE.
October 2007 Brazil scouting trip - We had a very successful scouting trip to Brazil. During the trip we visited Cristolino Lodge in the southern Amazon, the Pantanal, SE Atlantic forest habitats at Ubatuba and Itatiaia National Park, and Iguazu Falls (both Brazil and Argentina sides). We relied principally on local guides. Our guide at Ubatuba and Itatiaia was superb and we plan on using him to guide future tours for us in Brazil. We were disappointed with our guide around Iguazu Falls, but the scenary was fantastic and there are good birding opportunities on the Argentine side of the falls. For a complete report of this trip, CLICK HERE.
September 2007 Peru scouting trip - In September we attended the week-long first Bird Fair in Peru as guests of the Peru Tourism Ministry and Prom Peru. The fair was a big success, with many influential members of the birding community attending. We spent 5 days following the northern Peru birding route, visiting Chaparri Reserve in Tumbes Province and traversing the Andes from Chiclayo to Tarapoto. We also spent half a day birding the Villa Wetlands south of Lima. Our group saw over 300 species despite not having enough time to do any area we visited justice. One of the biggest highlights was viewing the incredible Marvelous Spatuletail, a highly endangered lek-breeding hummingbird with extraordinarily long tail plumes that seem to dance in the air some distance from the bird as it flies from flower to flower. Nearly as exciting were great views of the highly endangered Peruvian Plantcutter, Royal Sunangel, and the recently described and also endangered Johnson's (Lulu's) Tody-Tyrant. Other notable birds we saw were such endemic and endangered/threatened species as Humboldt Penguin, Red-legged Cormorant, Peruvian Booby, White-winged Guan, Red-masked Parakeet, Pacific Parrotlet, Tumbes Hummingbird, Short-tailed Woodstar, Speckle-chested Piculet, Coastal Miner, Peruvian Seaside Cinclodes, Chinchipe Spinetail, Elegant and Maranon Crescent-Chest, Rufous-vented Tapaculo, Tumbesian Tyrannulet, Tumbes Tyrant, Maranon Gnatcatcher, White-tailed Jay, Huallaga Tanager, Silver-backed Tanager, Cinereous Finch, Sulphur-throated Finch, White-headed Brush-Finch, Tumbes Sparrow, and White-edged Oriole. At the fair itself we met a variety of Peruvian lodge and tour operators. The entire visit was most informative and we expect to begin offering both birding and bird/nature photo tours to Peru within the next year. Peru is second only to Columbia in the number of bird species within its borders and exceeds Columbia in the number of endemic species found there. It is a less traveled birding destination but offers great promise now that it is safe to travel throughout the country.
