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The last morning at the simple and birdy Hotel Las Glorias finally and unfortunately arrived: The first ever Mesoamerican Birding Festival was at its end.  The buses were scheduled to leave at 9 AM so after breakfast there was time (for those who thought to pack the night before) for some last minute birding and [...]

Many thanks to Paco Madrigal of Cotinga Tours who corrected the identity of this bird.  The original post called this bird a Buff-throated Saltator but it is, of course, a juvenile Black-headed Saltator, which, just to confuse novice neotropical birders, have a buffy patch on their throat! This post has been submitted to Bird Photography [...]

On the fourth and final day of field trips for the Mesoamerican Birding Festival I was seriously psyched: I was going to a cloud forest!  The cloud forest in Santa Barbara National Park, to be precise, and I had visions of Resplendent Quetzals dancing in my head.  And what birder wouldn’t have visions of a [...]

On the second day of the Mesoamerican Bird Festival we had a treat in the evening, an exhibition of hummingbird art by Honduran artist Rebecca Mendoza.  Each piece of art was of one species of hummingbird and Rebecca strategically used glitter to represent the hummingbirds’ amazing plumage.  Granted, glitter in hummingbird art isn’t for everyone but I [...]

After the excitement of seeing an Emerald Toucanet and checking out how coffee is grown at Finca El Paraiso we were all ready to get back on the bus.  Some were dawdling, hoping to see one last bird and I was taking a couple shots of the free-range chickens that were scratching in the dirt [...]

As I have already related in my post about birding a shade-grown coffee plantation there was an Emerald Toucanet (Aulacorhynchus prasinus) that was kind enough to stay in one spot long enough for me to digiscope it.  The green bird, which could amazingly almost disappear in the foliage, was feeding on fruit (figs? Nope, manteco, [...]

For the third day of the First Annual Mesoamerican Birding Festival I signed up for the Finca El Paraiso field trip, mostly because I was slow getting to the sign up table and was too late for the Santa Barbara National Park field trip, so my journey to a cloud forest was delayed yet again.  [...]

After the birding excursion to Cerro Azul Meambar National Park we birders returned to the Hotel Las Glorias where we had the afternoon free.  Most of us did what comes naturally to birders in a neotropical paradise with time on our hands: we birded some more!  And while there were a host of birds to [...]

So after birding our way up the entrance road to Cerro Azul Meambar National Park, having a near-stuck experience with our coaster, and seeing an amazingly cooperative Collared Trogon, all of which is related in the first part of this tale, we left our gang of hardcore birders in the parking lot of the national [...]

For the second morning of the Mesoamerican Birding Festival I signed up for the trip up to Cerro Azul Meambar National Park, a 478 square kilometer forested preserve that rises from and overlooks the Lake Yojoa basin.  I had been torn between signing up for Cerro Azul or for the cloud forest at Santa Barbara [...]

Let’s say that you are a serious birder on your first trip to the neotropics and are hoping to see as many species as possible.  And let’s also say that you’ve already had a great morning field trip where you saw a ton of new birds and a filling lunch that left you in no [...]

Well, I am back in New York now and reliving my birding experiences in Honduras by blogging them.  There were so many great birds and great people that it is difficult to decide what to blog about and in what order, so I am going to make my way through my experiences in Honduras chronologically.  [...]

On our way to the lovely Lodge at Pico Bonito on the edge of Pico Bonito National Park in northern Honduras, Robert Gallardo, the organizer of the Mesoamerican Birding Festival and the post-festival familiarity trip that I am currently experiencing, let us all know that a Great Potoo (Nyctibius grandis) had been roosting along the [...]

After catching a cab in the cold night air of Queens at 4 AM last Sunday morning I was at LaGuardia Airport in no time.  My flight left at the time advertised and I was in the air on my way to Houston and my connecting flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, before most people [...]

They say that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. I don’t know how this month will end but we’ll be roaring right into it. After my unforgettable week in Guatemala and Corey’s extended odyssey in Honduras, we’ll be unpacking our Neotropical adventures for the foreseeable future. And yet, just because [...]

That’s right, I’m going to the First Annual Mesoamerican Birding Festival.  Now while Mike has enjoyed birding the neotropics (the sub-tropical and tropical parts of the New World) and Charlie has birded, well, pretty much everywhere, I have never birded outside of the temperate zone.  While I am set in terms of the field guides [...]

The birding south of the U.S. border and north of the equator is always exceptional. This February, the mind-boggling birding splendors of Central America will be wide open for international indulgence. Check out these incredible events: The Neotropical nation nearest and dearest to my heart is Guatemala. If you’re not exactly sure why a country [...]