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My most recent birding excursion to Guatemala was immensely improved by the addition of two invaluable items. With my new Swarovski SLC 10x42s, I saw so much more than I ever had before. And with Birds of Mexico and Central America by Ber van Perlo, I was able to identify a lot more of what [...]

If you have any plans to bird Mesoamerica you need to purchase A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America posthaste.  The two who put the guide together, Steve Howell, who did the text, and Sophie Webb, who did the plates, spent over seven years on the project and the expertise that [...]

The long bus ride to Copan awaited us intrepid birders as we bade farewell to Lago de Yojoa.  Well, actually, three different buses awaited us: one for those who were going to San Pedro Sula’s airport to return home, one that was filled by those who had added the Copan extension to the Mesoamerican Birding [...]

You’ve probably heard this tale before. Many a proud birder has made the inevitable pilgrimage to Guatemala to climb a volcano in search of one of the most coveted, not to mention quirky birds in the Americas. Rick Wright has done it. Bill Thompson III has done it. Jeff Bouton has done it. Sharon Stiteler [...]

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 [...]

Mesoamerican Month at 10,000 Birds has been better for all of us thanks to the photos of my friend from Guatemala, Renato Fernández Ravelo. Renato, a distinguished naturalist, photographer, and author of Birds: Guatemala’s Feathers, has already contributed stellar shots of a Steller’s Jay and Resplendent Quetzal. When I recently received a brief but poignant [...]

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 [...]

The Los Andes Private Nature Reserve is a lovely, lovely place but it’s a bit off the beaten path. One does not accidentally stumble into paradise but rather pursues it purposefully. Our group certainly did; our purpose resided high on a peak overlooking mist-shrouded fields of tea and quinine. Two times in two days we [...]

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, [...]

After successfully stalking the Pink-headed Warbler, our glorious assault on Guatemala’s Pacific Slope began in earnest. The first stop on our ambitious circuit was the Los Andes Private Nature Reserve, an absolutely heavenly plantation of sustainable coffee and organic tea mixed with pristine cloud forest. Yet the action started as soon as we hit the [...]

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.  [...]

For many, the name “Antigua” conjures visions of posh resorts and crystal coves in the Caribbean. For me, the word will always take me back to the charming, challenging colonial capital of Guatemala. Antigua is a gorgeous little city about 45 kilometers from Guatemala City. Its inimitable character derives from its rich history as the [...]

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 [...]

My first full day in Guatemala during the Fifth International Birding Encounter started with a stellar trip to Cerro Alux. Following that was a pit stop for coffee and hummingbirds en route to the fabulous Finca El Pilar outside Antigua. This working coffee farm is a perfect example of the power of private landowners to [...]

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 [...]

The grackle is the ultimate American bird, adaptable, intrepid, and obstreperous. Ten species of these iridescent ebon irritants, most in the genus Quiscalus, are distributed throughout the New World. The banner blackbird of most of Mesoamerica as well as much of the southwestern United States is the Great-tailed Grackle. In fact, this aggressive avian ambassador [...]