Bird Guides of the World: Luis Trinchan, Mexico

What is your favorite bird species?

My favorite bird species is the Gray-throated Chat (Granatellus sallaei) an endemic bird of the Yucatan Peninsula.

What is your name, and where do you live?

My name is Luis Trinchan, I live in Merida, the capital of the Yucatan state, in Mexico.

What are the main regions or locations you cover as a bird guide?

My main area for birding is Merida, but I lead tours all over the Yucatan Peninsula.

American Flamingo

How long have you been a bird guide?

I have been guiding since 2018.

How did you get into bird guiding?

I got into bird guiding when people started recommending me as a guide to visitors from other countries who wanted to go birding in Merida, at that point in my life I was just a biology student who was in love with birds and birding and was just happy to take people to see the special birds of this part of the world.

Turquoise-browed Motmot

What are the aspects of being a bird guide that you like best? Which aspects do you dislike most?

I really enjoy getting people to see new birds for their life lists and I also like getting to know people from all over the world and making new birding friends.

One of the things I dislike is that sometimes when looking for a target bird that doesn’t want to show up, there can be a little bit of stress or disappointment, but hey, we can’t control nature and sometimes that’s how it is.

What are the top 5-10 birds in your region that you think are the most interesting for visiting birders?

Yucatan Wren, Mexican Sheartail, Yucatan Gnatcatcher, Yucatan Jay, Orange Oriole, Black-throated Bobwhite, Rose-throated Tanager, Gray-throated Tanager, Ocellated Turkey, Turquoise-browed Motmot, and American Flamingo.

Ocellated Turkey

Can you outline at least one typical birdwatching trip in your area? Please briefly describe the locations, the key birds, and the approximate duration of such a trip

We offer different kinds of tours, from half days to multi-day tours.

An example of a half-day birding tour designed to see the biggest amount of the Yucatan Peninsula’s endemic birds in one morning could be like this. We would start on a road that goes through ranches and a dry forest where we will be able to find birds like the Yucatan Jay (Cyanocorax yucatanicus), the Black-throated Bobwhite (Colinus nigrogularis), the Orange Oriole (Icterus auratus), Gray-throated Chat (Granatellus sallaei), Yucatan Woodpecker (Melanerpes pygmaeus), Turquoise-browed Motmot (Eumomota superciliosa) among many other birds. After that, we would head to the north coast of the Yucatan state looking for specialties like the American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), the Yucatan Wren (Campylorhynchus yucatanicus), the Mexican Sheartail (Doricha eliza) and the Yucatan Gnatcatcher (Polioptila albiventris).

Yucatan Wren

For a multiday tour, we usually start in Mérida, and from there, we do a circuit in which we visit most of the Yucatan Peninsula’s top birding destinations (Rio Lagartos, Valladolid, Siaan Kaan, Calakmul, etc.) looking for all of the endemic birds and usually finishing with a list of 200+ species.

What other suggestions can you give to birders interested in your area?

The best time to visit the Yucatan Peninsula if you want to see a large number of species is from November to April, as during this time we have most of the migrants plus all of the year-round species. In the summer we don’t have the North American migrants, but we get some birds from South America and many of the resident birds are a little bit more showy because of the breeding season.

Weather can be hot and humid but nothing a pair of cold drinks can’t fix.

If any reader of 10,000 Birds is interested in birding with you, how can they best contact you?

The best way to contact me is through my email: info@yucatanbirdingtours.mx. Users can also book a tour through my website at: https://yucatanbirdingtours.mx