Bird Watching Guatemala Blog

Birdwatching Expedition Package 4   Birdwatching Expedition Package 5                                                                                               Special Highlands & Lowlands www.birdwatchingguatemala.com is a registered trademark of Martsam Tour & Travel Copyright® 2012 www.birdwatchingguatemala.com -  www.martsam.com

    Guatemala  - Regional Endemism areas Guatemala as one as the best Central American birdwatching destination has a high diversity of birds with a high degree of regional endemism located in four main zones.   The union of these four areas in such a small region creates a very attractive offer for birdwatchers adding the archaeological and cultural attractions that highly complement to birdwatching. The highlands of northern Central America The tropical savannas of the northern Pacific slope of Central America The tropical rainforest on the Caribbean slope of Central America   The lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula   www.birdwatchingguatemala.com   Travel Guatemala

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Bird Watching Guatemala by Martsam Tour & Travel "V International Bird Watching Encounter" The first half of our International bird watching encounter will take place mainly in Antigua Guatemala with daily mini-tours which are half-day birding tours to different locations. Besides these tours , there will be lectures and educational activities for the general public. The second half of the event is exclusively for traveling birders who want to visit other birding sites in Guatemala . Each visitor has to choose one of 4 options. Option 1: The Western Highlands: Visited sites include: Private Nature Reserve los Tarrales, Nature reserve Los Andes, Municipal Park San Pedro Volcano Ecosystems: cloud forest and pine-oak forest Some of the birds that can be seen on this tour: Mountain Trogon Collared Trogon, Resplendent Quetzal, Blue-throated Motmot, Blue-crowned Motmot, Emerald Toucanet, Golden-fronted Woodpecker and White-fronted ...

Miguel Marin, an expert member of Bird Watching Guatemala Project Photo by Maynor Ovando San Miguel is a small village just five minutes in a boat ride from Flores Island in Petén lowlands. And like many places in Guatemala is a great birding hotspot. Miguel Marin is an extraordinary birder and a terrific birding guide who lives in this small bird paradise. Mangrove Swallow After years leading birding groups he has got an extra sense to find birds, sometimes people say that Miguel has a treat with birds because just in the moment he speaks about a bird, it comes in front of your eyes. He knows perfectly every bird that can be found in his domains and as members of the Bird Watching Guatemala birding staff I took a couple of hours to walk with him around the place. Northern Jacana I was thinking that my chances to get many birds were low because of the rainy weather but my expert friend had no problem to show me 52 bird species in this short visit. Miguel has been recording patiently ...

Lemuel, Melvin and me birding at Ixpanpajul Photo by Maynor Ovando A couple of weeks ago I joined to Melvin and Lemuel, two of the best birding guides in Guatemala, to an early birding walk in Ecological Park Ixpanpajul. We started at 6:00 in the morning and the sound of Blue-crowned Motmot, Clay-colored Robin and Great Tinamou was announcing the sunrise. Vermillion Flycatcher (female) The first bird in sight was a female Vermillion Flycatcher and then a complete flycatcher parade was in front of our eyes, including Yellowish Flycatcher, Social Flycatcher, Boat-billed Flycatcher, Great Kiskadee and Tropical Kingbird. Through the dense vegetation surrounding the trail we observed Green-backed Sparrow, Blue Grosbeak, Red-throated Ant-tanager, Tawny-winged Woodcreeper and Olivaceous Woodcreeper. Bronzed Cowbird Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Yellow Warblers, Black-and-white Warblers, Blue-gray Tanagers, Bronzed Cowbirds and hundreds of Northern Rough-winged Swallows were easy to see. Two hour...

Bare- throated Tiger-heron Last days have been rainy and wet on Guatemala’s highlands and the direct effect on Peten lowlands is flood on areas along rivers. I went with my friends Melvin and Diego from Martsam Tour & Travel to birding around Ceibal and the experience was extraordinary. Hundreds of aquatic and shorebirds feeding on the extended ponds like Great-blue Heron, Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret, Great Egret and Bare-throated Tiger Heron. Gray-necked Wood-rail Through the bushes we saw Ruddy Crake, Mangrove Vireo, Gray-necked Wood-rail and Least Grebe. Over clean branches we had this great sight of the Amazon Kingfisher and a couple of Snail Kite. Amazon Kingfisher By the end of the day we had a bird list of 98 species. Posted by Maynor Ovando www.birdwatchingguatemala.com is a registered trademark of Martsam Tour & Travel Copyright® 2,008 www.birdwatchingguatemala.com www.martsam.com

Blue Ground-dove Many times we have a poor concept of some bird species. Vultures have a bad reputation because they made the “dirty job” of nature. They are not good singers or colorful of pretty… but they are efficient. Doves are seen almost in the same way because many hear the word dove and think in a Rock Dove. People even call them “air rats” because their abundance in almost every city in the world. But when you can show how diverse are members of Columbidae family they will start to think different. Guatemala has 20 dove species and I digiscoped these doves in a birding trip to El Zotz Biotope in Petén lowlands. White-tipped Dove Posted by Maynor Ovando www.birdwatchingguatemala.com is a registered trademark of Martsam Tour & Travel Copyright® 2,008 www.birdwatchingguatemala.com www.martsam.com

Lake Atitlan Guardians: Toliman, Atitlan and San Pedro Photo by Maynor Ovando Southern Guatemala has a chain formed by volcanoes. They shape the landscape of the foothills from Pacific slope to the highlands; this barrier is responsible for most of the endemism of northern Central America. Birds like Azure-rumped Tanager and Horned Guan are restricted to some volcanic areas between Mexico and Guatemala. Atitlan Volcano Photo by Maynor Ovando Three from the 33 volcanoes in the country are active. Pacaya Volcano is the nearest to Guatemala City and is the most visited. Fuego Volcano is near Antigua Guatemala and Santiaguito Volcano in southwestern is the most active and dangerous. San Pedro Volcano Photo by Maynor Ovando Hiking and birding on volcanoes is just great. All volcanoes has been decalared protected areas and most of them are National Parks that offers services and security to visitors. Fuego Volcano Photo by Maynor Ovando Pacaya Volcano Photo by Lemuel Valle Posted by Ma...

Bronzed Cowbird Taking bird pictures from nature is a real challenge. Most of us want to have a sharp and perfect image but it is hard to get because circumstances are changing always. Hundreds of shots are not good, even are not good enough to recognize the bird and we usually delete them, but many of them have a story behind or can be seen in a different perspective, artistic or funny… I took this image of a Bronzed Cowbird in a birding walk around Uaxactun, a Pre Classic Maya City, the weather was stormy and the light conditions were incredibly poor, but looking at the bird trying to dry its feathers made me remember those days when I watched birds just in cartoons. It’s just like a funny bird in a cartoon. Posted by Maynor Ovando www.birdwatchingguatemala.com is a registered trademark of Martsam Tour & Travel Copyright® 2,008 www.birdwatchingguatemala.com www.martsam.com

Peten Itza Lake Photo by Maynor Ovando Flores is the capital of the northernmost department of Guatemala, Peten. If you travel to visit any Maya city like Tikal or Yaxhá, you can’t miss this small and beautiful town. Flores is an island, bordered by Petén Itzá Lake and there’s a lot of options to take a tour on the lake or have a ride in a car to visit neighbor towns. Last Wednesday I decided to go birding around Flores Island, so I tried to have the two sides of the coin birding in water and land. I started in a boat at 6:00 am to look for wading birds for 3 hours, this is my bird list: Pied-billed Greebe Neotropic Cormorant Northern Jacana Purple Gallinule Limpkin Green Heron Little Blue Heron Ringed Kingfisher Snail Kite Mangrove Swallow Great-tailed Grackle Laughing Gull Amazon Kingfisher Great Egret Bat Falcon Social Flycatcher Rock Dove Common Moorhen Black Vulture Turkey Vulture Olive-throated Parakeet Yellow-throated Euphonia Blue-gray Tanager Juvenile Little Blue Heron and No...

Yellow-throated Euphonia (male) Photo by Benedicto Grijalva Last week I visited Ceibal by boat. Walking near the river looking for birds I saw a couple of Yellow-throated Euphonia flying fiercely near to me. My friend Benedicto told me we should be near their chicks, so we put our attention to neighbor trees. In the root of an epiphyte plant three chicks were perfectly hidden from predators. Yellow-throated Euphonia chicks Photo by Maynor Ovando We walk 5 meters ahead and looked back to the nest when Benedicto told me again about something unusual in a tree branch… “Why does that branch look so strange?” and immediately answered “It’s a Mazacuata!” A 6 ft. Boa constrictor taking the sun next to Euphonia's nest Photo by Maynor Ovando In Guatemala the common name for a Boa constrictor is Mazacuata. The snake was perfectly camouflage in a mango tree. Lay on a branch and taking a sun bath, just getting enough energy to look for the next food. Mazacuata, the local name of Boa...

Visitor Center at San Pedro Volcano Ecological Park Photo by Maynor Ovando Guatemala’s most wanted bird to see bird is definitely Horned Guan. One of the most threatened bird in the world, confined to some deciduous forest above 6000 ft. In field this means volcanoes and the easiest access place to look for it is San Pedro Volcano. A wonderful groups of birding friends looking for the mythic Horned Guan... Front: Maynor Ovando, Eduardo Galicia, Barbara Dowell, Bryan Bland, Alexis Cerezo Back: Lemuel Valle, Jeff Gordon, Dave DeSante, Chandler Robbins March 2007 Photo by Byron Gonzalez This is me walking in the trails. Photo by Benedicto Grijalva The hike takes 4 hours at a birding pace because the site is full of birds; my bird list has more than 150 bird species including Unicolored Jay, Blue-throated Motmot, Bushy-crested Jay, Mountain Trogon, Prevost’s Ground-sparrow, Chestnut-sided Shrike-vireo, Yellow-eyed Junco, Gray-breasted Wood-wren, Slate-throated Redstart and many Neartic mig...

Guatemalan Pacific Slope Many of the most captivating birds in Guatemala are found in foothills forest in south western Guatemala. This area is placed in the middle of western highlands and the pacific slope, around 3,000 ft. asl, the humidity and warm temperatures makes this zone ideal for walking in the trails and birding all day long. Foothills vegetation Picture by Maynor Ovando Birds like Yellow-naped Parrot, White-bellied Chachalaca or Blue-tailed Hummingbird are fairly common and a diversity of other tropical birds makes the experience unforgettable. Yellow-naped Parrot Posted by Maynor Ovando http://www.birdwatchingguatemala.com/ is a registered trademark of Martsam Tour & Travel Copyright® 2,008 www.birdwatchingguatemala.com www.martsam.com

Xeno-canto website One of the most fascinating facts about birds is their ability to perform songs and calls, a kind of language unique for each species, so specific that we can identify them just by hear. It’s really amazing to know that in wide spread bird species there are sound differences for these songs. So a Great Kiskadee from USA has a different accent that a Guatemalan one. A web site you can’t miss if you want to learn about bird songs is Xeno-canto , an incredible database with sounds from all over the Neotropic. This community has increased its collection enough to include a section for Africa and Asia. You can contribute uploading mp3 sounds if you have any, participate in forums, share sonograms, upload pictures and many other activities. Or simply look for sounds you are interested in and get a better knowledge. Right now Guatemala is poorly represented in this project, but all of us have the opportunity to get info from our birding trips and add new items. Posted by M...

Birding in Guatemala is always a delightful activity. Walk through the forest in the mountains or in the lowlands jungle is a single different experience each time and the memories you are getting every minute last forever. Lemuel spotting a woodcreper in Corazón del Bosque Photo by Maynor Ovando Benedicto birding in Yaxha Photo by Maynor Ovando Taking a bird picture became a treasure you can have always with you and can show different things: A proof that you saw a rare bird Pink-headed Warbler The beauty of a nature scene Blue-winged Teal Or an artistic way to look a bird Eastern Bluebird It doesn’t matter how you can take a picture, the main goal is to have a moment freeze in time ready to share with friends… Posted by Maynor Ovando http://www.birdwatchingguatemala.com/ is a registered trademark of Martsam Tour & Travel Copyright® 2,008 http://www.birdwatchingguatemala.com/ http://www.martsam.com/