Bird Watching Guatemala Blog

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

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...