Guatemala photo trip

After returning to the UK from Texas, two days later Peter was travelling again.  This time his destination was Guatemala as the only Brit in a group of ‘nature photographers’ invited by INNATE Skua Nature Latin America to view their photographic hides and to experience other photo opportunities in a Central American country that is gradually attracting more and more birdwatchers.  Others in the group were from Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the USA.

Tools of the trade!

The tour began with a two-hour journey by road from the airport in Guatemala City to Monterrico, a town on the Pacific Coast.  Overnight accommodation here was at the Estación Biológica El Blanco.  The huge, volcanic black sand beaches around Monterrico are prime nesting sites for sea turtles and a reserve has been established to protect the turtles and curb the collection of their eggs, which are apparently considered an aphrodisiac in Guatemala.  We were fortunate to actually see an olive ridley sea turtle laying its eggs in the sand just outside the dining room where we were having our evening meal.  The following morning we were present when 300 tiny turtles, hatched from eggs that had been ‘rescued’, were released on the beach and made their way into the ocean.  Thousands of turtles are released in this way every year but only a very small percentage will survive to maturity and to return to the beach to lay their own eggs.

 Olive ridley sea turtle

Turtle hatchling ready for release

A morning boat trip in the nearby wetland provided opportunities to photograph a nice selection of common egrets and herons, Ringed Kingfisher, Mangrove Swallows, Northern Jacanas and Neotropical Cormorants.  Unfortunately, species such as Limpkin, Snail Kite and Least Bittern were less obliging but the highlight was a really close view of Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures.

 Little Blue Heron

 Mangrove Swallow

Northern Jacana

Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture

There was another boat trip in the afternoon, this one from El Paredon, an hour away to the west.  This time we were in a tidal area and our attention was centred on a sandbank where Black Skimmers and Royal Terns were roosting together with a few Sandwich (Cabot’s) Terns, Franklin’s Gulls and Sanderlings.  As the tide came in, this refuge was slowly diminishing and the birds were restless.  However, the water still wasn’t deep enough to get the boat close to them – wading in the water was the only solution!

Black Skimmers 

Royal Terns

 Caspian Tern

 Black Skimmer

Royal Tern

From El Paredon, we travelled for our next overnight stay, at Los Andes Nature Reserve on the southern slopes of Volcán Atitlán.  To save some journey time, our bus was ferried down a river for part of the way.

It was on the slopes of Volcán Atitlán that I had trekked in search of a Horned Guan during my previous visit to Guatemala in 2013.  Thankfully, there were no plans to repeat that this time!  Instead, we used 4x4 pickup trucks to climb part way up the slope to see two photo hides that are being developed – one to attract forest birds, such as tanagers, toucans and the like and the other where it is hoped that Turkey Vultures and perhaps some other raptors will come to feed.  Resplendent Quetzal and Azure-rumped Tanager are high on a list of sought-after species here.

Turkey Vulture

To get there we drove through plantations of coffee (for Starbucks), macadamia, tea and cinchona (quinine).  Now and again we heard loud rumbles coming from nearby Volcán de Fuego, which we could see just 40km away.  Both Atitlán and Fuego are active volcanoes but Fuego had been erupting for some time and back in June many people were killed.

Coffee growing on the slopes of Volcán Atitlán

The accommodation here was very comfortable indeed and being able to photograph hummingbirds, orioles, tanagers, euphonias and several other species from the veranda was also nice.  Sadly, it was for just one night.

 Casa Oliver at Los Andes

 Yellow-winged Tanager

 Baltimore Oriole

Clay-colored Thrush

After a night back in Guatemala City at the Hotel Stofella, we headed next to the Caribbean coast where we took an afternoon boat trip to look for manatees.  This proved unsuccessful but it did provide further opportunities to photograph Ringed Kingfisher, Northern Jacana, Neotropic Cormorants and Brown Pelicans.  We spent the night at the Hotel Amatique Bay in Puerto Barrios.

 Ringed Kingfisher

Green Heron

Another day, another country – a three-hour boat excursion took us to Sapodilla Cayes, a group of small uninhabited islands located in the Gulf of Honduras that are generally regarded as part of Belize (although also claimed by Guatemala and Honduras).  Getting there and back obviously took up a big slice of the day but the time spent there was well worth the effort.  There was an opportunity to photograph Brown Pelicans and Magnificent Frigatebirds from the boat but the sky was overcast making most of the images rather disappointing.  Some of the group even went into the water to take photos but I was a bit too precious about my camera gear to risk that!  We went ashore for a late lunch on Lime Caye where some went snorkelling and others went birding.  The birders were rewarded with Magnolia, Black-and-white, Black-throated Green, Hooded & Myrtle Warblers, an Ovenbird, several Wood & Grey-cheeked Thrushes, ten or more Grey Catbirds, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and a Merlin!  Were these birds wintering there or still on migration?

 Brown Pelican

Magnificent Frigatebird

Grey Catbird

After a night in Livingston, at the Hotel Villa Caribe, we took a boat next morning to Las Escobas Tropical Rainforest Trail in the Cerro San Gil where another photo hide has been built.  Again this is still being developed but there were hummingbirds to photograph, including Long-billed Hermit, and it looks to have good potential.  We also had a chance here to photograph a couple of snakes and a tarantula, which had temporarily been deprived of their liberty.  I’m not sure that this was really ‘nature photography’ but they were interesting creatures to see up close, nevertheless.  There was also time for a short walk along the trail where Gartered Trogon, Kentucky & Worm-eating Warblers, Northern Royal Flycatcher and White-whiskered Puffbird were amongst the species seen.

From the hide at Las Escobas

Fer-de-lance ?

After lunch in Rio Dulce, there was a five-hour road trip to Tikal, welcome time to deal with emails and to catch up on sleep!  We stayed overnight at Tikal Jungle Lodge where I had stayed before in 2013.  We arrived late and left early next morning for just a half day around Tikal National Park.  This is one of the major sites of Mayan civilisation, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an important tropical rainforest reserve.  The temples, palaces and other Mayan ruins are extremely impressive and really deserved much more of our attention but it is the birds that make this place a must-visit part of any tour in Guatemala.  More than 300 bird species have been recorded here and amongst many others we did see Orange-breasted Falcon, Black-throated Shrike-Tanager, Olivaceous Woodcreeper, Plain Xenops, Spot-breasted & White-bellied Wrens, Mayan Antthrush, Bay-breasted & Yellow Warblers and Sepia-capped Flycatcher.  With more time there are great opportunities for photography.  As it was, I managed only a few photos, including the Ocellated Turkeys (that are very much habituated to tourists), a Rufous-naped Wood Rail and an Erato Heliconian butterfly (also known as the Red Postman).

Ocellated Turkey

 Rufous-naped Wood Rail

Erato Heliconian

There followed another long journey, first by bus, then by pickup truck and finally by boat which brought us to the Estación Biológica Las Guacamayas, located near the edge of Laguna Del Tigre National Park.  Again it was just one night here but it clearly somewhere that one would ideally like to stay much longer.  Next morning there was another boat trip, which among others produced Green, Amazon & Ringed Kingfishers, White-tailed Kite, a pair of Bat Falcons, a Sungrebe and a Black-and-white Hawk Eagle.  Then there was time for more hummingbird photography and another different selection of species such as Wedge-tailed Sabrewing, Green-breasted Mango and Scaly-breasted Hummingbird.

Las Guacamayas

Wedge-tailed Sabrewing

We finished with a flight from Flores to Guatemala City, an overnight in the very nice Hotel Intercontinental and then return flights home the next morning, mine via Houston and Frankfurt to Birmingham.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable whistle-stop tour, which achieved the aim of showing the participants as much as possible in a very short time.  Guatemala undoubtedly has much to offer to birders from Europe including quite a number of species such as Horned Guan, Black-capped Siskin, Pink-headed & Goldman’s Warblers and Azure-rumped Tanager that are not easily seen elsewhere.  It also looks set now to become an attractive destination for bird photographers.  My thanks go to everyone at Skua Nature for inviting me along and to my multinational travelling companions for making it such a fun trip.

Guatemala Fam Trip - 5

After the Horned Guan trek we left behind Volcán Atitlán and headed instead to Lake Atitlán for a one-night stay at Eco Hotel Uxlabil.  American Coots were numerous on the lake and there were a few Lesser Scaup and Ring-necked Ducks but regrettably we were more than 25 years too late to see the Atitlán Grebe.  Among the many birds in the hotel gardens were Azure-crowned Hummingbird, Black-vented Oriole and Greater Pewee.

 Azure-crowned Hummingbird

Lake Atitlán

During our evening at the hotel we talked to the people involved with mayanbirds.com about their birding tours, their guiding, their website and anything else that we thought might help them.

The following morning we took a 30-minute boat ride across the lake to the Laguna Lodge Eco-Resort where we spent about three hours on the trails in their nature reserve.  There was only one target species here, Belted Flycatcher, another species with a very restricted range and eventually we were successful in seeing one.  A bonus was that we also found Rusty Sparrows, a species that is said to occur as far south as Costa Rica but which I hadn’t come across before.

After a night in the Las Farolas Hotel in Antigua we made an early start in order to catch the 6.40am flight from Guatemala City to Flores.  This hour-long flight was followed by a transfer by road to the Hotel Jungle Lodge at Tikal.  By taking this early flight and a late flight back the following day we effectively had two days to see Tikal National Park, one of the major sites of Mayan civilisation, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an important tropical rainforest reserve.

Our flight to Flores was on a TACA Airlines ATR 42 turboprop aircraft.

The birding at Tikal was superb and two days were not really enough to do the place justice.  The temples, palaces and other Mayan ruins were extremely impressive and probably deserved much more of our attention but it was the birds that made this place a must-visit part of any tour in Guatemala.  More than 300 bird species have been recorded here but if I had to name just one species as the highlight amongst the many we saw it would be Pheasant Cuckoo.  I had been looking forward to seeing the Ocellated Turkeys for which Tikal is well known but they were so habituated to tourists that they somehow lost their appeal.  The Pheasant Cuckoo, on the other hand, is a bird that although widely distributed in Central and South America, in my previous experience has not given itself up as easily as two of them did here.

 Pheasant Cuckoo

Mayan temple

More Mayan ruins at Tikal

Ocellated Turkey

Before returning to Guatemala City we also visited Lake Petén Itza, where at last we saw shorebirds, terns and gulls, and Cerro Cahui, a 1600-acre forest reserve near the lake, where Mayan Antthrush, Grey-throated Chat and Northern Barred Woodcreeper among others were all seen very well.

 Royal Tern

Collared Plover

And that was it!  The trip was over all too soon.  We recorded (saw or heard) something in excess of 280 bird species in our eight days and more than 40 of them were ones I hadn’t seen before in spite of my many visits to Costa Rica and, of course, the USA.  And that really is one of the major attractions of Guatemala; it presents good opportunities to see a selection of species that are restricted to the highlands of Guatemala and neighbouring Chiapas, El Salvador and Honduras.  These include Highland Guan, Horned Guan, Bushy-crested Jay, Black-capped Swallow, Rufous-collared Thrush, Black Thrush, Pink-headed Warbler, Belted Flycatcher, Bar-winged Oriole and more.  The scenery is spectacular, the food (including the coffee and the bananas!) was excellent, the accommodation was very comfortable, the people were friendly and there was magnificent Tikal!  I’m already planning a tour for Avian Adventures.

Guatemala Fam Trip - 4

A website with the title “50 Best Birds in the World” attempts to rank birds based on how impressive, how unique, how rare and how hard to find they are.  It has the Horned Guan (Oreophasis derbianus) listed at No 6.

The Horned Guan is unmistakable in appearance with a red horn of bare skin on the top of its head; it is said that, although classified as a member of the Cracidae, it is not a true guan and it is placed in the monotypic genus Oreophasis; its range is restricted to south-east Mexico and Guatemala; it lives in remote cloud forests high on the slopes of extinct volcanoes.  Based on the stated criteria, there is clearly a good case for describing it as one of the world’s top ten best birds!

Apparently there are easier places in Guatemala to see Horned Guan than Los Tarrales and the Atitlán Volcano but that’s where we were and so when offered the chance it seemed worth a try.  I was warned that it wouldn’t be easy.

Breakfast (or at least a cup of coffee) was at 2.15am after which we drove from the reserve headquarters for about an hour until we could apparently go no further by vehicle.  It was hard to tell – it was very dark!  I was told that we were at an elevation of 1,450m and that the climb up the side of the volcano would take about three hours.

At the start it was fun walking through the coffee plantation by the light of our head torches and seeing the occasional roosting Swainson’s Thrush.  It was quite a while before any more birds were seen, although eventually there were a few identifiable sounds: the calls of Mexican Whip-poor-wills, the rattling produced by the wings of Highland Guans and the fluty song of Brown-backed Solitaires.

Before too long the climb became steeper and more difficult.  This was not one of those winding trails that makes its way gradually uphill, this was straight up, no messing!  Underfoot the ground was dry, soft and crumbly and covered in several inches of leaf litter.  It was very difficult to get any traction and a stick was essential in order to make progress.  Carrying food and drink, a Canon 50D and a 100-400mm lens didn’t make things any easier.  After a couple of hours I thought I might die; after three hours I thought dying might be the preferred option!

By 6.00am there was enough light that I could switch off my head torch.  An hour later there was sunshine but with this improved visibility came the realisation that most of the group, including three local guides, were some way ahead.  Being more than 20 years older than almost everyone else was proving to be a disadvantage.

Then came the good news that a Horned Guan had been sighted.  The bad news was that in order to try and see it I would have to leave the trail and make my way through dense vegetation across a steep slope.  This was even harder than before and more than once I found myself clinging to a branch or a root to prevent sliding down the mountain side.  But this was to see one of the world’s best birds, I kept telling myself.

At last I saw Eduardo Ormaeche.  He was sitting on the ground and looking through a telescope presumably at a Horned Guan.  He was no more than ten metres away.  Then, as I struggled to join him and get a look at the bird, he turned, looked at me and quietly said, “It just flew off”.  My heart sank.  In dense forest there was no possibility of seeing where or how far it had gone.  After four hours of effort, I had missed seeing it by no more than a few seconds. 

The choices now were either to continue uphill and hope to re-locate the bird (or find another one) or instead give up and start the long downhill walk.  We were now at 2,100m, I had climbed something like 650 vertical metres.  It didn’t take much thinking about.  After eating the breakfast I had carried with me, I joined the others and downhill we went.

It was three hours before we reached our vehicle.  By then I had seen Emerald-chinned Hummingbird, Black Thrush and Blue-crowned Chlorophonia that I hadn’t seen before and that was some consolation.  I often hear it said that if birding was easy, we wouldn’t be doing it and I’ve no doubt that’s true.  In spite of not seeing the bird I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the Volcán Atitlán experience.

I shall hope to see a Horned Guan on my next visit to Guatemala but I will make sure to look somewhere other than Los Tarrales!    

Guatemala Fam Trip - 3

Two nights at Las Nubes gave us just one full day’s birding there.  It began at 5.30am with a return up the same rough track that we had been on the previous evening to find the Fulvous Owl.  Our main target now, however, was Resplendent Quetzal, a species I have seen many times in Costa Rica but one which certainly lives up to its name and I was more than happy to see it again.  Those in our group seeing it for the first time were well impressed!  This is the national bird of Guatemala (Costa Rica for some reason chose the Clay-coloured Thrush - go figure!), it appears on the national flag and they even named their currency after it (currently 1 US Dollar = c. 8 Quetzales).

Resplendent Quetzal

Guatemalan national flag

The supporting cast included Mountain Trogon (lifer!), Elegant Euphonia, Flame-coloured Tanager and Crested Guan but by 10.00am the weather was just too miserable for us to stay out.  Although we tried again later, there was more rain and it turned out that we had had the best of the day’s birding in those first few hours.  The one exception was after dinner when a Mottled Owl at first gave us the run around but eventually allowed everyone with the necessary persistence to see it well.

Accommodation at Las Nubes

We heard Resplendent Quetzal the following morning but, like so many brightly coloured species, it's a bird that needs to be seen; its unmusical call has been likened to ‘a whimpering pup’.  One Mayan legend claims that it used to sing beautifully before the Spanish conquest but has been unable to do so since – an unlikely story but I understand their point!  With better weather there were plenty of birds but limited time before we had to leave.  An Azure-rumped Tanager was the highlight, not because it is a particularly striking bird in its appearance but because it has a restricted range (southern Mexico and south-western Guatemala) and is classified by BirdLife International as Endangered.   

Next on our itinerary was the Los Tarrales Reserve, located close to the Atitlán Volcano (last eruption in 1853) but again we were limited to a one-night stay where we might have wanted longer – such is the nature of these trips.  Los Tarrales stretches from the lowlands at 750m elevation to the top of the volcano at 3500m, an altitudinal range that has resulted in more than 340 bird species being recorded there.  We arrived in time to have lunch before spending the afternoon birding with local guide, Josué de León Lux, on a loop trail much of it through a shade coffee plantation.  Highlights were Scrub Euphonia, Prevost’s Ground-Sparrow, Yellow-winged Tanager and Grey-collared Becard (lifer!).

One of the high altitude attractions at Las Tarrales is the Horned Guan, more of which later… 

Guatemala Fam Trip - 2

My visit to Guatemala began with flights via Seville, Madrid and Miami to the country’s capital, Guatemala City.  There followed a drive to the picturesque town of Antigua for the first night’s stay at the very nice Hotel Casa Santa Domingo.  The nearby Volcán de Fuego is famous for being almost constantly active and its orange-red peak glowed in the night sky.  I finally made it to bed at 12.30am, roughly 29 hours after leaving Tavira!

Guatemala has about 30 volcanoes but only three have erupted this century.

The following morning I was up at 4.00am, earlier than necessary but made easier by the six-hour time difference.  The first birding of the day was in humid broadleaf forest at an elevation of about 1,600m at nearby Finca El Pilar.  Although a small area of organic coffee is grown here the finca is mainly dedicated to conservation activities with birding trails and hummingbird feeders.  Highlights for me were Black-headed Siskins, Rufous-collared Thrushes, Brown-backed Solitaire, Grey Silky-flycatcher, Black-capped Swallows, Rufous Sabrewing and Blue-tailed Hummingbird, all of them ‘lifers’.  Although familiar from many tours in Arizona, a Red-faced Warbler was also very nice to see.  The Slate-throated Whitestarts here had underparts that were almost red, very different from any I had seen before further south.

A roadside stop to buy bananas that haven't been shipped half across the world 

- my ulterior motive for visiting Guatemala!

In the afternoon we transferred to Patrocinio, another private nature reserve and coffee farm with areas of subtropical humid forest.  The birds here were mainly ones that were familiar to me from time spent in Costa Rica; species such as Long-tailed Manakin, White-throated Magpie-Jay, White-fronted Parrot, Red-legged Honeycreeper, Black-headed Saltator, Lineated Woodpecker and Gartered Trogon.  It was good to see those again and there were a few new ones such as Yellow-winged Tanager, Highland Guan and White-bellied Chachalaca.

Accommodation at Patrocinio

We stayed overnight at Patrocinio and after early birding there the following morning left at about 9.00am for Fuentes Georginas where we were to look for Wine-throated Hummingbird and Pink-headed Warbler.  Unfortunately, in the short time available, the hummingbird eluded us but we had great views of Pink-headed Warblers, possibly the bird of the whole trip for me.   It is endemic to the highlands of central and eastern Chiapas in Mexico, and to western Guatemala and currently is placed in the genus Cardellina alongside Red-faced, Wilson’s and Canada Warblers.

Pink-headed Warbler

Next stop was Tak’alik Ab’aj Archaeological National Park where we arrived in the heat of early afternoon with low expectations with regard to the birding.  How wrong we were!  The place was jumping with birds and we could only imagine what it might be like early in the morning.  And we got to see our first Mayan ruins.  Guatemala is a great place to see motmots (six species occur) and here we saw both Blue-diademed and Turquoise-browed amongst a host of other species.

Turquoise-browed Motmot

From there we went on to Finca Las Nubes, another coffee plantation cum nature reserve, where we were to stay for two nights.  Soon after arrival, a half-hour drive up a bumpy track was well worth any discomfort producing as it did excellent views of a Fulvous Owl, a species with quite a limited range that is in the same genus as Tawny, Ural, Barred and Great Grey Owls among others.

 Fulvous Owl

More on Guatemala to come…