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 - 1

Peter writes:

I'm just back from the Central American Republic of Guatemala where I've been on a nine-night familiarisation tour.  It's a country that I've long wanted to visit and at last the opportunity came following an invitation received from Bitty Ramirez-Portilla of Guatemala Nature Tours.  I first talked to Bitty about Guatemala at the British Birdwatching Fair back in 2008; it’s taken a while for me to get there but I’m pleased to say that it was well worth the wait.

The main purpose of the visit was to research the possibility of AvianAdventures offering a birding tour to a country that is comparatively little-known to UK birders and one that is trying very hard to develop its tourism industry.  Research of this kind involves looking at all aspects of a potential tour including such things as accommodation and transport as well as sampling some of the main birding sites and meeting and birding with local guides.  When I take a group of birders on a tour anywhere in the world I want to know as much as possible about what I can expect!

 Pink-headed Warbler

On this trip I was one of a small group that comprised Carole Sevilla Brown from Philadelphia, PA, Eduardo Ormaeche of Lima, Peru and Mike Nelson of Knoxville, TN.  Together with Bitty, their company and good humour helped greatly to make the trip the success that it was.

I have been involved in similar situations in the past in several other countries that have been trying to develop the potentially lucrative birding tourism market or break into it for the first time.  Amongst them, Uganda and Colombia come to mind as examples of countries that have had to overcome a negative image that has resulted from serious long-term security issues.  Both of those countries are now very much open for business and it is to be hoped that over the next few years Guatemala can follow suit. 

Ocellated Turkey

Another important aspect of these trips is the opportunity to give help, advice and sometimes training to the people who are involved in trying to attract visiting birders and those who will be guiding them and catering for them.  Birders have a few particular needs that make them different from most other tourists.  For instance, we keep unsocial hours and want to have breakfast when other tourists are still on their way back from partying!  The fact that INGUAT, the Guatemalan Tourism Ministry, covered the cost of my return flights from Portugal is an indication of the value placed on this advice and wherever I have travelled in this capacity I have found people extremely keen to learn.

Just as a very simple example, one piece of advice that we gave to the Guatemalans was to focus in their advertising on the important bird species that are likely to attract visitors.  In other words, to give people a really good reason to visit their country as opposed to Costa Rica or Panama for instance, which are their two main regional competitors in the birding market.  Examples would be range-restricted birds such as Pink-headed Warbler, Fulvous Owl, Ocellated Turkey, Orange-breasted Falcon, Horned Guan and Belted Flycatcher.  If these featured birds can also be brightly-coloured and easily recognisable, so much the better.  There is little point in highlighting widely distributed species that can be seen in many other countries.   It's obvious if you're a birder but maybe not if you simply own a hotel or lodge.

Portugal and particularly the Algarve is also looking to further develop birding tourism but it's disappointing that, in complete contrast to what I have seen elsewhere, the tourism people here don’t seem to be getting, or at least acting on, advice from anyone who knows about birding.  The result is that we have recently seen plans that will waste scarce financial resources on erecting hides, boardwalks and information panels that are mostly unnecessary and in some cases wholly undesirable.  Their advertisement last year in the UK's Bird Watching magazine attempted to entice people here with promises of "kingfishers, chickadees, herons, bee-eaters and elusive otters".  One protected area in the Algarve already has a sign at its entrance telling visitors to look out for "Capped Herons and Blue Hummingbirds" and some time ago information leaflets were on display in tourist offices that featured species that have never been recorded in Portugal!  As for the hides in the Algarve, there is scarcely one that is well-designed and most are also very poorly located.  I could go on but by now you will have the picture!  And, of course, it isn't that we haven't offered help.

Every country is different but there are aspects of birding tourism that are common to all.  At the moment, the main difference between Guatemala and Portugal is that one of them realises they need advice and is prepared to go out and get it.

More about Guatemala very soon...