Well the weather was fine, the place was beautiful, and our guide (German Martinez) was really good. He is a self-taught Honduran guide who grew up in the Pico Bonito area. His amazing gift was being able to identify birds quickly without using his binoculars. I doubted him at first, but I tell you he was on the mark every time I could get my binocs on the bird before it disappeared. It's a birding style being tauted by serious birders right now - identifying birds by their size/shape, behaviours, locations. It's really a reflex.... and German has it.
We started on the grounds of the lodge, then moved onto the rain forest trails at the foot of Pico Bonito. The upper sections of Pico Bonito mountain are off limits, but the forest is continuous from peak to the river sections at the bottom, so birds travel throughout the area and you can see a wide diversity of flora and fauna (birds!!). It is really pretty remarkable for Honduras.
We used an observation tower to check for hawks and to watch the hummingbirds attack the flowers in the vegetation below. At the end of the trail we arrived at a beautiful pool where we all took a dip... really really cold but felt good after tromping through the steamy forest.
Final count: 29 species, 14 new species for the life list!
Not bad for three hours of mid-morning birding. What we didn't know is that we could have started as early as 6am if we had asked specifically for a morning birding tour. German described the birding at that time as being so hectic you can't keep up with the birds as they come into view. Well - next time we'll know.
Favorite bird: Red-throated Ant Tanager (VT), Summer Tanager (KT)
Oddest bird: Smoky Brown Woodpecker - a poor excuse for a woodpecker, sort of a hippie of that species.
Rarest bird: Tawny-faced Quail - found by, you guessed it, my faithful rare-bird spotter spouse. (Not sure how to structure that sentences... I guess she's both a rare-bird and a spotter of rare-birds).
As you probably know, it's hard to get any photos of the nicest birds, but here are a few pics of birds near the lodge (a Social Flycatcher and Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird) and other wild stuff seen during the morning.
Not bad for three hours of mid-morning birding. What we didn't know is that we could have started as early as 6am if we had asked specifically for a morning birding tour. German described the birding at that time as being so hectic you can't keep up with the birds as they come into view. Well - next time we'll know.
Favorite bird: Red-throated Ant Tanager (VT), Summer Tanager (KT)
Oddest bird: Smoky Brown Woodpecker - a poor excuse for a woodpecker, sort of a hippie of that species.
Rarest bird: Tawny-faced Quail - found by, you guessed it, my faithful rare-bird spotter spouse. (Not sure how to structure that sentences... I guess she's both a rare-bird and a spotter of rare-birds).
As you probably know, it's hard to get any photos of the nicest birds, but here are a few pics of birds near the lodge (a Social Flycatcher and Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird) and other wild stuff seen during the morning.
3 comments:
Now we discover the true purpose of you moving to Honduras! Under the guise of saintly mission work, you're looking for birds! Sad... really sad..
wow, you guys are getting to see some cool stuff. we couldn't figure out what the last picture was with the orange circular things.
The orange circular things in the last photo are little mushrooms - hard to see from the angle. German called them "winecup mushrooms".
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