Horned Guan Death March Part 2

And now back to the continuing saga to see a horned guan. If you missed Part 1, it's here.

I need to start this by dedicating this post to Gustavo Cañas-Valle of Neblina Tours in Ecuador (that’s him above on the right with one of our local guides, Hugo Enriquez on the left). I had actually met some of the guides from Neblina at the Space Coast Bird Festival, they had a booth there. I have an interest in going to Ecuador, but based solely on the kindness (and humor and bird knowledge) of their guide, Gustavo, should I ever make it to Ecuador, I will use Neblina, you'll learn why a few paragraphs in.

Our local guides up Volcan San Pedro were fabulous. We were escorted by Hugo Enriquez (in the above photo with Gustavo) and Irene Rodriguez of Operador Latino. Irene made sure we were as comfortable as we could be as well as knows her birds. Hugo knows his birds, but I gotta say that if I were a single lady, he’s not a bad companion to have in the woods. He has an easy-going manner, a warm voice with a Spanish accent, and beautiful eyes. When asked about where we’re going to bird for the day, he’ll say things like, “Well, it is up to you, we can do what you want.”

Just sayin', ladies. But I digress from the horned guan!

We started our trek on Volcan San Pedro looking for the horned guan with a few stops to look for local bird specialties, but then we didn’t stop for birds anymore and the trails became much steeper. It was switchback after switchback. It was dry and the volcanic dust made for powdery walking conditions. I toiled up the trail and began to question my sanity. As my pace slowed, the sound of our group ahead became more and more faint, I realized I was loosing ground. There was another person in our group who seemed to struggle with the climb along with me. I was grateful for the company and to not to be the pokiest of the little puppies.

Local farmers loaded with burdens of fire wood, corn or coffee moved swiftly passed us on the trail. Many looked to be twice my age which made me feel worse. I bike ride, I lead nature hikes (not just bird walks), I haul bee equipment and this trail was turning my legs to jelly. It was relentless in its incline. I was desperate for a flat surface.

After much sweat and panting we caught up to the group at another resting spot. I hoped that we were half way up and was saddened to learn that we were only a third of the way, with another three hours to go. It was at this moment that Gustavo from Neblina Tours told me the sweetest lie, “I’m having trouble staying balanced on this steep trail. Would it be alright with you if I took your scope and used it as a way to balance myself on the trail?”

I knew it was lie. He carried more on this trip than I did: he had two massive field guides (yeah, he carried Howell and Webb (a bird guide so thick, it makes the Sibley guide look like a pamphlet) and the National Geographic out in the field besides his binoculars, lunch, water, recording equipment, etc). I knew it was a lie and I was too sweaty and tired to care. I gratefully accepted his offer and continued my slow lumbering walk up the trail.

We eventually made it to a halfway point. I sat on the floor of the observation deck and used the wooden railing to prop my head up and looked out at the beautiful view. It was at this point when I realized how much I hated birds. I likened myself to a drug addict who puts themselves through terrible tortures, for what? For the high of seeing one rare bird. I was not forced to do this, I signed up--willingly. What’s worse is that I could have stopped at any time. I could have just stopped walking on the trail and said, “No more, I’ll wait here in the shade, watch some foliage-gleaners and pepper-shrikes and wait for you on your glory walk down the trail after seeing the guan.” One of our group already had given up the trail due to a bad knee. It was the honorable and safe thing to do.

But I willingly continued. Quitting this steep upward battle was never an option to me. I looked at Jen and said, “I need psychological help. This is like hitting yourself with a hammer because it feels so good when you finally stop.”

We both laughed and Mike Bergin warned that we should probably save our oxygen.

There were three of us lagging behind now, Jen and I practically held on to each other to stay upright. Ana Christina from INGUAT sensed our waning resolve and anytime Jen and I paused she would call in her sweet Spanish accent, “Jen, Sharon, come on, the horned guan is right up here.”

We fell for it once and scrambled up, but realized she was really a cloud forest sprite beckoning us forward. It worked. At every switchback we would pause to try and get some order to our respiratory system, Ana Christina would be another switchback ahead of us calling, “C’mon Jen. C’mon Sharon, horned guan is waiting for you.”

Our group did flush an owl on our way up. I never got a headshot of it, but the back looked like a barred owl. It’s the Guatemalan version called a fulvus owl.

We finally reached the horned guan appropriate elevation. I sat in the dust. Gustavo smiled and pointed out how dirty my face was. I really hated birds and really hated cameras. Part of our group rested, while the rest did an initial search. No guan. We needed to go higher.

WTF?? Higher? Noooooooooooooooo!

Up we went. It dawned on me that we could go all this way and not see the horned guan. Or only see a tiny bit of it. I really, really hated birds now. I couldn’t imagine doing this climb more than once. We actually passed other hikers, oblivious to the guan. They took the trail simply for the view. You know, there are a lot of views out there. I don’t know if I need to go through all of this muscular torture for this particular view.

We paused once more. Hope was fading in the group. Mike of 10,000 Birds (above) still held out some sweaty hope, but the rest of worried that we’d been talking too much or paying more attention to our body and foot aches and completely missed the turkey sized tree chicken that was our quarry.

Then an anxious whisper came from above the switchback in front of us—Mel de Piñeda a participant in our group found the guan (Mel’s an awesome dude, he takes blind people birding in Texas). All of us suddenly forgot body fatigue and dashed up the switchback—where had this new found energy come from? The light broke through the trees and shown down upon us, as we watched the horned guan in all its glory.

Wait, I can make out the body, and the foot! That’s totally a horned guan foot, it’s countable.

Finally, a little head poked out. I see the horn, the little red horn where the guan gets its name! Whoot! And check out at crazy yellow eye. I can’t believe I saw the face and got to digiscope the face. This was a great look, worth the climb. It was a challenge to jockey for position for a photo of the guan on the narrow path with my tripod. But thanks to Gustavo, we got the guan in scope view several times.

Even our police escort was impressed. Did I mention we had a police escort? And that they came with us everywhere in Guatemala? And that they even climbed the volcano as if it were nothing? It was sad the many times I would be doubled over panting, waving the officer on, but he would stay by me so as not to get too separated from the group.

Eventually one of the flock came out into the open and Gustavo set up my scope to get this shot. I would not have gotten it without his help, I would still be struggling up the side of the volcano had he not offered to take my scope. This was more than could be hoped for! The future of the horned guan is uncertain. There is so much we don’t know, but we think we know some things like there are less than 2500 in the wild, their populations are severely fragmented and they face several challenges: farmers using their habitat for firewood or subsistence farming or using the guan themselves as a source of food. You can read more about it at BirdLife International.

At first we thought there were two guan, but eventually, more and more came about. They even started vocalizing, making strange clucks, bill clacks and even a few flatulent sounding tones. Chris Benesh has a great guan photo and recordings of the vocalizations here.

Below is a video I got of the horned guan. You can see the bills moving, but my little point and shoot could not pick up the sounds. I think the horned guan move like dinosaurs, or at least what I imagine dinosaurs probably moved like way back a few million years ago.



So, how did we react?

Well, my little head exploded with birder wonder and awe. It was worth the climb and I got better looks at this rare tree chicken than I ever expected.

And after all of that, we had to go back down! Certainly it would not take the four hours that it took to get up to the guan, but it would still take time. My legs are only used to flat surfaced and had been trudging uphill for four hours non stop. And now I had to go down, something I still wasn't used to. Every muscle in my legs vibrated at any moment I stopped. I kept going, but the decline and volcanic ash still caused me to slide and fall. Every time I did fall, a large cloud of dust preceded me, causing Hugo to cross his arms and shout, "Safe!" as if I were a baseball player sliding into home. Thanks, Hugo. After watching me do this twice, Gustavo refused to give my scope back. He was skeptical that the Swarovski would be able to survive me.

Some way, some how we made it back down the trail to our meeting point with the vehicle, our water bottles depleted and lunches eaten. Ana Christina and Irene took us to a local watering hole for some refreshments.

In our dehydrated state, we should of have water, but what better way to celebrate a rare tree chicken like the horned guan than with a chicken themed beer. Giddiness soon set in with most of us, especially for me--I NEVER HAVE TO DO THAT CLIMB EVER AGAIN. It occurred to me that a horned guan is a bird that I will only see once in a lifetime and I had a pang of pity for guys like Rick who would have to lead a tour here again and take people up that volcano. Ah well, that's one of the many reasons I'm not a pro bird guide, and I'm okay with that.

Our groups' giddiness was soon detectable to the locals and many swarmed our table with scarves, skirts, sunglasses holders, headbands, you name it to try and sell us.

I think almost all of us ended up getting some souveniers. When it was time for us to catch our boat back to the hotel, I stood up and a Mayan woman wrapped a skirt around me and tied it on telling me how pretty it was and it was great because it had pockets. It was beautiful, but I laughed at what a dusty mess I must have looked like with this gorgeous light blue skirt askew on my waiste. I had spent enough money that day and had to decline a skirt.

I felt dirty and battle weary on the ride back. I turned to look at Vulcan San Pedro and the sun shone down on it, almost as if illuminating where we had seen the mysterious horned guan. I couldn't believe we actually went up and had great looks at the bird.

It took a very long shower and lots of scrubbing to remove the dirt. After I finished showering, I took my Swarovski binoculars and scope and ran them under the shower. When you've got great waterproof optics, you can safely run them under the shower to get the dust out. Jen had Leica's and her focus wheel got stuck, I advised her to pop it up and run some water in there to get the grit out. Again, waterproof optics allow you to do that. She rinsed them and the focus wheel was fine for the rest of the trip.

That night we sat down to a fine meal (some of the best food I've ever had). We discussed the next day's birding. After getting our stuff together at 4:15am that mornign and birding almost 12 hours, I was delighted to hear that we were meeting at 7am for breakfast before birding (we'd get to sleep in). Bless Mel's heart who asked, "Hey that means we won't get birding until 8 - 8:30 am, anyone for starting earlier?"

Hugo said, "Well, it's whatever you want..."

There was a pause, I decided to break it. "I gotta say that I'm not in favor of that idea and would rather sleep in and rest after today."

I'm not sure if everyone agreed, but after a day like the horned guan death march, I could live with a later start the next morning.

You can read Mike's account of our journey and see his guan photo over at 10,000 Birds.

If you would like to hear the flatulent vocalizations of the horned guan, Chris Benesh has them here.

I also started a Facebook Group called I Survived The San Pedro Horned Guan Death March if you have made a trek to see the guan and would like to share the tale.

Horned Guan Death March Part 1

I'm not sure how much to tell you about the horned guan. I had a vague idea of the challenge of the trail to the guan, but I really don't think I fully grasped how hard it would be to see this bird. Now, I debate with myself: "Do I go on and on about how hard it was and will that prevent someone from going to see this amazing bird?"

Because, honestly, if I truly understood what was ahead of me, I don't know that I would have gone for it. That's right, you read that correctly, I don't know if I would have gone for one of the more rare species one can see in the Americas if I had truly understood the work in front of me. Oh, I had heard the stories from Julie Zickefoose on NPR and on her blog regarding her horned guan adventure. I read and heard of Bill of the Birds on his horned guan search. There were tales from some of my buddies on the bird festival trail that it was a brutal climb. I heard of well known, great birders, who I considered to be incredibly physically fit, having to crawl that last part of the trail just to see the bird. I think a part of me thought that was just a bit of exaggeration.

The hike up Volcan San Pedro was saved for one of our final days of birding in Guatemala. Our group had been mentioning it to each other, "Do you think you're going to be able to do it?" or "Sharon, do you really think you can take your scope up the volcano, I'd leave it here."

I heard that Jeff Bouton and Bill of the Birds had brought their scopes, so I should be able to do it too. Right?

I didn't get very scared until the day before. I had found some wireless internet at our lodge in Los Andes and put up a status update on Facebook: Sharon is nervous about tomorrow's climb up the Volcano to see the horned guan. I got a comment from Chris Benesh who works for Field Guides--travels all over the world to show people birds. He was also on the same Ivory-bill Search Team I was on. I considered to him to be very physically fit. He left a comment to the effect of the climb being the toughest he had ever done, it was brutal, but the got the guan.

Okay, if Chris called it brutal, maybe those stories of birders panting and crawling to the top weren't just exaggerated fish tales. I decided to be all Scarlett O'Hara about it and, "I'll not think about that right now, I'll go crazy if I do. I'll think about that tomorrow."

We had one more field trip planned at Los Andes to look for some mannikans, I opted to take the afternoon off, relax a bit so I could be fresh the next morning. I was a rough schedule. We had to be ready to go by 4:15 am, take a bus to Lake Atitlan where we would take a ferry to San Pedro for the climb. The hike up to the guan was going to take four hours, who knew how long the hike down would take.

Gulp.

Initially, all went well. We arrived at Lake Atitlan and watched in amazement at how the local used it. As we were loading our ferry, one man drove in his tuk tuk (tiny taxi car) into the water for a wash, another drove in his truck, a couple of people were bathing right on the water's edge.

We boarded boat, marveled at the beautiful volcanoes that surrounded the lake and laughed as the cool water sprayed us as we hit waves. Outside the boat we looked to pad our species list with lesser scaup, brown pelicans, and ruddy ducks. As we approached the other side of the lake, we watched in amazement as Volcan San Pedro loomed over us. Yes, we would be climbing this extinct volcano. Hugo, our guide tried to alleviate our fears since many of us were not accustomed to this altitude. In his quiet, spanish accent he said, "Yes, we will go slow. It will be slow, slow walking, then looking at birds, slow, slow walking, then looking at birds."

I felt some comfort in this. Perhaps the four hours was not all climbing but just such a slow pace of birding that it would seem steep, but not be that bad.

When we landed in San Pedro, I saw more tourists here than in any other town. Peddlers were ready for us, a Mayan woman greeted us with a basket full of baked goods. I looked at the steep streets in front of us and wondered if we were going to start right away, but Irene and Ana Christina said that a bus was coming to take us.

As we waited for a bus, we noticed some expatriots in a nearby cafe, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. Mike tried to ask were the gentleman in the shorts was from, he replied, "Mexico." in a rather non-Mexican accent. He the answered, "I'm from nowhere, man." Gotta love those expats!

I made friends with a great gal on the trip—Jen Sauter. She’s helping to organize the Midwest Birding Symposium this fall and has a wonderful, giggly sense of humor. We noticed a truck stopped and several locals including school kids loaded into it. Jen said, “There’s our bus!” We laughed at the prospect of standing in the bed of a pick up truck to go see a bird…then our vehicle arrived.

And we laughed some more! We were going to stand in the back of a pickup truck afterall, piled with 10 birders.

I love this photo. We’re all so happy, so giddy, so blissfully unaware of the horrors and sweat that await us. That’s me with Mike Bergin of 10,000 Birds, Jen Sauter, Hugo our guide and even a part of Rick Wright. It was all just an exciting adventure then.

We began our drive through the narrow cobblestone streets of San Pedro, up and up we went.

We passed many locals taking the route on foot, many carrying heavy burdens of goods on their backs. What is it like to be acclimatized to this? This poor guys was carrying what appeared to be drippy wet blankets.

We arrived at the reserve for the horned guan. We readjusted our packs with our lunches and our bottles of water and began the trail. The day was sunny, the birds were numerous and we made some stops.

We found a spotted a load with western tanagers (more of those North American breeders).

I was excited to get the rufous-capped warbler. I had actually seen one of these earlier in our journey, but was the only one who had. I was glad others got to see it and this time I even got to digiscope it.

We also got great looks at this ginormous squirrel cuckoo—it was much bigger than the black-billed and yellow-billed cuckoos I see. And so beautiful too—reminiscent of a brown thrasher. As we stopped for this birding, I started to think, “This isn’t so bad.” I have short legs and I was not used to the elevation. I did lag behind the group but managed to catch up with enough time to rest along with them before pressing forward. I felt that I could do this.

This didn't seem too bad...

Part 2 can be found here.

More Fun At The Finca El Pilar

I'm trying to do the posts about Guatemala in order, but I may have to switch around. I really want to write about the horned guan experience, but that was later in our trip. I think when I finish up the El Pilar part, I'm gonna dive right into the guan. Writing is kind of like dieting. If you deprive yourself writing on a topic you are craving, you can't stop thinking about it and start to cheat on the project you think you should work on. Even though I have not blogged the guan here, I have "cheated" and talked about in the radio (I love that I got a radio station to post a horned guan photo on their site) and I've created a Facebook group dedicated to it. But we need to finish Finca El Pilar, a great place to visit if you are staying in Antigua.

Needless to say, more on the guan is coming.

But back to Finca El Pilar, the shade-grown coffee farm that is being converted into a private nature reserve. It was exciting for me on many levels--I love coffee, I appreciate shade-grown coffee because of the habitat benefits to birds, and El Pilar was chock full of familiar birds like Wilson's warbler and the unfamiliar birds like bushy-crested jay.

Which, let's take a side not to the name bushy-crested jay. For the most part, the birds in Guatemala had fairly accurate names like ruddy foliage-gleaner. The bird was ruddy and appeared to glean foliage for insects (what kind of strange world is this where birds resemble their names?). I was beginning to think that would not be the case with the bushy-crested jay, it looked like a grackle with blue wings to me. However, I was informed that when excited, they do have a bushy crest and do live up to their name.

Part of the reason we were in Guatemala was part of a conference on tourism to the area. It was hosted at Finca El Pilar and they set up a gorgeous welcome breakfast for us on a wooden deck with canopy. In front of it was another smaller wooden deck with canopy that housed about a dozen hummingbird feeders that buzzed with crazy looking birds!

For me, this was a refreshing site since I come from the land of mono-hummer. All we really get in Minnesota is the ruby-throated hummingbird. Not that a ruby-throat is a shlub of a bird. It's cool, but what a treat to see a hummingbird suddenly flash a purple cap and green gorget! That's a magnificent hummingbird, living up to it's hyped name.

Let's a get a closer look. For a hummingbird, it's rather beefy. According to Sibley, a ruby-throated averages 3.75" and a magnificent averages 5.25". It's a species that does occur north of the Mexico border into the US, it's possible to see it in southern Arizona and Nevada.

These two beauties are an azure-crowned hummingbird on the left and a berylline hummingbird on the right.

Even though there were tons of feeders to go around, the birds would continuously fight. There would be periods of absolute silence, but then all of a sudden one would appear and dozens more would come out of the trees to jockey for position at a particular feeder.

One could easily spend the day planted at the hummingbird feeding station waiting for the light to strike their feathers at just the right moment to get the great flashes of color. While there, we also saw many other species like the golden-olive woodpecker and heard my new favorite bird call: the brown-back solitaire. I have to give Non Birding Bill some props--he put the solitaire on as my new ring tone. He may not be a birder, but he sure knows how to make one happy.

El Pilar also has a newly installed stair way down into the coffee farms. We had some of our guides drive us up and drop us off so we could take the stairs all the way down. I figured it would be a piece of cake, going down is way easier than going up. However, this Midwestern girl is used to a flatter landscape and I found my legs felt like they were make of Jell-O by the time we reached the bottom. It was well worth it, we had emerald toucanets, spot-crowned woodcreeper, yellowish flycatcher, and a whole host of warblers, including a personal favorite--black-throated green warbler and Townsend's warbler. If ever I saw a benefit of shade-grown coffee to birds who nest in my home country, it was in Guatemala.

Everything about the forest surrounding the coffee farm was interesting to me. I couldn't help but check out the erosion along the soil walls on the way down. We visited during a dry season, but past rain had left its mark.


When not birding the crap out of El Pilar, we listened to some great speakers about local wildlife and tour operators and sampled some of the coffee. We learned that ever since the certification program to designate a coffee farm as a "shade-grown" farm had been put into place, 98% off the coffee grown in Guatemala was shade-grown. Another incentive for me too make sure that label is on my coffee. I did notice that some farms were shady than others, but it beats no trees whatsoever.

How Would You Like These At Your Feeder?

A bird feeder at Los Tarrales in Guatemala. Would you like a blue-gray tanager and golden-fronted woodpecker coming?

Finca El Pilar Birding In Guatemala

Don't forget, there's still time to vote for your favorite guest blog entry!

So, what the heck was I doing in Central America? I was part of the Fifth International Birdwatching Encounter in Guatemala. It was group that included bird guides and bloggers from Japan, Denmark, the US, and even Ecuador. One of the participants was Rick Wright of WINGS Birding Tours and I felt like I got some kind of great deal because he's a walking field guide. What a treat to have his bird knowledge along. He really is a birder's birder, we were talking popular culture and he didn't know what a Cosmo Quiz was. You want to be out in the field with a guy who has his head filled with the finer nuances of empidonax flycatchers as opposed to "What Kind Of Sexy Are You?"

Where do I begin with my Guatemala adventure? I think with volcanoes. This was the first time I had ever been to a place so chock full of volcanoes. Let's face it, this was the first time I'd been out of the country (at least to the point where a passport was required). The whole time, I kept looking around and asking myself, "How the heck did I get here?"

Our first day of birding was at Finca El Pilar, a private shade grown coffee farm being converted into a nature reserve. We went above the coffee farm to get some of the local specialties and incredible views of the surrounding volcanoes. We birded a few days here so I'll have lots to tell you.

Some of the volcanoes that we encountered during our visit, like Fuego are active and you can see little puffs of smoke coming off the top all day long. I digiscoped some of Fuego's smoke above. How can you not feel like you're not on an adventure if you're surrounded by active volcanoes?

I was expecting a complete and total sensory overload when it came to the birds, but was incredibly surprised by the number of familiar faces down there, like this eastern bluebird. It had a bit of a different accent than the eastern bluebirds I hear up in Minnesota and one of the guides mentioned that it was a more local variety, down to having a duller look than the bluebirds I'm used to. Still, the first few days, their calls really tripped me up.

When I wasn't seeing species I could see at home, I was at least seeing species similar to what I can see at home. There were all kinds of crazy looking thrushes, check out this pair of rufous-collared robins (be prepared for rufous to show up a lot in species names, whoever named the birds in Central America really liked that in their names). It's a highland thrush and looks similar to robins we see in the US.

Another somewhat familiar bird was the black-headed siskin, here's a pair above. While the siskin irruption still rages in the US, I was still able to see some siskins at El Pilar.

Check out this rufous-collared sparrow (there's that rufous again). It's a great looking bird, reminiscent of a white-throated sparrow. These birds were seen all over. Speaking sparrows we did see some introduced species like house sparrows and rock pigeons, but this was the first birding trip that I ever been on where I did not encounter one single starling. No starlings here...can you imagine? Ten days and not seeing a starling--crazy!

While we were doing all this birding, I at one point could have sworn I heard several bees buzzing. I looked and could not see any hives nearby. I started to wonder if elevation sickness was closing in or if my tinnitus had switched from its usual high pitched ring to buzzing. Then I noticed a small water basin and took a peak...

There they were, a small swarm of honeybees gathering water for the hive. You sometimes can get honeybees coming to birdbaths or ponds when it's try, water is necessary for comb construction. I asked the owner of El Pilar and he said that he did not keep bees, but perhaps they were his neighbor's bees. Or they very well could have been from a wild hive. It was fun to hear that familiar buzzing.

We found a camper while above the coffee farm and I got a giggle at the Ron Paul sticker on the back. I didn't know anyone in Guatemala would be pro Ron Paul?

And now it is time for me to head into the Park Service. More on Finca El Pilar and Guatemala later.

And don't forget to vote for your favorite guest blog entry!

Digiscoping Challenges

Hello blog readers! Or should I say hola lectores del blog? I am back from my Guatemala birding adventure and am sorting through photos. I want to thank everyone who entered the guest blogging contest. There were many fantastic blog entries and I'm sorry that we couldn't post them all. Be sure to check out the voting for the top ten and select the entry you liked best (I'm having readers decide because Non Birding Bill and I had a tough enough time picking the top ten, let alone the best of all 53 entries).

I had a great time and learned something very interesting while birding in Central America: digiscoping is really hard! I'm pretty good at digiscoping, I'm fortunate to be able to do it often and I'm very familiar with my equipment. I can set up the shot and get my camera on the right settings without really thinking about it. I'm also very familiar with North American birds, I can sometimes predict how they will move on a perch to get a shot.

It was not the same in Guatemala, I had all new vegetation to figure out and the birds moved in different ways.

When I give digiscoping workshops, one of the things I hear the most is how someone can't get their equipment to work--usually because they've taken (at most) 20 photos that all turned out crappy and they don't understand why. You have to take dozens, if not hundreds of photos to get one decent shot. The more you work with your equipment, the more prepared you will be when a bird shows up and in the "perfect" pose. I've helped out at enough optics booths to know that many people buy their scope and digiscoping equipment right before they leave for a trip of a lifetime, barely enough time to get familiar with their equipment. If I had a tough time, how could someone with new equipment possibly get anything good going to a new area, with new birds, and not know how to work the camera and scope?

So, here are some conclusions that I came to while birding in Guatemala:

First, I had to pick my battles. I figured out quickly that I was going to be in sensory overload being around so many new species. The group we were with was very much a listing group, not so much a photography look. We'd try like the dickens to see certain species, but not really try for photos. So, when a cool ass bird like a pink-headed warbler was found, I needed to decide, "Do I want to try and aim the scope on a warbler, quite possibly missing it completely or do I want to really savor and watch this amazingly colorful warbler?" With most new species, I chose to watch the bird instead of trying to digiscope it. I did go for the pink headed warbler after a minute and the best I got was the above photo. You can see part of its head and vent from behind a leaf in the above photo.

Second, the lighting conditions in the neotropics were rather crappy. In the forest canopy, it's shady and many birds had a knack for perching with the sun directly behind them. Add incredibly tall trees and precarious scope angles and you end up with a blurry shot of a collared trogon (above).

However, there were many times when birds perched nearby, the lighting was not too bad and I could get that great shot of a berylline hummingbird--right down to its little white socks. So, I didn't get photos of every single bird (or even very good ones) but I do have some great stories and amazing birds to share.

A Sampling Of Guatemala Hummingbirds

We interrupt the fabulous guest blog entries for a sampling of Guatemala hummingbirds. This country is amazing and I had no idea how immersed in Maya culture I would be while here.



Enjoy.