Crocodiles and Emeralds

 February 2022: A Couple of Old Welshmen Bird Honduras

The second of the two 'big company' birding tours I booked at the 'end' of COVID.  After the disaster that was the Ecuador trip, I headed out again with some trepidation, but went anyway ... life is too short ...

Friday, February 11 - Tegucigalpa

I have to say this city name makes for a great Facebook post so I put my 'Traveling to Tegucigalpa' status up along with 'let's try this again' and off I went.  The airport worked just fine but the drive through the city to the Hotel Gloriales was long and slow.  Still, it gave us time to get acquainted and for me to catch up the Steve N.G. Howell, who I've know since we were teenage birders in Wales in the 1980s, but rarely get to see any more.

The hotel was lovely.  They had puppies and good birds in beautiful gardens.  What more could you want?

Saturday, February 12 - P.N. La Tigra

Ah, that much anticipated first 'proper' day of birding in a new country ... there's nothing like it.  Today started out well and I even had a trio of life birds in the morning.  Highlight number one though wasn't a bird at all but a rather well-camouflaged Wilson's Montane Pitviper lurking in the leaves a the visitor center ... careful where you sit people (!).

On the bird front, the highlights for me were my life Green-breasted Mountain-gems, Golden-cheeked Warblers (hey, I've never been to Texas in Spring!) and Slate-colored Solitaires.  There were lots of memorable species to see here though including Resplendent Quetzal, Pale-billed Woodpecker, White-breasted (Sharp-shinned) Hawk, Mountain Trogon,  and lots of Northern Emerald Toucanets.

Wilson's Montane Pitviper

Perhaps the most interesting bird though was not (yet) a lifer ... we saw the very rare local form of Black-banded Woodcreeper.  This particular form occurs here and in Southern Mexico (where is is practically unknown) and is almost certainly a separate species from the forms that occur in Costa Rica and in the Amazon.  Taxonomy in motion, one of the most fascinating parts of the world-birding experience.

Black-banded Woodcreeper and Green-breasted Mountain-gem

In the afternoon we walked a long way down a relatively steep trail (I'm always hyper-conscious that you have to come back up these trails) to a weedy field at the edge of the park and there we spent some time with a Wine-throated Hummingbird.  These tiny little scraps of molten lava truly are a treat and even made the long slog back up the trail almost worth it.  This is why we travel, just a really memorable day of birding and nature with good company and a cold beer and good food to follow ...

Sunday, February 13 - Travel to PANACAM Lodge

A long travel day today but punctuated with some nice stops for some specific specialty birds.  

Fist up was an early morning stop at P.N. Unidas el Picacho, a sort of park, picnic area, and small zoo that I'm sure is a nightmare at noon on a Sunday but this morning we were here early enough that we had it to ourselves.  The highlight here was Ocellated Quail and we did indeed hear some but never close enough to have any chance of seeing one.  We did see Plain Chachalacas and Crested Bobwhite running around plus a lot of noisy White-fronted Parrots.  So a nice way to start the day, and onwards ... 

Lesson's Motmot

The next stop was mostly for me I think.  I needed White-lored Gnatcatcher and Steve had scouted out a location for them on the day before the trip.  The spot was not scenic, a bakingly hot, wind-blasted piece of badlands reminiscent more of S.E.Arizona than of Central America.  But the scouting had paid off and we were very quickly looking at a pair of gnatcatchers with bonus Cinnamon Hummingbird and a 'blink and you missed it' Lesser Roadrunner crossing the road.

Bad shot of a White-lored Gnatcatcher

That evening we eventually made it to the lovely PANACAM lodge, our base for the next three nights, and settled in.  Different birds here so all went to sleep excited for what was to come.

Monday, February 24 - Honduran Emerald Day

Honduras has only one endemic bird, the Honduran Emerald, and it's impossible to imagine coming here without seeing it.  Ironically, little was known of this species, or where to reliably see it, until relatively recently.  Now, however there are spots where you can go and it was our number one priority for the day.

Fist stop was the El Rancho Restaurant where we picked up our expert local guide (who owns the hotel and restaurant) and enjoyed some of the local birds in the light rain.

Then off to a 'secret' trail location that ended at a feeder strategically hung deep in the forest and a conveniently well habituated Honduran Emerald that popped up on cue and gave a good show.  OK, perhaps not a pure wilderness experience but we got the bird and the location is protected and carefully managed by and for the locals so not a bad thing overall.

It was also a pretty birdy spot so we spent an hour or so enjoying the locals, including Golden-winged Warbler, Red-throated Ant-Tanager, and a couple of singing Blue Buntings.  Then back to the restaurant for a very pleasant lunch under a terrace in the rain.  Mission accomplished.  

Berylline Hummingbird and Honduran Emerald 

The rain, unfortunately, while scenic (I do love a good rain shower) made for tricky driving, and this afternoon the roads had become particularly treacherous.  Cars and vans were slipping and sliding across, and off, the road all the way to our next spot.  As we got closer, we arrived at a long, reasonably steep hill that we had to climb and the van simply couldn't keep enough traction to get up there on its first four attempts.  Just when I was thinking we were going to have to re-trace our steps and go back to the lodge though, attempt number five proved to be a charm and we made it to the next birding spot (and there was much rejoicing).  

Reserva Natural Privada Luna del Puente is a truly lovely spot.  A working farm that produces shade-grown coffee and chocolate while preserving a number of forest patches for the birds, making it a very nice piece of varied habitat with a lot of bird diversity.  Steve's three favorite things on earth are chocolate, birds, and coffee so we took time to sample all three while we were there (happy to report that all were excellent).  On the bird front, we saw 50 species with the absolutely highlight being a cooperative Tody Motmot that posed for pictures in a forested gully.  Perhaps the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon in Honduras.

I have a soft spot for Tody Motmots

Tuesday, February 15 - Lago de Yojoa

As a kid we sometimes used the phrase 'like going to the bird house at the zoo' to describe a wonderful morning of birding where you saw a lot of species in one place.  Of course, as a kid in Wales I doubt we ever saw more than 40 species in a day, while this morning I saw 94 species at one spot, the amazing, scenic, and very birdy Lago de Yojoa.  A truly satisfying morning of birding that combined a range of waterbirds, local residents, and a ton of Neotropic migrants including 16 species of wood warbler.  An absolutely great morning of birding.

Muscovy Duck and Chestnut-headed Oropendola

With no real plans for the afternoon birding session I opted to focus on a potential life bird for me and stake out a spot for Black-crested Coquette, a tiny canopy hummingbird that was known to frequent a couple of areas of flowers at the lodge.  The rest of the group, having shorter attention plans went off birding while I spent the next three hours staring at a couple of flowing trees and waiting for a coquette to pass through.  The wait ended up being a long one but almost three hours later a tiny, slow-motion, bee of a hummingbird buzzed through my clearing and I was able to get bins up and confirm it was the coquette.  Not the most exciting view, but good enough and time well spent (the group had nothing more interesting to report when they returned later).

Wednesday, February 16 - PANACAM Lodge / Travel to the Coast

With the targets basically and accounted for we had a quiet morning to kill at PANACAM before driving down to the Atlantic Coast.  In no rush, so we shared a leisurely breakfast with the local White-nosed Coati who came for her breakfast banana every morning.  Then we birded the lodge grounds, spending time at the canopy tower and enjoying scope views of Keel-billed Motmot among other things.  Sad to leave PANACAM but new species awaited.

White-nosed Coati waiting patiently for a banana.

Thursday, February 17 - Garden Botanico Lancetilla

Today was lower elevation, on the Caribbean Slope, and so we expected different birds.  Indeed, we did rack up an impressive list and a wide range of new species for the trip-list.  It would perhaps have been more but of the traffic which limited our ability to get everywhere we wanted to go and we ended up skipping some spots rather than spending a big chunk of the day sitting in traffic jams.

The morning stop was the Lancetilla Botanical Gardens, or more specifically the patches of forest surrounding it.  We birded the entrance road in the morning then some forest scraps near the HQ a little later.  Steve had done bird survey work here 30+ years before as a young bird-bum writing a field guide to the birds of Mexico and Northern Central America so he had good memories.  Although much of the forest in this area is sadly long gone, we did manage to pull together some nice things during the morning, including a Black Hawk-Eagle, a Uniform Crake, and a nice Thick-billed Seed-Finch.

Slaty-tailed Trogon

Lunch with hummingbird feeders?  Why not....  The rain had started again to the idea of sitting under a covered patio and enjoying our picnic lunch while watching an impressive feeder set-up at the defunct bird lodge didn't sound bad at all.  The place positively hopped with dozens of hummingbirds and swarms of Shining and Green Honeycreepers.  Nothing terribly unusual here but a really pleasant way to spend a rainy lunch time and then, just to round things off, we found a Lovely Cotinga by the van just as we were leaving.

White-necked Jacobin and Crowned Woodnymph

Green Honeycreeper

Friday, February 18 - R.V.S. Cuero y Salado (The Boat Ride)

A lot of group birding trips to Central America have 'the boat trip' where you putter at a leisurely place through the mangroves in a tourist boat and see Boat-billed Herons and maybe a Northern Potoo or an American Crocodile.  Other groups also inevitably see Agami Herons but I never see them because that species is my nemesis bird and, despite having taken maybe 5 or 6 of these touristy boat trips in good habitat, this species continues to elude me.  Non-birders will tell me about the boat trips they did while on their beach vacations in Mexico or Costa Rica and inevitably they will report seeing that 'special heron', 'you know the agave heron', the guide inevitably very excited to show it to them and everyone feeling like they got their money's worth.  I, on the other hand, am simply incapable of finding one ... not that I'm bitter ...

This trip was no different.  Boat-billed Heron (check), Northern Potoo (check), impressive American Crocodiles (check), Northern Tamandua (check) .... Agami Heron ... nope.

Northern Potoo and Russet-naped Wood-Rail (a life bird for me)

Bare-throatedTiger-Heron (note the lack of Agami Heron photos)

Yellow-crowned Night Heron and Boat-billed Heron

Saturday, February 19 - COVID Tests and Airport

Time to go home.  In the 'time of the COVID' that meant lining up at a regional health clinic for a 'little lobotomy' COVID test in order to get that all important -ve antigen paper that would allow us to board the plane and get out of the country.  The good news was that we all passed and so the process of leaving was simple.

You hear so much of the bad news about Honduras in the U.S. Press where desperate migrants escaping a violent dysfunctional country seems to be the accepted narrative. I have to say though that it doesn't feel that way on the ground.  Everyone we met in Honduras was super friendly and quite lovely, and while I know we were in a tourist bubble for some of the time, we also wandered the back roads and ranged widely across the country.  There are no doubt real problems here but it was fine to travel, we were welcome everywhere, and I'd certainly be happy to go back.  It was a very lovely break ... and I didn't catch COVID!

A 'real' American Crocodile, looks like it eats pirates' hands and unwary tourists ...

Tapirs and Caiman on the Rio Cristalino

July 2019: A Short Stay at the Legendary Rio Cristalino Lodge in Mato Grosso

Back in 1995, I went to Brazil for the first time.  I flew to São Paulo, changed planes and flew on to Cuiaba, then spent a week birding in the Pantanal and in the nearby cerado habitat.  It was a low budget trip, we stayed in very basic accommodation and I could only afford to take part in the first week of what for others was a two week trip.  I saw 273 species of birds, most of them new for me, and I saw my first Giant River Otters and Giant Anteaters.  Despite the trip being so short I was quite simply entranced with the country and figured that I'd be back.  Indeed, since that trip I've made more than a dozen trips to Brazil, ten of them specifically for birding.

After I left Brazil that first time, the group of birders I was with went on to Alta Floresta and spent a week at the Rio Cristalino Jungle Lodge, where they saw a ton more birds and several Brazilian Tapirs.  Not to worry I thought, I'll probably get there before too long ... then 24 years passed by in a flash ... and I never did get round to going Rio Cristalino (and never saw a tapir of any sort).

In the meantime, two of my good birding friends, Carlos Sanchez and Rich Hoyer, both worked as guides at the Cristalino so I kept being reminded that I really ought to go, and yet somehow I just couldn't get organized to fit a visit into my schedule.  I knew it would happen someday though and it turns out that 2019 was the lucky year.  This year my Summer unexpectedly opened up and I decided to expand a long-planned  NorthEast Brazil trip,  grabbing the opportunity, and a room at the lodge at short notice.  Game on ...

Sunday, June 23 - Thursday, June 27 - Cristalino Jungle Lodge

A long travel weekend.  On Saturday I'd flown from New York to Bogotá and then on to São Paulo (sacrificing time for a cheap business class seat on Avianca).  I'd spent Saturday night at the airport Marriott at Guarulhos then taken an early Sunday morning flight to Cuiaba and, despite a delay, just made a connecting flight to Alta Floresta.  From there, my fellow lodge guests and I were met and driven an hour or so to a boat, then had a nice quick ride up the river to the lodge.  Made it ... finally.

Once we got oriented I, and two fellow birders who I did not know beforehand, got assigned a birding guide.  I wasn't thrilled to be lumped with other birders who, although they turned out to be delightful people and charming company, didn't initially strike me as 'hard core' birders.  However, I was happy to be assigned Sidnei Dantas as a guide ... another talented young ornithologist and a good friend of a friend.  And everything worked out in the end.

Pompadour Continga 

Once settled in, the routine for the next few days was set.  Up before dawn for a delicious breakfast, birding until lunch time, a huge and scrumptious Brazilian meal for lunch, siesta, more birding in the later afternoon until just after dark, shower, bar time, more mouthwatering Brazilian food for dinner, then collapse into bed.  I would quite happily spend the rest of my life doing exactly just that, at least in a place like Cristalino with amazing food, a great wine list, and awesome birds.  Perhaps the perfect vacation and so very different from the logging camp I'd stayed in the last time I made it to the Amazon.

A Pai da Mata made with fresh local herbs.  The lodge had a full bar and a good
wine list ... I only allow myself one cocktail every now and then, this was the one
and it was worth it.

Over the next 4 days we birded steadily and accumulated a list of nearly 250 species (or put another way, more species than I saw in the UK during the entirety of my childhood).  Of these, around 30 were lifers for me, nothing super rare, but some good birds.

Red-throated Piping Guan

Perhaps the best birds we saw were some local forest specialties like Alta Floresta Antpitta along with a good selection of antbirds, antshrikes, antwrens, woodcreepers, foliage-gleaners, and the many other mixed flock species from the forest interior.   Some of the ant swarms we saw were quite active and we were able to get to grips with a few ant-followers like Bare-eyed Antbird (although no ground-cuckoos unfortunately) plus there was always the comedic relief (for others) of seeing me high-stepping down the trail to get through a swarm of angry ants (army ants are one of the few things on earth that can persuade me to break into a brief run).

The time on the trails was mixed in with quite civilized boat rides along the rivers.  The birds here weren't quite so special but there were lots of big, photogenic things to keep us interested.  On the big charismatic bird front, I also finally caught up with Razor-billed Curasow, an amazing cracid that I'd long wanted to see.

Hoatzin and Sunbittern

Beyond the river-bank birds, the boat trips offered the best chances for other types of life and we did manage to see quite a few good things.  Spectacled Caiman were not uncommon on the river but one night we also managed to spot-light a Cuvier's Dwarf-Caiman in the fading light, a life crocodilian for me. These small heavily armored little crocs have large numbers of bony plates in their skin, which has protected them from the handbag trade, although being small and shy they are still rarely seen.

Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman

On the mammal front we did see five species of primate - including Red-handed Howler Monkey, Red-nosed Bearded Saki-Monkey, and White-whiskered Spider-Monkey - two species of peccary, some bats,  and several Neotropical River Otters (who doesn't love encounters with otters?).

Neotropical River Otter

The absolute highlight of the trip for me though came one morning as we motored upstream in the boat and I noticed a large brown lump in the morning mist a few hundred yards ahead of us.  I couldn't quite make out what it was but my brain slowly processed the shape and saw that it was moving ... it looked a bit like a horse.  I got my bins on it as it sank low into the water so I could just see the top of it's head and ears ... and it raised it's trunk (!).   "Anta!" I shouted.  One of the few moments where I actually remembered the Portuguese word for an animal but couldn't for the life of me remember the English word.  So I kept shouting "Anta! Anta!" and gave directions as best I could as the Brazilian Tapir made it's way to the river bank and vanished into the dense undergrowth.  Finally my first tapir, after many, many years of wanting to see one.  I was ecstatic but had to quickly reign in my excitement when I realized that, while the guide and the boatman had both seen the animal, my American birding companions had somehow managed to miss it.  Guilty feelings all around ...  but I was quietly smiling to myself for the rest of the day.

Gray-headed Kite

By contrast, the best bird of the week was one that we never saw.  The others had opted to take an afternoon off so Sidnei and I were happily off up a trail working an ant-swarm and hoping for ground-cuckoos when he pointed out a distinctive trill.  The bird was loud and close but we couldn't see it, and it did sound awfully familiar.  Sidnei's theory was that it was a Peruvian Recurvebill,  a very good bird for this location and one rarely seen here in recent years.  Playing a recording confirmed the ID but, although we worked on it for quite a while, we never did get a glimpse.  Such is forest birding unfortunately, but still a good record.

Great Black Hawk

Night walks were also a great experience, being out in the forest after dark is always a treat.  Although we didn't see any large nocturnal mammals we did see lots of nightjars of several species, a Great Potoo and several owls.  Then there were always the cool smaller things like trapdoor spiders and whip-scorpions to make the night interesting, or odd tree-frogs, bats, spiny-rats, centipedes and giant crickets.  A great variety of life right outside our doors.

Blackish Nightjar roosting on one of the cabins

On the last full day, for a change of scenery, we went down to the main river and birded some of the sand islands there.  Pied Lapwings really do look a lot like Egyptian Plovers (I can say that now that I've seen the plover) and we spent a fair amount of time attempting to lure a Glossy Antshrike within range of the camera.  This was the place we were told to look out for Harpy Eagles but alas, none came to see us, although we did see two different Ornate Hawk-Eagles during our stay there.  Next time ... for me with Harpy Eagle, it's always next time ...

Pied Lapwing and Glossy Antshrike 

All too soon though it was time for me to head back to the real world.  I really could have stayed at least an extra few days but my plans were set, so back to Alta Floresta then Cuiaba and on to São Paulo.  I did bring a souvenir with me though ... on the flight to Cuiaba my ankles and lower legs were itching uncontrollably, and it only got worse during the day ... Chiggers!  Not my favorite invertebrate and I had 'gotten them good' so for the entire duration of my stay in São Paulo I had something to remember the Amazon.  Still, it was worth it, and I'm already plotting my next trip to the Amazon ....

Ghana (Part 2) - Mole National Park and Egyptian Plovers

January 2019: A Few Days in the Dry Habitats of Northern Ghana

Wednesday, January 2 - White Volta River, Central Ghana

With Picathartes in the bag, my second big target for this trip was the fabled EGYPTIAN PLOVER otherwise known as the Crocodile Plover.  As a kid I had read about this bird and it's life-risking habit of walking inside the mouths of basking Nile Crocodiles to pick scraps from between their teeth.  This 'fact' had been taught to generations of British school children and was firmly welded in my imagination as one of the most quintessential of African nature phenomena.  I'd wanted to see this bird since I was a small child.  Even finding out that the crocodile story was completely untrue hadn't dampened my enthusiasm for seeing this species.  So today was largely devoted to a very long, and very dusty drive to look for the plovers.

Distant scope views

Our target was a river crossing on the White Volta River, and despite the bridge being long collapsed, the scruffy settlement that surrounded what was now a canoe crossing did seem to be a hive of activity.  The plovers were supposed to frequent a sand bank in the river and when we arrived my heart sank as the sand bank was crowded with villagers and their laundry.  Surely the plovers wouldn't be there but we walked out anyway and scanned the surrounding rocky shores with the scope hoping for, and getting, distant views of the plover upstream.

My best photo of the Egyptian Plover

Now that we'd seen the birds and relaxed, their birds seemed to realize that they'd been spotted and so gave up on hiding and flew directly towards us, landing on the sand bank close enough for decent photos.  A truly special bird, and worth the long drive on terrible roads, and the pounds of dust that I breathed in during the day.  The happy memory carried me forward through another long and dusty drive on equally bad roads in the afternoon until we reached our final destination in Ghana, Mole National Park.

Thursday, January 3 to Saturday, January 5 - Mole National Park

When I booked this trip I had a vague recollection of the folks at Rockjumper offering me a choice of accommodation at Mole NP.  There was either a budget "motel", or a much more expensive "lodge", and feeling flush in the moment I opted for a little luxury and booked the lodge.  I still had fairly low expectations however so when we arrived at Zaina Lodge I was in for a big surprise.  Zaina is a full-on luxury game lodge of the type more typically found in East Africa or South Africa.  In fact it's first and the only lodge of it's type in West Africa.  It was a really very, very nice place to stay - superb accommodations, great food, and beautifully situated - and put us right in the middle of the birds and other wildlife.  I couldn't have been happier with my choice after that long and dusty driving day.

The entrance to Zaina and the pool / bar.

My "tent" at Zaina came complete with a real bathroom and room-sized shower (with hot water)

For the next three days we birded the various trails and tracks around the lodge and ventured further afield into the park.  Mole consists largely of dry "miombo" woodland which looks a lot like the classic TV nature show version of Africa and indeed I had a hard time distinguishing it from the habitat I'd birded in Kenya or South Africa.  It all looked very familiar, with the exception of course of the birds, and I had a ton on new birds.

Senegal Thick-knee and Gray Kestrel

Mole is far from a pristine wilderness, and has suffered some severe hunting pressure.  The park used to be famous for a very tame pride of Lions which fell victim to poaching some years ago, and other predators, Leopards, Hyenas and the like are all very scarce.  Nevertheless, we were required to take an armed scout with us if we wanted to get out of the car, Elephants are still present and can still create some risk for birders.  

Swamp Flycatcher and Gray-headed Kingfisher

Among the star birds that we looked for at Mole were some that specialized in dry, rocky plains that we criss-crossed in the lodge's Toyota Landcruisers until we bumped into them.  Sun Larks were easy to find but it took us many hours before we finally tacked down FORBES'S PLOVER, a very odd looking shorebird.

Forbes's Plover and Chestnut-backed Sparrow-Lark

Night birding was also very productive with numerous Long-tailed Nightjars and a Grayish Eagle-Owls along the tracks after dark.  Dusk also produced a bird that I had long wanted to see when I noticed what seemed to be a nightjar hawking over the grasslands with two small birds mobbing it (?).  That didn't make sense, small birds don't mob nightjars so bins up and it turns out to be a hawking STANDARD-WINGED NIGHTJAR, a truly amazing looking creature with outsized ornamental flight feathers almost as large as the bird itself.  I leapt out of the car for photos and was almost immediately overwhelmed by swarms of large and super aggressive biting flies.  It was literally impossible to stay long enough even to take a single photo and we ran straight back to the car.  Fifteen minutes later when the sun set, the files had vanished, but by then so had the nightjar, so you'll just have to imagine how awesome it was.

Long-tailed Nightjar and Dusky Eagle-Owl

There were also some other special birds that popped up, like my first SPOTTED CREEPER, Stone Partridges, the scarce WHITE-THROATED FRANCOLIN and the local GOSLING'S BUNTING.

Spotted Creeper and White-throated Francolin

There were mammals too of course, although not in the variety that you might see in East or South Africa.  There were Uganda Kob, Bushbuck, Waterbuck, Warthogs, and Olive Baboons.  There were also some smaller things that were memorable, like a group of Gambian Fruit-Bats that we flushed accidentally from some thorn trees one morning.  Then of course there was the star of the park, the African Bush Elephant, and while we only saw one, it was good to know that they were still there.

Uganda Kob and Waterbuck

African Bush Elephant

And finally of course there were a few reptiles, what trip to Africa is complete without a crocodile?  We saw a few crocodiles and I assumed they were Nile Crocodiles until I got home and realized that Slender-snouted and Dwarf Crocodiles can also be found at Mole.  So I have to leave them as crocodile sp. and wish I'd taken the time to take some photos.  The last interesting animal of the visit though was crossing the road as we were leaving on the last morning, a chameleon that I helped onto a stick and moved safely to some roadside bushes.  iNaturalist later identified it as Senegal Chameleon, a lifer for me obviously and a great way to end the trip.

Senegal Chameleon

West Africa, I'll be back.