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.

Ghana (Part 1) - The Rain Forest and Picathartes

December 2018: Southern Ghana Forest Birds

Saturday, December 29 - Accra

I woke up that morning in Africa.  The day before I'd been in New York but courtesy of Delta Airlines and one of the few direct flights between North America and Africa, here I was getting up early and ready to go birding in Ghana.  This was actually my first trip to West Africa and to say I was excited would be a huge understatement, I was ready to see a lot of life birds.  First however was breakfast, and lots of patience, as today was a travel day with a long drive taking us from Accra to the Kakum Forest, one of the best scraps of wet tropical forest remaining in Southern Ghana.

Breakfast took for ever, or seemed to, but eventually we were on our way with my expert local bird guide Williams from Ashanti Birding Tours and a local driver navigating our way out of the city and off towards the birds.  Perhaps I wasn't looking all that patient though as before long Williams decided to make an unscheduled stop at a dry scrubby area called the Achimota Forest 'while it was still cool', and so birding started quickly and didn't stop for the next seven days.

Senegal Coucal and Double-toothed Barbet

Achimota wasn't much of a forest, it looked more like scrubby waste ground to me, but it was native scrub and early in the morning it was hopping, adding 35 species to the list.  For me, the best birds were parrots, a couple of Senegal Parrots and a fly-over AFRICAN GRAY PARROT.  The latter was probably an escapee but it was a bird I'd long wanted to see in the wild so it signified some sort of formal 'arrival' ... I was birding in West Africa.

As the morning warmed up we kept pushing on, making a stop at the Winneba Plains and the Fosu Lagoon before stopping for lunch at Cape Coast Castle.  This building is a major tourist attraction, and former hub of the West African slave trade, but I was here for birds so did some seawtaching at lunch rather than join the tourist crowd.

Brown-throated Wattle-eye and Long-tailed Cormorant

By mid afternoon we arrived in the Kakum Area and, still having some daylight decided to do some birding along the forest edge at Ebekawopa.  Kakum National Park is a relatively small protected area but was surrounded originally by large chunks of buffer forest like this one, unfortunately these buffers are being cut down at a tremendous rate and converted to villages and gardens to feed  and house a booming population.  It's not an organized effort per se but more the effects of many hands chipping away at the edges.  For the next few days most of our birding ended up being in forest edge habitats like this one with occasional forays into the small remnant forest patches.  The edges are birdy it turns out but with the forest behind them shrinking that's likely to be a temporary phenomenon.  Lots of conflicted emotions today, and on the rest of this trip, but in the end I was here to go birding so that's what we did.

The late afternoon at Ebekawopa was incredibly productive and gave me my first real taste of West African forest birds.  There were a whole bunch of unfamiliar families like Gray--headed and White-breasted Nigritas, Green and Lemon-bellied Crombecs and Red-vented Malimbe.  There were also some star birds like Black Bee-eater, Olive Long-tailed Cuckoo and Black-casqued Hornbill.  The birding was so good that we stayed out until dark, ending the day with Fraser's Eagle-Owl, Akun Eagle-Owl and several calling Brown Nightjars.  Not bad for what was billed as a travel day.

Sunday, January 30 - Kakum National Park and Surroundings

The next three days were allotted to explore the area around Kakum NP and it's surrounding buffer forests.  We were based at the pleasant, and surprisingly empty, Rainforest Lodge and hotel which was neither a lodge nor in the rainforest, but it was clean, close to the park, and had good food.  From there we ventured out to the National Park itself and to various roads and tracks in the surrounding area.  We saw a lot of birds.

The highlight at Kakum, assuming you aren't afraid of heights, is the impressive system of suspended walkways and tree-platforms that allows access to the forest canopy.  The walkways bounced around rather too much for my liking and the platforms seemed uncomfortably small at times but the access to the birds was superb so I tried my best to ignore the 100+ foot drop beneath us and focussed on all the new forest birds I was unlikely to see from ground level.

The canopy was a treasure-trove of new species for me with wonderfully named species like Green Hylia, Rufous-crowned Eremomela, Yellow-browed Camaroptera mixed in with a host of Greenbuls, Barbets and Honeyguides.  We ended up spending two mornings and an evening up there on the boardwalk and saw a lot of birds and even a few mammals like Lesser Spot-nosed Monkey, African Giant Squirrel, and the spectacular Pel's (Giant) Flying-Squirrel.  We had permission to go to the platform early and that was just as well because by 9am tourist groups started to arrive, making enormous amounts of noise, and scaring the wildlife, and us, away from the walkways.  While we had it to ourselves though, it was a very special place.

Lesser Spot-nosed Monkey on the walkway (before 9am)

Away from the Canopy Walkway, we birded a range of forest and edge habitat and added quite a good selection of species.  We caught up with one of my 'most wanted' species in the forest below the walkways when we tracked down a calling RUFOUS-SIDED BROADBILL, a mostly Asian family that has a few African outliers and one that I was most curious to see.

Rufous-sided Broadbill

We got Western Bluebill at Antwikwaa and took the time there also to stalk secretive White-spotted Flufftails in the marshy woodlands.  We got the fabulous Rosy Bee-eater along another forest edge track and a soaring Cassin's Hawk-Eagle, ending our days with more night birding adding Plain and Long-tailed Nightjars and hearing a lot of Tree Hyrax but not able to find me a Loris despite much searching.

Cassin's Hawk-Eagle and Long-tailed Nightjar

One special afternoon side trip took us on a long drive to the Pra River to 'twitch' ROCK PRATINCOLES which sat motionless on rocks in the middle of the flow.  I wanted to see this species very much so had asked for the diversion and thus couldn't complain about the long drive.  They are special birds though so it was worth it in the end.

Rock Pratincoles (they didn't do much)

All too soon though it was time to leave Kakum and move North.  I could easily have spend a lot more time here, this forest habitat is so rich and so special although it's heartbreaking to see it being cut down and degraded at literally every turn.  We were on on a schedule however and I was also excited to move on because our next destination was one for a very special bird.

Tuesday, January 1 - Bonkro Village

There were two mega star birds that I wanted to see above all others on this trip.  Egyptian Plover was further to the North in the dryer habitats but the other was our main target for New Years Day.  We left Kakum after some early morning birding and made a few stops on the way North, one of which actually yielded another much sought after bird of a different type when we bumped into a LONG-TAILED HAWK.  We'd been listening and looking for this species for the past few days at Kakum and I thought we might have missed it but it came through for us in the end.

By mid-afternoon we arrived at Kakum Village, a nesting site for the WHITE-NECKED ROCKFOWL, a bird I much prefer to call by it's older name WHITE-NECKED PICATHARTES.  These odd-looking, giant, hopping passerines, nest in limestone caves in the forest, are rare, very local and undoubtedly the star birds of any West African birding trip.

To protect them, conservation groups have worked with local communities to leverage eco-tourism revenues to provide incentives to the villagers to look after the birds rather than hunt them.  At sites like Bonkro, birders pay a fee to the local villages in exchange for access to see the birds.  The money earned is divided up by the village elders and in this case there are plans to expand the operation by building a tourist lodge, allowing birders to stay closer to the birds and to expand both the village revenues and provide job opportunities for villagers.  It all sounds very sensible and does indeed seem to work, within minutes of arriving at the village we were on our way down the trail to the forest accompanied by two villagers who had been trained as guides.  Now all we needed was for the birds to cooperate.

A half hour into the forest we stopped at the top of a small ridge where there was a limestone outcropping that had created the kind of overhanging ledges that Picathartes needs for it's nests.  Sure enough there were several mud nests in the dry area under the ledge and, while it was not the breeding season, we were told that they birds would come in towards then end of the day to inspect the site.  So we waited, and waited, for an hour and a half for the birds to come to us, and then ... well it all happened so fast.

One of the locals spotted a bird that had come to a tree about 30 meters away from us and was circling us in the forest but largely keeping at least a few branches between itself and the crowd.  There were five of us at this point, me, my Ashanti guide and driver and the two locals, so we were hardly inconspicuous.   The bird continued to circle while I fumbled my camera in the fading light, trying desperately to change settings, while tracking the bird and getting a lot of well meaning but mostly unwanted advice from my four companions.  The whole thing got quite stressful, which of course didn't help me as I fired off a series of out of focus shots, getting increasingly frustrated, and frustrating my "team" even more.  Four africans all earnestly trying to get me on the bird and some even giving photographic advice was all a bit much.  In the end I put down the camera, told everyone to be quiet, and just decided to watch, and I'm glad I did because the bird only made one more pass but I was able to put bins on it and get a good look.  A bird I'd wanted to see since childhood .... and who needs a photo anyway?

Picathartes in all it's slightly out of focus glory.
It's hiding all the colorful bits behind the branch.

And so on to Northern Ghana ... but that's another Blog Post.

Whiskered Pitta and Bicol Ground Warbler

October 2018: Another Quick Trip to the Philippines and More Endemics on Luzon

Friday, October 19 - Jariel's Peak

I'd managed to escape from a business trip in Hong Kong on Thursday night, hopped a quick flight, and once again found myself staying near Manila airport, exhausted but ready for more Philippines birding adventures.  This was going to be another super quick trip as I had to be back in Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon to catch a flight to New York, but hopefully I was going to get a chance to see a few more of Luzon's endemic birds before then.  This time I was with famous Robert Hutchinson, one of the owners of Birdtour Asia and a long time Philippines resident.  We set off very early on Friday morning missing most of Manila's legendary traffic and arriving at our destination well before first light.  Jariel's Peak is a apparently local beauty spot and we planned to spend a day and a half birding there but as we'd arrived in the pitch darkness the views were going to have to wait.  Besides, I was more interested in owls.

We had a specific target in mind so started stopping and listening for owls, hoping for a Luzon Scops-Owl.  We heard Philippine Scops-Owl and several Philippine Nightjars but for a time our target eluded us until Rob heard one calling and was able to use his fancy night-scope to see where the bird was.  Even though we knew which tree it was in, and it's location stood out in the green glow if the night scope, the bird was hidden from me and it took a while before I caught some movement, fired off a volley of shots into the darkness and got a photo .... it may be out of focus, but it was a life bird nevertheless!

Luzon Scops-Owl

With the owl in the bag, we could relax and as the sun came up we settled in for a very pleasant morning of birding.  The targets here were many and there were some very special birds that I very much wanted to see.  While the day was young we focussed on tracking down two colorful fruit-doves, the gaudy Flame-breasted Fruit-Dove and the subtly beautiful Cream-breasted Fruit-Dove, both Philippine endemics and both of course life birds for me.  We also started to rack up a decent species count and more of more of the local birds slowly revealed themselves and I hit a milestone of sorts when a Blue-headed Fantail became my 4,500th species.

Cream-breasted Fruit-Dove

With the more common birds joining the list, we broke away from the roadside birding to work on some of the harder to see endemics.  The WHISKERED PITTA is a jewel of a bird and like all pittas can be very difficult to see as they hop around on the forest floor, seemingly always finding a way to stay out of sight.  We heard a bird calling and scrambled into the forest along the course of a small stream working our way up through the rocky ravine to a place closer to the bird and away from the road.  Once there we found a place to sit quietly and watch while Rob played the tape hoping to make the pitta a little curious and entice it to come in closer.  After thirty minutes of waiting silently in the forest, the pitta simply popped up on a rock very close to us and stayed in view, seemingly indifferent to our presence, for the next ten minutes while it searched among the boulders along the stream for the intruder it had heard.  A very special audience with a very special bird.

It's hard to imagine that birds this colorful can be hard to see but they are
very good at hiding.  Whiskered Pitta.

The other 'hard to see' target bird was the local, endemic, BICOL GROUND-WARBLER and this bird did require some serious effort to see.  This species is a mouse of a bird, tiny, dark brown, and very fond of getting down amongst tangled weedy vegetation so dense that you might be feet from one and still never see it.  We heard a number of the ground-warblers calling in the morning but seeing one required a little more staging.  In order to get a glimpse of the bird, some gardening was involved, with Rob cutting a small break in the roadside weeds so that, if we were able to entice the bird close, we might get at least a glimpse of it as it crossed our artificial micro-clearing.  Even with the preparation it still required the bird to cooperate and we had several non-cooperative birds before one made a fatal mistake and allowed itself to be briefly seen.  There are no good photographs of this bird and I was hoping to get a few but, even though I managed to get the bird in the view finder briefly, there were always some pieces of vegetation in the way that ruined the focus.  Still, a very good bird to add to the life list.

Green-backed Tailorbird, a lifer but not a Ground-Warbler.

As the day wore on and we moved further up the road, the bird activity quietened down a little which gave us a chance to have some lunch and to watch for raptors.    We then birded our way back down the road, adding more species, getting better views of others and generally enjoying a great day of birding.

Rufous-bellied Eagle and Philippine Serpent-Eagle 

Finally, as the light started to fade, we had one more target which was a bird I had dreamed about and not expected to see.  After a long dusk vigil that stretched well past darkness though I had to accept that the Bukidnon Woodcock was going to have to stay in my dreams and not join my list (my luck with Asian Woodcock is not great and I added this miss to my missing Javan Woodcock the year before).

Saturday, October 20 - Jariel's Peak

Up well before dawn again and more time with the nightjars and scops-owls before it got light.  We had the morning to bird the same road again for birds that we hadn't seen the day before.  There weren't that many birds we hadn't seen though so we were able to relax and just enjoy the birds that came to us.

Rufous Hornbill

The highlight for me was Philippine Trogon, a bird I had hoped we'd see and were able to track one down and see it well in the understory.  We also tracked down the Philippine form of White-browed Shortwing, a species due to be split in the near future and one where I have been lucky enough now to see several of the island forms giving me several "banked" lifers when the split happens.

Philippine Trogon

All too soon it was time to leave and start making our way back to Manila.  There were two more birding stops to make though, and hopefully a few special birds to add.

Stop number one was the famous Angono Petroglyphs Museum which protected some truly ancient art but also protected some large trees and was a nesting site for the peculiar Philippine Eagle-Owl.  This is a big owl, but somehow looks odd for an eagle-owl, it also apparently eats mostly frogs, so perhaps is more closely related to the fish-owls?  Either way it's an impressive bird and for a huge owl was surprisingly hard to find even though we knew roughly which group of trees the bird was likely to be roosting in.  In the end it was a friendly local security guard who moved us to exactly the right angle to get a view of the bird, I doubt I would have found it otherwise, so very happy for friendly locals.

The huge, and well hidden Philippine Eagle-Owl.

Then finally, one last stop at La Mesa Eco Park in Quezon City, the stakeout for the endemic Ashy Thrush.  We got to the park late in the day and it was of course crowded with people leaving me wondering how a rare, endemic bird gets along in such crowded quarters.  We didn't need to worry about the people though as soon enough the heavens opened unleashing torrential tropical rain on us and leaving us trying to find shelter under trees but getting soaked through nevertheless.  The rain did chase away the crowds though and with the people gone the birding looked up we soon found an Ashy Thrush hopping around near the trails.

So a great trip, something like 35 life birds for me, and a nice addition to my weekend in Subic Bay earlier this year.  The Philippines is truly daunting with so many islands and so many endemics but at least I've started chipping away at it.  So special thanks for Rob for the expert bird guiding and good company.  I can't wait to get back to the Philippines again.

Finding Vagrants in Hong Kong

October 2018: An Epic Day if Birding at Mai Po and other Hong Kong Wetlands

Sunday, October 14

October 2018 got a little confused - I had had an October trip planned to Asia for months and was looking forward to trying for Mountain Peacock-Pheasants in Malaysia and for Whiskered Pitta in the Philippines.  Then, just weeks before I was due to leave, the trip got cancelled and I had to try to un-book the travel arrangements.  No sooner had I said my apologies though, and cancelled all the ground arrangements for the trip, than I got word that schedules had changed again and that I was indeed free to go to Asia if I wanted!  It was too late to save the Malaysia part of the itinerary, but I was able to resurrect the Philippines trip (more later) and had a single spare day in Hong Kong so reached out to birding friend and local bird guru John Allcock to make plans for a day of birding, including a visit to the fabled Mai Po reserve.

So super early, up and out of the hotel and off to the New Territories to meet John.  First stop was a woodland trail at Shek Kong which, given the date, we hoped would be crawling with interesting migrants.  It wasn't.  In fact it was pretty dead bird-wise, but oh well, never mind, and on to the next spot.

Kam Tin is not the most scenic birding area on earth.  A muddy storm drain full of discarded tires and shopping carts surrounded by concrete banks and overpasses.  It is a wetland though and so draws lots of wetland birds with a good selection of shorebirds and egrets spread up and down the muddy channel.  Our target here was the scarce and declining Gray-headed Lapwing, a lifer for me and a bird I'd looked for unsuccessfully at this site the previous year.  We got out of the car, I scanned the channel, picking up a good selection of birds but no lapwings, but thankfully John was more thorough and picked out a pair in the distance.  So, a life bird, and the day was starting to look up.

Gray-headed Lapwings in scenic surroundings.

Up next was another site I'd birded before, the farm fields and paddies of Long Valley.  Our goal here was to look for scarcer buntings amongst Yellow-breasted Buntings in the dry rice fields and see if we could turn up a rarity or two.  We ended up not finding anything very different but I did get another life bird when we flushed a Lanceolated Warbler a couple of times; a tiny, mouse-like, skulker but very welcome on the list.  And now onwards and time for the main event.

Azure-winged Magpies at the Mai Po HQ Building

Mai Po is world famous.  The marshes, fish ponds and mud flats of the reserve have been intensely birded and studied for years (a function of there being British birders in Hong Kong) and are legendary in birding circles.  I had actually been there once before but, lacking the correct permit, had not been able to access the best parts of the reserve at the right time and had seen very little.  This time I was properly permitted and birding with a local expert so my expectations were high and I'm happy to say they weren't disappointed.

Over the next six hours we saw more than 80 species at Mai Po, including 4 life birds for me.  On the way to the mud flats we worked our way through the fish ponds and found Black-browed Reed Warbler, Pied Harrier and Collared Crow, all of which were life birds for me.  We also flushed a bird that we were pretty sure was a White-browed Crake, a mega-rarity in Hong Kong, but were unable to re-find it so had to let the record go.  Then we spent several hours enjoying some of the best shore birding there is on offer anywhere in the world.

The mud flats at Mai Po are viewed from floating hides at the end of long boardwalks that lead out through the mangroves to the shores of the Pearl River.  The mud was quite literally covered in birds, and with a rising tide we took our places in the hides and started to study them as they got closer and closer.

The mud at Mai Po is literally carpeted with shore-birds and wading birds (plus a Collared Crow).

Wading birds were initially most obvious with three species of egret, several herons and the globally endangered BLACK-FACED SPOONBILL all feeding out on the mud.  Beneath them though was a carpet of shorebirds ranging in size from the larger  Eurasian Curlews, Whimbrels, and Black-tailed Godwits down to the smaller plovers and sandpipers running between their legs.  The reserve was famous for a trinity of very rare Asian shorebirds that would all have been potential life birds to me - Nordmann's Greenshank, Asiatic Dowitcher and Great Knot - and while diligent scanning didn't pull out either of the first two, we did find a couple of GREAT KNOT, a bird I was very happy to finally add to my list.

Eurasian Curlew and Whimbrel

We also managed another bird that was interested for me when we found a Long-billed Dowitcher, a bird I think of as North American but apparently they breed in small numbers in Asia too.

The greatest excitement of the day though was when John, scanned through the hundreds of Pacific Golden-Plovers handed me the scope and said, "what do you think about this one?".  He knew the answer already of course, the eye-pattern was different and a sort of breast-band effect strongly suggested EUROPEAN GOLDEN-PLOVER, only the 3rd one ever recorded in Hong Kong!

European Golden-Plover

So a great day, and with a few hours to kill we headed over to the San Tin fish ponds to see if we could add a few extra species.  We weren't expecting to top the excitement of the plover but not 10 minutes after arriving we stumbled into another rarity, Hong Kong's 4th record of BOOTED WARBLER which we flushed from some grass and managed to get a few record shots of.  Truly a great day of birding and all in one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Booted Warbler

Volcanoes and Pink-headed Warblers

August 2018: A Short Trip to the Volcanic Highlands of Guatemala

Tuesday, August 14 - Guatemala City to Tecpan

Some trips are just a little random.  Earlier this year, while chatting on-line with a friend (future birding star Jacob Drucker) we got to talking about Southern Mexico and from that conversation my mind drifted to some of the Central American Highland birds I really have long wanted to see.  Before too long I had arranged a short trip to Guatemala as a tag-on to my Birthday Foodie trip to Mexico City.  Why Guatemala and not Chiapas?  No good answer there really, I would like to go to Chiapas but settled on Guatemala, perhaps blaming that pesky eBird World Map that gives you such endorphins for filling in new countries in shades of yellow, orange or red.  Anyway, plans were made with Cayaya Birding and I threw the invitation open to some friends resulting in Michael Duffy, Carlos Sanchez, and Brent Bomkamp signing up to join me.

Having survived a bit of a rough landing, the Aero Mexico pilot aborted the landing twice before sticking it on the third attempt, I made it to Guatemala City and promptly passed out exhausted.  Brent ended up dropping out due to a family medical emergency but on Tuesday morning Michael, Carlos and I met with local bird expert and tour leader/fixer extraordinaire Knut Eisermann and headed off to explore the birds of the Guatemalan highlands.

First stop was a small park not far from the city center that preserved a small valley with native vegetation.  Highlight here was BUFFY-CROWNED WOOD-PARTRIDGE  a lifer for me and part of a nice selection of birds that fortified us for the long road trip to the highlands and our main birding target.  By lunch-time we'd arrived at an odd Swiss-chalet-style restaurant that specialized in crepes, but with lunch done we hiked up into the pine-oak forest behind the restaurant and were smack in the middle of our target birds.

Highlights here included BLUE-THROATED MOTMOT which we heard a lot before we finally got a good look at it.  That stunning confection of a bird, the PINK-HEADED WARBLER was also here and gave good views, and bad photos, at the top of the trail along with a supporting cast of lifers including Hooded Grosbeak, Black-capped Swallow, Guatemalan Tyrannulet and Blue-and-white Mockingbird.  A couple of hours truly well spent and a few of our key target birds locked down on the first morning made for a very good start.  And it was still only mid-afternoon on Day 1 ... what was next?

Pink-headed Warbler and Blue-throted Motmot
(Two of the star endemics of the Guatemalan Highlands)

"Next" turned out to be the Tecpan area and a site for another nemesis bird of mine, the UNSPOTTED SAW-WHET OWL.   This was a bird I've looked for twice unsuccessfully, both times in Costa Rica, and so another chance was most welcome.  The exact site had to be withheld at Knut's request and the arrival of two local guys with shotguns who escorted us into and out of the area was a definite reminder that we were off the beaten track here.  The site, more beautiful mixed forest quickly provided more lifers for me with Black-throated Jay and Rufous-collared Robin joining the life list.  As the light fell, we also had quite a night-bird treat with Mexican Whip-poor-wills, Whiskered Screech-Owls and Northern (Guatemalan) Pygmy-Owl all calling their hearts out around us and allowing themselves to be seen.  Then the Saw-Whet Owl also called and for the next hour or so we played a game of cat and mouse with it ... we would move, play the tape ... and the owl would fly over to a nearby tree and call back ... but never showed itself .... nothing more than hints of movement in the shadows.  But at least I heard it this time ... one day I will see one.

Wednesday, August 15 - Tecpan to Santiago Atitlán

After another morning in the Tecpan area we headed out towards the famous, and stupidly scenic Lake Atitlán for a two night stay.  The site of a sad extinction story where the Atitlán Grebe slipped away into oblivion as a result of human stupidity (the introduction of Large-mouth Bass for sport fishing) and a natural disaster (an earthquake that lowered the lake and eliminated feeding and breeding areas) I'd long wanted to see this place.  That a species survived here at all on such a tiny and fragile lake was a wonder in and of itself.  Still, I wish I'd been here earlier to see it, although it was gone before I started world-birding.

While our first views of the lake were scenic and high up, our first birding was at a place called IMAP where I added my life SLENDER SHEARTAIL and White-faced Ground-Sparrows.  Then a very pleasant evening ensconced at the comfortable Hotel Bambú with good food, decent wine and great views of the lake.

Slender Sheartail

Thursday, August 16 - Santiago Atitlán Area

Today I had a choice ... attempt a death march up the volcano with Knut, Michael and Carlos for Horned Guan, a bird I desperately wanted to see, or take it easier and bird some local cloud forest for a bunch of life birds.  A recent surgery made the volcano climb inadvisable and, as much as I wanted to try it, I knew I'd just slow the others down, so ended up going for the softer option.

The cloud forest option turned out to be perfectly great and I ended up adding 8 life birds with Rolando Torres on the trails at Rey Tepepul.  The adds included 3 life hummingbirds - Wine-throated Hummingbird, Green-throated Mountain-Gem and Emerald-chinned Hummingbird - plus Azure-rumped Tanager, Scaly-throated Foliage-gleaner, and Black Thrush.  The last two were the, always hard to see, White-faced Quail Dove and the long-wanted Spotted Nightingale-Thrush, a bird I've salivated over in field guides for twenty years and never connected with.  A very nice day.

Wine-throated Hummingbird and Guatemalan Tyrannulet

After my birding morning, I ordered a nice lunch and a margarita, took a nap and was reading by the pool when I heard the sound of sobbing and shuffling on the path to the room.  Michael and Carlos had triumphed and seen the Horned Guan but at great physical cost it would seem as they limped back to the hotel in search of a hot tub or alcohol or both.  Physically I clearly made the right choice ... but maybe there are some Horned Guans closer to the road somewhere?

Friday, August 17 and Saturday, August 18 - Los Tarrales

A quick stop for the last major target bird of the trip, the BELTED FLYCATCHER, which despite Knut's pessimistic expectation management showed itself easily at Finca Santa Victoria.

Rusty Sparrow

Then the long drive to Los Tarrales was made longer by a defective van that couldn't break without an ominous wobbling and shuddering sensation and so the driver stayed stubbornly in second gear the whole way.  Once we arrived though, and sent the driver back to get a replacement van, we settled in to great food, nice rooms, and an afternoon/evening that alternated between birding around the lodge and drinking wine and reading bird books in the library.  Sure the rain was torrential but the settings were scenic and we still managed to whittle out some good life birds (White-breasted Chachalaca and Yellow-naped Parrot) and the lodge itself with it's faded affluence, bird art collection and welcoming staff made for a very pleasant experience.

The rain, mercifully had stopped in time for our last morning of birding where a Mottled Owl called to us as we climbed into a four-wheel-drive vehicle for the climb up to the higher altitude forests on the preserve.  I tried scoping the cloud forest for a Horned Guan (technically possible I suppose) but most of the day was spent slowly descending through the forest and we did encounter a good mix of species.  Highlights for me were lifer Blue-tailed Hummingbird, Ruddy Woodcreeper, and a BLUE SEEDEATER, a bird I really had not expected to see.  Carlos and Michael also got to catch up on some of the species I'd seen two days before and in total we rounded off a very nice list for a short trip.

Food was overshadowed by the Mexico trip but here a traditional Mayan
Fish Stew

Then back to Guatemala City, a delayed flight and a bouncy red-eye back to New York.  Overall a very nice trip and I definitely left wishing I had another week this time.  I think I'll be back, and not just for that pesky Honed Guan.