When it comes to bird spectacles, the bustling breeding cliffs of Northern Hemisphere seabirds are in a class of their own. And my favorite such cliff is on the Pribilofs on Saint Paul Island–a tiny flyspeck of land in the middle of the vast Bering Sea. It’s one of the first places we visit on our Alaska tour, and the combination of frenetic activity and arm’s length birding makes for a truly unforgettable experience.

Black-legged Kittiwake carrying nesting material. Photo by guide Dave Stejskal.

The rocky headland of Ridge Wall juts out into the cold sea like the prow of a very tall ship. We leave the warmth of the bus and walk a narrow track toward the water, weaving through colorful patches of emerging Arctic wildflowers. Ahead of us, birds stream back and forth along the edge of the cliff, wings churning. As we reach the headland, the scene expands. All around us, birds flash like flakes in a giant snow globe. Hundreds more dot the surface of the water below. Even when they dive, we can still see them, “flying” through the clear green water in pursuit of prey. A cacophony of sound rises from the colony: the onomatopoeic “kittiwake” of Black-legged Kittiwakes, the high, excited trills of Least Auklets, the throaty, nasal laughter of murres, and the occasional sputtering roar of a distant Northern Fur Seal. The fishy smell of guano hangs heavy in the air. “Smells like birds,”someone quips

Below us, bunched on crowded ledges, Common and Thick-billed murres jostle for position, their beaks pointed skyward. Pairs of Parakeet Auklets squabble over turf. Crested Auklets preen and wag their crests at each other. Red-faced Cormorants add giant mouthfuls of damp vegetation to growing nests. Horned and Tufted puffins doze at burrow entrances, their bright beaks glowing against the dark volcanic rock. Pairs of Northern Fulmars gently nibble each other’s neck feathers. In every direction, birds are doing the things birds do–and our clifftop perch gives us the perfect location from which to watch and photograph.

Two cliff-nesters, Tufted Puffin and Parakeet Auklet, photographed on St. Paul Island by guide Dave Stejskal.

Once everyone’s gotten a good look at all possible lifers, we can settle down to learning more: about how the various species divvy up the cliff so that each gets its preferred nest site, about the courtship and nesting strategies of the cliff ’s inhabitants, of the subtle differences between Red legged and Black-legged kittiwakes in flight, the best ways to distinguish Common Murres from Thick-billed Murres at a distance, the key field marks for identifying auklets on the water. By the time we leave the island, we’ll have had multiple hours in which to practice and hone our skills.

And we’ll have had multiple hours of enjoying thousands of birds going about their busy lives–feeding, courting, preening, resting–within mere yards of where we stood. In the world of bird spectacles, that’s mighty hard to beat!

The fabulous Ridge Wall on St. Paul Island allows birders to get up close and personal with a great variety of nesting seabirds. Photo by guide Megan Crewe.

Check out our 2012 Alaska tour dates (two departures, each in two parts) by visiting our Alaska tour page. And if you can’t make it to Alaska in June? We have a few other tours that also feature breeding seabird cliffs. Try Scotland: Famous Grouse in the Land of Whisky in April, Ireland in Spring in May, Newfoundland & Nova Scotia in late June, or Spitsbergen & Svalbard Archipelago: A Cruise to the Norwegian Arctic in late June.

In addition to being spectacular, the avifauna of Northern Peru is a threatened one. As a rough count, we encountered one Critically Endangered, eight Endangered, 16 Vulnerable, and 13 Near Threatened species, based on the designations of BirdLife International.

A few of the standouts of Northern Peru on a tour that's loaded with them: from left, Chapman's Antshrike, Marvelous Spatuletail, Rufous-eared Brush-Finch, and Gray-breasted Mountain-Toucan. Photos by guide Richard Webster.

Our first birding in the Maranon basin was around Jaen, where we saw “Chinchipe” and Maranon spinetails, Maranon Crescentchest, and Little Inca-Finch, the first of three inca-finches.  Starting up the Rio Utcubamba, we found a Fasciated Tiger-Heron before (thank you for forgetting so quickly) scrubbing our Long-whiskered Owlet attempt at Yambrasbamba. The next morning started with a formidable hike that struck lucky gold in the form of Pale-billed Antpitta, with some bonuses such as Trilling Tapaculo and Peruvian Wren.  We then joined those who had not made the hike at the Huembo Spatuletail Visitor Center, where the feeders were doing wonderfully well, with multiple adult male spatuletails returning regularly, along with a nice variety of other Andean hummingbirds.

The recently discovered—and smallest of all owls—Long-whiskered Owlet, photographed by guide Richard Webster.

With five nights at Owlet Lodge we had time (but never enough time, like a lifetime) to enjoy the east slope.  Foremost good fortune was our success with Long-whiskered Owlet; fabulous! Around the lodge, a new antpitta feeding program produced great views of Undulated, while Ochre-fronted and Rusty-tinged were heard at close range. The stunted forest down the road produced Royal Sunangel and Bar-winged Wood-Wren. Birding the wet forest patches lengthened the list greatly, especially with tanagers, including Yellow-crested, Golden-eared, and Black-bellied.

The Utcubamba Valley took us past Peruvian Pigeons to Leimebamba, where a forested gorge had Graybreasted Mountain-Toucan, Golden-headed Quetzal, and White-collared Jay.  The higher slopes of Abra Barro Negro had more specialties, including Coppery Metaltail, Rufous and Rusty-breasted antpittas, and Russet-mantled Softtail at first light after Swallow-tailed Nightjar. Crossing into the Maranon Valley took us down to the steep desert slopes above Balsas, where we had luck with the scarce Yellow-faced Parrotlet and the more predictable Buff-bridled Inca-Finch.

Emerald-bellied Puffleg was fairly common at the Owlet Lodge. Photo by guide Richard Webster.

Leaving our scenic camp the next morning, we ascended the western Andes past Gray-winged Inca-Finch, White-tailed Shrike-Tyrant, and Black-crested Tit-Tyrant to find the lovely Rufous-eared Brush-Finch near Celendin.  We managed to find another type of Rufous Antpitta and Andean Hillstar before hurrying on to the Rio Chonta and the one endangered Gray-bellied Comet we could find, fortunately a wonderfully cooperative comet.

There is much, much more; to read Richard and Rose Ann’s complete report, visit our tour page where you may download the triplist for this year as well as a tour itinerary.  Our next Northern Peru: Endemics Galore tour is scheduled for November 4-24, 2012 with Richard Webster and Mitch Lysinger. If a three-week birding holiday is not feasible for you, we also have Peru’s Magnetic North: Spatuletails, Owlet Lodge & More, a shorter tour which visits some of the same areas; it’s scheduled for June 30-July 10, 2012 with John Rowlett and Pepe Rojas. For complete tour schedules for all our guides, visit our guide page.

A scenic lunch stop at Estancia Chillo. Photo by guide Rose Ann Rowlett.

Our January 2012 Field Guides newsletter is online in PDF format…Fresh From The Field includes some great photos from recent tours, and we’ve got articles on Alaska seabirds, Asia, Northern Peru, and Suriname, plus more…click below to read on! (If you are on our mailing list, you should be receiving your own copy soon.)

January Field Guides newsletter

Our January e-mailing is now posted! It includes recent photos from our tours to Madagascar, Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, and Argentina, tour updates for Best of the Pacific Northwest, Honduras: Land of the Emeralds, Southeast Ontario: Winter Birds, and Jaguar Spotting, two new slideshows (Oman/UAE and Northern Peru), and last spaces on tours from January through June. Also noted: links to recently posted itineraries and triplists. You can see it all by clicking on the link or image below—enjoy!

January 2012 E-mailing

With the prospects for some good winter owling in southern Ontario, based on early reports, we’ve tentatively scheduled a Southeast Ontario: Winter Birds tour, now moved to February 21-25 since winter has been so late in arriving.

This distracted us a little from the birding on our 2011 Jaguar Spotting tour...! (Photo by guide Marcelo Padua)

We’ll now accept bookings for the Ontario tour with no obligation until January 23, when we’ll decide whether to run the tour based on an updated evaluation of the birding prospects. (As of this update on January 6, there is one space still open on the tour.)

We’ve had a lot of interest in our originally scheduled Jaguar Spotting tour to Brazil with guide Marcelo Padua (Jul 21-Aug 1, 2012; it is now waitlisted), and so we’ve added a second departure for Jul 7-18, 2012 (moved one day later than originally announced), also to be guided by Marcelo.

Lots of great birds to be seen (of course!), and then there’s that big cat… Contact our office if you would like to hold a space, or visit our web page at the link above to see more about the tour, including a complete itinerary.

There are not many places left nowadays where you can go to “escape it all.” There is internet even at many remote lodges on the Amazon–lodges that didn’t have electricity until a few years ago–and guests can log on to find out the latest news, stock prices, and football scores. You can be in the middle of nowhere and yet not miss a step.

It's hard to imagine seeing trumpeters—here a Gray-winged—any better than you can in Suriname. Photo by guide Dan Lane.

But wait a second–what about visiting a place where you can leave the outside world behind, where the ups and downs of politics and the bad news that never seems to end simply melt away and you instead find yourself in the midst of vast stretches of pristine wilderness and incredible wildlife (including birds, of course!), with two full weeks to totally immerse yourself in this truly wild and wonderful place? If that’s what you’re looking for, think Suriname.

Suriname is South America’s smallest sovereign nation with a population under half-a-million people of a dozen tongues, the vast majority of whom live near the Caribbean coast. This immediately translates to “tens of thousands of square miles of undisturbed habitats with no people and no tongues,” definitely a wild & wonderful thing. Consider next that there are few roads anywhere into the interior, which means you have to take wild & wonderful charter flights into dirt airstrips in the middle of nowhere. As the porters scramble up to unload the plane at Foengoe Island and it hits you that the friendly pilot will now be leaving for…how many days was it?…you are overcome with the strangest mix of trepidation and excitement (after all, two hours in a big turbo-prop covers a good piece of ground) that, amazingly, vanishes instantly as a troop of earnestly prayed-for Red-fan Parrots squeals into the trees to check us out; yes, another w & w thing! One hour and nine lifers later, at the lodge down by the river, still trying to wrap your head around those macaws, you’re pleasantly surprised to see that the rooms are really neat and as you lather up in the shower, you find yourself smiling so much that you catch a mouthful of soap. Nothing like a frosty drink to reset the palate and, as we wrap up the daily list, it smells like there’s something tasty coming out of the kitchen. When it gets there, no one can identify it but heck, this is Suriname, and as you dig in, it actually turns out to be one of the best meals you ve had in forever.

More Wild & Wonderful, from left: Ornate Hawk-Eagle, Bronzy Jacamar, Crested Bobwhite, and Rose-breasted Chat. Photos by guide Dave Stejskal & participant Paul Thomas.

In this world where we can Skype from one side of the globe to the other, it’s nice to experience what it was like to travel just a few decades ago. If you are interested in refreshing your memory, come join us in Suriname!

Dan Lane, who, while he admits that it may sound a bit old-fashioned, says, “This is the way I like to spend time on a tour, enjoying the antics of Gray-winged Trumpeters or listening for the mooing call of a Capuchinbird high in the canopy, rather than checking on stocks at the end of the day…” will be taking a small group this March 2-17 to Suriname. For full details visit our tour page where you may download a detailed tour itinerary. You may also check out Dan’s bio and upcoming schedule at this link.

Guide Bret Whitney and his group enjoying looks at a riverside Zigzag Heron. Photo by guide Dan Lane.

Our November e-mailing is now posted! It includes recent photos from Kenya, Louisiana, Australia, and Cape May by our participants and guides, guide Jesse Fagan on Honduras, an added tour for Ontario’s owls and other great winter birds (January 2012), and last spaces on tours from December into the spring. Also noted: links to recently posted itineraries and triplists. You can see it all by clicking on the link or image below—enjoy!

November 2011 E-mailing

OK, it’s true, I don’t really hate pheasants. But the relationship is complicated!

You see, there are four species that are regularly seen in Bhutan, and we always see several and often all of them. But tour guides are really into control, and over pheasants we do not have much control. That’s the complication…

This Satyr Tragopan is not on a road. But you better believe it was just on a road! (Photo by guide Richard Webster)

Pheasants in Bhutan are most easily seen from the bus while driving along the road, which means we are dependent on the pheasants to step out onto the road just before we get to an unknowable “there,” not before some other vehicle gets to that spot. OK, so a bunch of luck is involved, but luck, as the saying goes, can be the residue of design, and we do have strategies.

Strategy number one is to be out early, or perhaps also late. What do pheasants do the rest of a nice day? I have no idea; readingWilliam Beebe’s A Monograph of the Pheasants on their 3G Kindles under a rhododendron has yet to be disproved as a possibility. In comparison with the introduced Ring-necked Pheasants we see in fields in North America, these pheasants are closely associated with forest and treeline scrub as cover, and they seem plenty savvy about sneaking away from approaching birders, even quiet approaching birders!

Blood Pheasants from the front and back photographed along the side of the road by guide Richard Webster.

What brings pheasants out of the forest? Bad Weather:  Neither sleet nor snow stops either our Post Office or pheasants, although the advent of electronic mail seems to be stopping our post office, whereas it is helping pheasants by reducing logging for paper production. Indeed, bad weather emboldens pheasants, so strategy number two is to make the best of bad luck. Last year we had wonderful looks at Blood Pheasants our first morning, and didn’t see any the rest of the trip because the weather was too nice. In other years, we have seen as many as 30 Blood Pheasants along the same roads during a late spring snow storm. You start to get the picture: Early + late or bad luck (weather), + some (good) luck = pheasants.

Pheasants are sexually dimorphic. So if a female Himalayan Monal steps out onto the road, is its ptarmigan-like beauty completely satisfying? Not for most of us. None of this electronic ink coloring for our tour groups; we are a Color Nook or iPad crowd, and we want males! Aaahh, another complication!

Bhutan offers other amazing birds and experiences beyond the glorious pheasants—Green-tailed Sunbird, lunch at Chele La, Ward's Trogon, and Rufous-necked Hornbill are just a few. (Photos by guides Richard Webster & Rose Ann Rowlett)

 For more information about our Bhutan trips, visit our web page for the tour.

Like most North American birders, you’ve probably wandered south from time to time, at least among the colorful plates of the many exciting books on the birds of South America. If you find the comfort of cooler temperatures appealing, you’ve probably been drawn to the birds of the Andean countries. If you have yet to make the plunge, which species do you dream of seeing? What would you list as the classiest birds of the Andes?

Powerful Woodpecker photographed by participant Kevin Heffernan.

Do you dream of Torrent Ducks repeatedly plunging from rocks into rushing water and bounding back onto the rocks? Do you imagine a White-capped Dipper hopping through the mist at the base of a tall waterfall? Or have the showier birds grabbed your attention? How about a tree full of displaying Andean Cocks-of-the-rock? Or maybe a fruiting tree with both Crested and Golden-headed quetzals? Surely you would include a mountain-toucan, probably Gray-breasted, for the dynamite colors on its bill! Then there’s the multicolored Toucan Barbet, with a bill so strange it has recently been accorded family rank (along with Prong-billed Barbet of Costa Rica and Panama). You might throw in a dramatically beautiful woodpecker, maybe a Powerful or a Crimson-mantled? How about a flock of Turquoise Jays, gleaming blue as they hop along mossy branches? If you’re into raptors, you’ve probably imagined a massive male Andean Condor circling in the sun below a snow-capped volcanic peak…or a Black-and-chestnut Eagle diving for prey at close range. If you love night birding, you may have imagined a spectacular male Lyre-tailed or Swallow-tailed Nightjar circling overhead, its tail streamers flowing in the spotlight. Oh, or maybe the mysterious Andean Potoo or a big, spectacular owl, something like Band-bellied perhaps? (Or how about an undescribed species!)

A pair of jewels, Brown Violet-ear and Velvet-purple Coronet. Photos by guide Richard Webster.

Speaking of spectacular, can it be that I haven’t yet mentioned hummingbirds or tanagers? These two families—at their greatest diversity in northwestern South America—must certainly contain among the foremost jewels of the Andes. But which species to include among the “classiest”?  Would it be the Sword-billed for its incredibly long bill? Or the male Booted Racket-tail with its unique tail and extensive, puffy boots? Or one of the long-tailed sylphs with their iridescent crowns and tails? For exuberant color, you might pick the chartreuse-and-violet Purple-backed Thornbill, the Glowing Puffleg (which glows all over!), the splendid Rainbow Starfrontlet, or the unreal Velvet-purple Coronet? There are so many gems among the hummers, it’s impossible to choose.

A pair of colorful tanagers, Blue-winged Mountain-Tanager and Golden-naped Tanager. Photos by guide Richard Webster & participant Alan Wight.

As for tanagers, one can throw the whole Thesaurus at the many colorful Tangaras that seem so distinctive on the plates and then challenge the observer to retain their complex patterns long enough for ID: things like Paradise, Flame-faced, Golden, and Golden-eared. And what about the lovely mountain-tanagers of the high-elevation forests…or the tasteful Iridisornis (like Golden-crowned Tanager)? You might have to consider the stunning Red-hooded Tanager that sings from treetops above epiphyte-laden cloud forest? And what of those noisy flocks of aberrant White-capped Tanagers, flying along a distant Andean ridge, that approach suddenly and begin screaming and bowing, jay-like, their plush white crowns erect? Would you include a Giant Conebill foraging under the tissue-like scales of the Polylepis bark?

A preeminent skulker, the Ocellated Tapaculo, photographed by guide Richard Webster.

If you’ve been to The Bird Continent, you may be dreaming of slightly more subtle species, perhaps some of the tougher ones, or some that have grabbed your attention for their unique behavior or structure or their specialized habitat. Maybe you dream of a pair of ptarmigan-like Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe picking through cushion plants on a paramo peak? You may be thinking of such scarce and intriguing loners as Black-streaked Puffbird, Lanceolated Monklet, or Scaled Fruiteater? If you’re into skulkers, you’ve probably mused about a big, spectacular Ocellated Tapaculo emerging from the bamboo to sit out sunning on a mossy log…or an Elegant Crescentchest working its way to the top of a dense thornbush in an arid interior valley…or a covey of twittering wood-quail (of any species!) emerging from the dark understory of a neblina-enveloped cloud forest? How about the scarce and aberrant Tanager Finch, with colors befitting a tanager but a brush-finch-like pattern and song (and now placed in the Emberizids)? If you’ve pored through the South American field guides, you could be lusting after an entire spectrum of shy and rarely seen antpittas, ranging from the largest (Giant) to the fanciest of the tiny Grallaricula’s (Crescent-faced). Of these rarely encountered ground-antbirds, the more the better!

And another skulker, the Chestnut-crowned Antpitta photographed by guide Richard Webster at San Isidro.

You may have caught the news in Science of the discovery of the stridulation mechanism—unique among vertebrates—by which a male Club-winged Manakin produces harmonic tones during his courtship display; it’s essentially the way a cricket produces its sound! If so, you’re likely to include that species in your “classiest” list. Or you may have read of such threatened species as Red-faced Parrot, White-necked Parakeet, or Orange-breasted Fruiteater and be eager to track them down. If you’re into birdsong, you may have read that scientists now regard the song of the group-living Plain-tailed Wren as “one of the most complex singing performances yet described in a nonhuman animal.” While some may dream of dramatic tanagers, a precisely singing Plain-tailedWren may be a jewel to you! (And while we’re dreaming, how about a Spectacled Bear?)

Well, you may have surmised by now that there’s only one Field Guides tour on which every one of these species has been seen: our JEWELS OF ECUADOR: HUMMERS, TANAGERS & ANTPITTAS tour. Though we’ve never seen them all on any one tour (such is the nature of birding in the Andes), we keep trying—and we do see the majority on each tour. Some sixty-five species of hummers is par for the course, along with jillions of so-called “tanagers.” With some help from the antpitta feedings at Refugio Paz and San Isidro, we’ve actually seen as many as 10 of the 15 possible antpittas on one tour!

We typically see the beautiful “San Isidro Owl,” still undescribed officially as of this writing; we’ve seen coveys of Dark-backed Wood-Quail, and we’ve seen Spectacled Bear on at least five tours! In our 16 days of birding, we see oodles of additional species, of course, usually totaling some 500+ species. How’s that for an immersion in Andean birding? In the process we stay in some wonderful settings (right in good habitat), eat gourmet food, and enjoy wonderful Ecuadorian hospitality. JEWELS offers a good introduction to South American birds, and it’s great for veterans as well. In fact, you veterans should hear some late-breaking news: Marcelo at San Isidro recently succeeded in training a Peruvian Antpitta (such a rare and recent addition to the Ecuador list that it’s not even in the book) to come for bits of earthworms! Feelin’ lucky? Come join us for one of our upcoming tours to survey the Jewels of Ecuador.

A few more hummers of the sixty-five or so usually seen: Empress Brilliant, Violet-tailed Sylph, and Long-tailed Sylph, photographed by guides John Rowlett, Jan Pierson & Richard Webster.

Though it hardly seems possible to me, we’ve been visiting northern India now for over ten years, and by carefully tweaking the itinerary here and there, we have what we think is the very best tour available. From the misty dawns among the waterfowl at Bharatpur to the clear air and forests of Corbett National Park, with Indian Elephant, Spotted Deer, and Wild Boar, Ibisbill on the river at Ramnagar, and woodpeckers, redstarts, forktails, and laughingthrushes in the Himalayan foothills, we visit all the best areas on the northern subcontinent.

The common and gorgeous (and wild!) Indian Peafowl photographed by participants David & Judy Smith.

A boat trip on the Chambal River, near Agra and the TajMahal, is a recent addition to the tour. Here, Red-naped Ibis walk along the banks, Black-bellied Terns feed over the open water, and (with luck) the endangered Ganges Dolphin surfaces close by. To the south, Kanha National Park, where we spend three nights, is the best place in all of India to see that most magnificent of cats—the fabulous Tiger! The park also gives us a chance for the rare Dhole (or IndianWild Dog), Gaur, Sloth Bear, and even Leopard, as well as a number of birds that should include Painted Francolin, Alexandrine Parakeet, SirkeerMalkoha, Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, Asian Paradise-Flycatcher, and Indian Scimitar-Babbler. In several areas we benefit from the assistance of some excellent local guides, giving us an even better chance than ever to see some of the rarer species like White-rumped and Indian vultures (both critically endangered) or a Tawny Fish-Owl, perhaps a fruiting tree with hornbills, barbets, and greenbuls or a dense thicket with a wintering Siberian Rubythroat or secretive Long-billed Thrush.

Bengal Tiger photographed by participant Marshall Dahl in Kanha NP.

But northern India isn’t just about traveling from one birding hotspot to another. For a first-time visitor, the sheer mass of vibrant color, gorgeous women in saris, vegetable stalls piled high with produce, unfamiliar smells of unusual spices, and the jostle of camel carts, rickshaws, painted trucks, and buses will all have your senses running amok. Add to this some of India’s most famous historical sights, including the Palace of Akbar the Great and the just out-of-thisworld Taj Mahal, and Northern India really is a tour not to be missed.

Visit our Northern India tour’s web page for more information including an itinerary and some past triplists.

A few images from Northern India: the glorious Taj Mahal; Brahminy Starling; Rose-ringed Parakeet; and Eurasian Spoonbill. Photos by participants David & Judy Smith & Marshall Dahl.