Guide Jesse Fagan’s got our own shade-coffee-and-birds tour on tap with his upcoming March Guatemala: Shade-grown Birding tour (Feb 11-19), so this birds-and-coffee piece from the All About Birds website caught our eye…and check out the buying stats at the end.

 

Few Americans may have realized that our good neighbors in Canada have been in an election cycle of their own…for a national bird. Read more about it here, and decide for yourself which candidate you would support — are you a whisky jack at heart, or a diver, or perhaps something else?

 

Check out our Facebook page. Among other items are the latest posts from guides Tom Johnson and Bret Whitney from Part One of our Spectacular Southeastern Brazil tour, Megan Edwards Crewe from Sri Lanka, and a further update from our NW Argentina tour with Jesse Fagan and Willy Perez.

If you enjoy seeing images of guides and participants on our tours as much as we do, you’ll like this gallery of our favorite people pics from the past month. (Click on the play button in the gallery if you’d like to see it as a slideshow.) Always fun to see, so keep those photos coming!

 

Want to organize your own tour with a group of special birding friends and one of our staff guides? We regularly put together just such private departures for groups of 8 or more, and they are invariably a big hit. Here’s an example of an illustrated triplist from one such recent tour, a fantastic Borneo adventure with guides Rose Ann Rowlett and Richard Webster. You can start planning your group’s next great birding trip — just contact our office.

Click on any image below to see our annotated and illustrated online triplist. (And be sure also to see our November Recent Photos gallery for other great images.)

 

“This was a great experience! I have been with Willy Perez before and had a wonderful time, so I knew it would be great to travel with him again. This was my first time with Jesse Fagan, and I would gladly travel with him again. Both are great with birds and are also just fun people to be around.” K.L., Northwestern Argentina 2016

“I especially appreciated the helpfulness and prompt replies from the office staff. It is so great to reach a person instead of a recording with menu! When I could not reach the tour manager directly, she called back in a very short time.” M.S., Louisiana: Yellow Rails & Crawfish Tails 2016

“Every kaleidoscopic day brought a wealth of bird treasures, many above and beyond just seeing them. Bret Whitney was patient, persistent and always positive. This invariably paid off….for everyone. His description of each ‘chase’ bird as it was approaching or being called in gave everyone the notice of what to look for, where, and how. Tom Johnson was a delight every day. Cheerful, supportive and as accomplished at spotting and putting folks on the birds as one could hope for. Field Guides always ranks the highest for me in terms of service before, during, and after the tour.” B.W., Spectacular Southeast Brazil 2016 

Tour openings: January to April

If a blue-sky, emerald-sea, endemic-filled birding vacation sounds good, join guides Tom Johnson and Doug Gochfeld of their upcoming Puerto Rico tour, Mar 11-17. See Tom’s triplist here for all the highlights from our 2016 tour.

• Nowhere but Northeast Brazil!, Jan 9-27 with Bret Whitney & Dan Lane (3 spaces)
• Amazonian Ecuador: Sacha Lodge I, Jan 13-22 with Willy Perez (2 spaces)
• Thailand, Jan 14-Feb 4 with Dave Stejskal & Jay VanderGaast (1 space)
• Amazonian Ecuador: Sacha Lodge II, Feb 3-12 with Mitch Lysinger (2 spaces)
• Panama’s Canopy Tower I, Feb 5-11 with Chris Benesh (3 spaces) (this tour also has a 4-day extension to the Canopy Lodge to stretch your birding to Feb 15 if you’d like)
• Mexico: Oaxaca, Feb 11-18 with Dan Lane & Cory Gregory (4 spaces)
• Guatemala: Shade-grown Birding, Feb 11-19 with Jesse Fagan (spaces open)
• Trinidad & Tobago, Feb 11-20 with Tom Johnson (1 space)
• Borneo, Feb 28-Mar 17, Megan Edwards Crewe & local guide (1 space)
• Colombia: Santa Marta Escape, Mar 4-12 with Richard Webster (2 spaces)
• Brazil Nutshell I, Mar 4-18 with Marcelo Padua & Marcelo Barreiros (1 space)
• East Africa Highlights: Kenya & Tanzania, Mar 4-24 with Terry Stevenson (spaces open)
• Puerto Rico, Mar 11-17 with Tom Johnson & Doug Gochfeld (spaces open)
• Ecuador’s Wildsumaco Lodge, Mar 12-22 with Willy Perez (2 spaces)
• Costa Rica, Mar 19-Apr 3 with Jay VanderGaast & Cory Gregory (3 spaces)
• Jewels of Ecuador II, Mar 21-Apr 7 with Willy Perez (2 spaces)
• Brazil Nutshell II, Mar 25-Apr 8 with Marcelo Padua (spaces open)
• Bahamas Endemics & Kirtland’s Warbler, Apr 1-7 with Jesse Fagan (4 spaces)
• Belize: Tropical Birding, Short & Sweet, Apr 1-8 with Megan Edwards Crewe (spaces open)
• Colorado Grouse I, Apr 1-11 with Chris Benesh & Dave Stejskal (1 space)
• Bhutan, Apr 8-27 with Richard Webster (1 space)
• Colorado Grouse II, Apr 9-19 with Tom Johnson & Cory Gregory (1 space)
• Texas Coast Migration Spectacle I, Apr 15-21 with John Coons (1 space)
• Do the Charleston: Spring in South Carolina, Apr 23-29 with Jesse Fagan (spaces open)

Recently posted 2017 itineraries

• Alaska I Part One, May 30-Jun 7, 2017 with Chris Benesh & Tom Johnson
• Alaska I Part Two, Jun 6-16, 2017 with Chris Benesh & Tom Johnson
• Alaska II Part One, Jun 6-14, 2017 with Megan Edwards Crewe & Doug Gochfeld
• Alaska II Part Two, Jun 13-23, 2017 with Megan Edwards Crewe & Doug Gochfeld
• Mongolia: The Gobi Desert, Steppe & Taiga, Jun 1-18, 2017 with Phil Gregory
• Kenya Safari Spectacular, Jun 2-26, 2017 with Terry Stevenson
• Brazil’s Rio Roosevelt: Birding the River of Doubt, Jun 9-23 with Bret Whitney
• Machu Picchu & Abra Malaga, Peru I, Jul 7-16 with Jesse Fagan
• Machu Picchu & Abra Malaga, Peru II, Aug 3-12 with Jesse Fagan & Cory Gregory