January 16-28, 2025 with Marcelo Barreiros & John Christian
The name "wilderness" could not better describe Guyana. This country is so biodiverse that we could spend a month traveling from North to South and still find great wildlife. As usual, we spent the first day visiting the Guyana Botanical Gardens, an oasis for birds in the big city of Georgetown. In a couple of hours of birding, we saw some of the main targets for the area, like Blood-colored Woodpecker, White-bellied Piculet, Straight-billed Woodcreeper, and the main one for the day, Festive Parrot. The next morning was a nice boat ride along the Mahaica river for Little Cuckoo, Black-crested Antshrike, Green-tailed Jacamar, Silvered Antbird and Guianan Red Howler Monkey. After this nice full day, we flew to the majestic Kaieteur Falls, the place to find the rare Orange-breasted Falcon, Red-Shouldered Tanager, Black Manakin, Rufous-crowned Elaenia and the gorgeous Golden Rocket Frog. Our days at the first lodge in the forest, Iwokrama River Lodge were amazing, with Gray-winged Trumpeter, Guianan Puffbird, Collared Puffbird, Ferruginous-backed Antbird, and one of the biggest stars of the Amazon, a Harpy Eagle seen on a potential nest tree.
The next place was Atta Lodge, with its fantastic clearing and the Cecropia sp. trees where we saw some great species like Black-spotted Barbet, Guianan Toucanet, Bay-headed Tanager, Black-necked Aracari, and one of the greatest moments of the tour, a family of Crimson Fruitcrows coming to feed on it. We saw a pair of adults and a young being fed by the female for several minutes before disappearing into the forest again. Other highlights along the trails near to the lodge were Dusky Purpletuft, Guianan Red Cotinga, Black Manakin, Red-billed Woodcreeper, Black-throated Antshrike, Rufous-capped Antthrush, Guianan Warbling-Antbird, Blue-backed Tanager and during the night birding, Black-banded Owl and White-winged Potoo. On our way to Surama, we made a stop to see the gorgeous Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock again, and we had a pair of Spotted Antpitta on the same trail.
We had more adventures coming with 2 nights in Surama to explore a new habitat for us, the Rupununi Savanna, with great birds like Finsch's Euphonia, White-naped Xenopsaris, Ruddy-breasted and Gray seedeaters, Jabiru and Yellow-crowned Parrot. We also spent some time along the Buro-Buro trail, where a group of Gray-winged Trumpeters was heard but did not respond to the recording, and we saw White-browed Antbird, Cayenne Jay, Painted Parakeet and a few other birds moving with an understory flock. The next morning of birding in the forest was interrupted by a heavy rain, so we decided to drive towards Lethem, our final destination, with a few very productive stops to see White-bellied Antbird, Pale-eyed Pygmy-Tyrant, Crested Doradito, Crested Bobwhite, Pinnated Bittern, Maguari Stork and a massive flock of Jabiru and Wood Stork with hundreds of birds together. Before the end of the day we also saw Hepatic Tanager, Double-striped Thick-knee and a group of Nacunda Nighthawk flying over the air strip. After that, we went to the border with Brazil to look for other important birds, including two special ones, Hoary-throated Spinetail and Rio Branco Antbird, both seen very well, along with Slate-headed Tody-tyrant, Pale-tipped Tyrannulet, Green-rumped Parrotlet.
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/335840
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/guy25aTRIPLIST.pdf
-- Marcelo Barreiros