
## Day 1

After taking an Uber from Guatemala City to Antigua and arriving earlier than expected, I decided to go birding at Finca El Pilar for a few hours. Unfortunately, I discovered it was closed Dec 24 and 25. This meant I needed to change up my plans a little. I birded the entrance road and then went downtown to the central park where I found **Pacific Parakeets**. The pictures were pretty bad, so I won't be sharing them here! 😆

## Day 2

I had planned to go to Finca El Pilar today, but since it was closed, I decided get an Uber to **Rincon Suizo** area near Tecpán instead. There's a dirt road about a half mile down the road from the Rincon Suizo restaurant where you can walk for many miles up to **Finca El Espinero**. This property was closed, but there was plenty of good birding along the road until reaching the property. My main targets were **Pink-headed Warbler** and **Garnet-throated Hummingbird**. I was successful with both! I finished the day birding the short paved path behind the **Rincon Suizo** restaurant where I got **Blue-throated Motmot**.

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<EbirdImage id="ML613052451" text="A really horrible picture, but a species I was thrilled to see." lifer />
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## Day 3

I was finally able to bird Finca El Pilar, one of the best birding hotspots in the area. You can hike all the way up to the summit which is about 16 km round trip. I didn't go all the way to the top today. I probably made it about half way and spent some time at the feeders at at the beginning. Below are some of the highlights from the day.

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## Day 4

This was the big day where I hiked all the way to the top of Finca El Pilar. I walked as fast as I could as to spend as much time at the summit as I could before closing time. There were a number of interesting birds that could theoretically be seen at the summit but that only target I successfully found was **Wine-throated Hummingbird**.

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## Day 5

This was only a partial day as I had to catch my shuttle back to the airport in Guatemala City. Here's a few of the hgihtlights from the day.

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Antigua and Tecpán

Guatemala


While this trip was not primarily a birding trip, we did fit in plenty of birding! Rio Mismaloya was a short drive from our Airbnb so we made several visits there. It's an excellent spot for **Military Macaw** and many other species. It's also the only place we had **Colima Pygmy-Owl** and **Mexican Woodnymph**, which can be a difficult bird to track down.

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After a couple days birding around our Airbnb we took a day trip to to the Botanical Gardens. It was the perfect place to spend the whole day since there is a restaurant with lovely balcony overlooking the bird feeders and natural beauty. Renae and Stephanie spent the day relaxing while Tanner and birded. My number one target was **Mexican Hermit**.

The restaurant waiter saw the hermit at least once while Tanner and I were looking but it disappeared after a few seconds. We ended up waiting over 8 hours before we both finally got pictures of it! We were thrilled to also see **Sparkling-tailed Hummingbirds** which the local birders told us should be gone by now.

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We also made a stop by Rancho Primavera which we were optimistic about since they have feeders. Unfortunately the feeders were not filled until later in the morning after the bird activity had already died down. It was a decent place to hear (but not see) **Thicket Tinamou** and also get nice close views of **Military Macaw**. I believe at least one or some of the macaws were rescued and then released. We saw at least 5 or 6 in the vicinity though, so I'm sure some of them were fully wild.

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Our next big adventure a couple days later was going to La Bufa near the town of San Sebastián, about a 3 hours drive from Puerto Vallarta. We almost didn't go since the eBird bar charts for most of our target species looked really bad. We wondered if we would even come out with 2 or 3 lifers. However, there were only a handful of checklists from the entire summer so we decided to take a gamble and go. And oh boy did it pay off! I had about 21 lifers and tanner had 29!

We spent the entire day, about 9 hours, slowly driving up the dirt road stopping at almost every pullout to bird for a while until we reached the top, then did the same thing coming back down. I had no trouble driving our little Toyota Yaris up the road. A 4x4 vehicle is not necessary, though take that with a grain of salt since I take our Corolla on some pretty sketchy roads.

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Puerto Vallarta, Mexico


This last May I joined my family on a vacation to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. I was able to get a few lifers, but the trip was mostly about relaxing and spending time with family. We spent most of our time around Playa del Carmen, checking out the Cenotes, shopping, eating, etc. We did manage to fit in a day trip to Cozumel which I reserved exclusively for birding while they did a snorkeling trip.

Here's a selection of the birds I had around Playa del Carmen.

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The Cacique was surprisingly difficult to track down.

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And here's a selection of the birds I had on Cozumel, starting with my favorite endemic! Well, there's only two endemics on Cozumel, but still.

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The Emerald was more challenging to get a good photo of.

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I walked about 3 miles each way to the sewer treatment plant just for the Ruddy Crake, but it paid off! I saw it immediately after arriving.

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Caribbean Dove was extremely challenging to get pictures of. I spent probably over an hour bush whacking trying to get a glimpse of it. It was calling continuously from high in the trees.

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Playa del Carmen & Cozumel

Yucatán, Mexico


My wife and I had planned to rent a camping van and stay at various places around the country. We tried it for a couple days and quickly realized we wanted a real shower and toilet, so we ditched the camping and stayed at a nice AirBnB! As a result, I didn't see nearly as many birding places as I wanted, but I did manage to spend a day birding Monteverde at the [Curi-Cancha Reserve](https://ebird.org/checklist/S127884204). This was by far the best birding of the trip. I ran into a couple from Turkey and Switzerland who were also birding, and we had a great time together.

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The rest of the trip was spent in the Nicoya Peninsula, primarily in Playa Carrillo. Here's some of my favorite shots from there.

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Nicoya Peninsula and Monteverde

Costa Rica


This was my second trip to Puerto Rico. I had been previously on vacation just to the San Juan area, so I still had 4 endemics I needed to see, plus some other reasonable targets that are not endemic. I was hoping to see either a Ruddy or Key-west Quail Dove but that turned out to be a pipe dream.

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Puerto Rico


This was another vacation trip where I managed to fit in some birding. I wasn't exactly staying in prime areas for birding, so overall it wasn't my best birding trip, but I did pick up 35 lifers which was alright. My time was mostly split between Panama City area and the little island of Bocas Del Toro. I made it to the famous Pipeline Road spot about 40 mins out of Panama City on my first day. I wanted to go back but I ended up getting into a car accident (not my fault) which disrupted my plans a little! Regardless, here's a selection of some of my less bad shots.

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<EbirdImage id="ML496636091" text="Appropriately named" lifer />
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<EbirdImage id="ML496278911" text="First time seeing this striking subspecies!" />
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<EbirdImage
  id="ML497204901"
  text="One of the few birds that actually posed nicely. Taken at the Pipeline Road."
  lifer
/>

The gardens surounding the Biomuseum were surprisingly good for hummingbirds that I didn't see anywhere else.

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Bocas Del Toro and Panama City

Panama


While visiting family in the Los Angeles, area my wife and I found some really affordable flights to Puerto Vallarta. We made a short trip out there and I was able to do some casual birding. Here's a few of my favorite shots from the trip.

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<EbirdImage
  id="ML451546301"
  text="This species was supposed to be fairly uncommon but I regularly had them right around the AirBnb where we stayed."
  lifer
/>
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<EbirdImage
  id="ML451577561"
  text="Not the best picture, but I was excited to see a male. I've seen boring females in Texas."
/>
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After arriving in Quito we went to the Papallacta for a day. My wife and the others on the trip enjoyed the hot springs while I went birding. Numbers weren't great but it was certainly worthwhile. Here's a few of the highlights.

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The rest of the time I spent casually birding around Mindo. One particular place, San Tadeo, really stood out. They have hummingbird and fruit feeders. Here's a few of my favorites.

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In addition, I paid for the half-day birding tour at the famous Refugio Paz de las Aves (Angel Paz). The owner hand feeds the antpittas and the refuge also provides great looks at many other species. I had 70 species in one morning. Here's a few highlights.

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Here's a few others from various locations around Mindo.

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Mindo and Papallacta

Ecuador


Even though the Galapagos Islands have a relatively low bird species abundance, the species they do have are quite unique. I found the birds and other wildlife to be quite approachable which afforded great photo ops. I went to the islands of Santa Cruz, Isabella, San Cristobol, and a short trip to Floreana. The purpose of my trip was not soley birding, so I didn't make it out to the far side of Isabella where the Flightless Cormorants are found.

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<EbirdImage
  id="ML361218541"
  text="I had the best success with Waved Albatross on the boats between the islands."
  lifer
/>

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Unfortunately I didn't do quite as well with the endemic shearwater and petrel.

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<EbirdImage
  id="ML361252091"
  text="I thought I would have a difficult time with these, but after searching for and finding this one I incidentally saw several more"
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/>
<EbirdImage
  id="ML360633991"
  text="This was possibly the biggest highlight of the trip. They're extremely secretive and very few people have photos of them at all. I was fortunate enough to get amazing views after putting in quite a bit of effort researching and searching in the field."
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/>
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<EbirdImage
  id="ML361209501"
  text={`Evidently at one point they moved all the Floreana Mockingbirds onto one or two offshore "rocks". Our boat circled one of them and I was eventually able to spot one on a cactus. There's only about 750 left in the wild, 70 of which were evidently on the rock we visited (Champion).`}
  lifer
/>
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<EbirdImage
  id="ML363169581"
  text="This was a pleasant surprise. I randomly came across it while out cycling the highlands of Santa Cruz in search of a Brujo Flycatcher. I only ever saw a Brujo briefly from a bus."
/>
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At the end of the trip I hiked the Sierra Negra volcano on Isabella. I had several target species including the Hawk and Martin for which I thought my chances were pretty low. Thankfully I had great success with both!

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The finches were kinda tough to identify, but thankfully I saw so many that I was able to feel confident about my identifications. Some have such massive bills that they're undoubtedly Large Ground-Finch, and some islands have Medium-Ground Finches but not Large, so it all worked out.

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<EbirdImage id="ML361237541" text="Such a cool name!" lifer />
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Some additional shots from the trip:

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Trip Reports

Guatemala

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Yucatán, Mexico

Costa Rica

Puerto Rico

Panama

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Ecuador

Galapagos Islands

Adam Jackson

Birding Life List

Lists

Stuff I've Built