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| Unspotted Saw-whet Owl |
Our guide was John Cahill, a young man who grew up from the age of 5 in Guatemala, and started birding very early in life. He did his first country-wide Birding Big Year at the age of 15 before he could even drive a car, and then his second when he was 17. Both times he set the Big Year record which hasn't been equalled yet. A real Kenn Kaufman (Kingbird Highway) story, set in Guatemala, if you can get him to tell you about it. John is now the founder of Xikanel Birding Adventures (pronounced Shik-a-nel). John runs the company with his brother Sunshine (Peter) who we'll meet a little later in this story. John's parents still live in Guatemala and there's much to tell about their story and work in the country. I'll get to that in a later post. It's quite impressive.
John's birding skills are among the best we've seen with a guide, and that's saying something. He knows instantly every sound in the forest, from warbler chip notes to bird song. And he's always correct. He has that amazing ability to see through the densest forest to find the movement, and then get us on the bird. Really quite remarkable. He knows the country from one end to the other, and where to find the birds. Consider this: John sits at #1 with 707 species lifetime in eBird (96% of all species ever seen in GT), and in 17 birding days in-country he showed us 429 species, good enough for Top 10 in Guatemala for all of 2021 (when we left for home). Amazing! And beside's John's outstanding birding and guiding skills, he's an extremely pleasant person to spend a couple weeks with.
We arrived late in the afternoon on November 30, and after fighting our way through traffic in Guatemala City we were on our way to the west slope and the Pacific. Our first stop was a large private farm in the highlands with extensive remnant forest habitat for a morning of birding and introduction to the birds of Guatemala.
eBird list Finca Caleras Chichavac
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| Blue-and-White Mockingbird |
And yes, we saw our first Pink-headed Warbler there. But no, I didn't get any photos of the quick little b*stards... But that would change later in the trip!
Later in the morning we birded another spot nearby with lots of great birds.
In the afternoon we moved further west to the city of Quetzaltenango. We were in the volcanic highlands now and the scenery didn't disappoint. We arrived with enough time for a bit of birding in the late afternoon, with of course many new and great birds spotted.
As we passed through Quetzaltenango on our way birding, we picked up John's brother Sunshine who had just arrived from Mexico by bus. Sunshine was on his Christmas break from University in Chiapas Mexico where he is studying for his Masters. Sunshine would remain with us for the remainder of the trip. And what a great addition he was! An expert birder himself and extremely nice person, it's always great to have more eyes on the forest to find the good birds!
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| Christmas in Quezaltenango |
Were we done for the day yet? Not even close. After dinner we were back in the mountains nearby hunting one of the toughest owls to see anywhere - Unspotted Saw-whet Owl. We had done an all-nighter in Costa Rica a couple years ago chasing these guys with nothing but "Heard Only" to report, so we were keen to give it another try. John's local guide had numerous owl territories to try, and in the end we visited a number of them. Early on we had poor luck with no owls responding to playback. Not ready to give up, and living by one of our favorite mottos when birding, "Sleep when you're dead," we pressed on to another ridge and more owl territories. Here we started hearing birds, but way off in the forest. Finally at after midnight, a bird started calling near the road. We followed the sound and the guys kept hunting and hunting the trees with their lights. Bingo, they had one! The bird gave us several minutes of viewing, and even time for some photos illuminated with nothing but flashlights. This is one tough bird to see, and we got one! Awesome!
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| Unspotted Saw-whet Owl |
By the time we were back to our room it was after 2 am, but there were places to go and birds to see, so we set the alarm for 5:00...
We didn't have far to travel later that morning. At dawn we were at an overlook over a deep canyon watching the sun come up on Volcán Santa María, and ticking off life birds.
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| Susan, Sunshine, and John |
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| Santa Maria Volcano |
John had just the cure for our weariness, let's climb a volcano! And so we did, well at least part of one. We hiked a steep slippery trail up to a ridge near Volcán Pecúl.
There were a few birds to photograph during our morning visit, including one of my favorites from the trip - Wine-throated Hummingbird!
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| Wine-throated Hummingbird |
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| Brown-backed Solitaire |
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| Golden-browed Warbler |
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| Northern Emerald-Toucanet |
We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon near the the dam at Santa María de Jesús primarily to chase a real tough bird in the forest nearby - Azure-rumped Tanager. And we got to see a good size flock at distance. Not a great spot for photos, but fantastic birding.
eBird list Santa María de Jesús
December 3, 2021. On day 3 we were continuing downslope toward the Pacific coast. We birded our lodge grounds for a short time in the morning before moving on to the first highlight of the day - Takalik Abaj National Park.
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| The electricity we had at the lodge was created by small scale hydro on the property |
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| Drying coffee beans grown on the property |
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| Susan taking 5 at the lodge |
Takalik Abaj National Park is a pre-Columbian archeological site containing both Olmec (pre-Mayan) and Mayan features. Susan calls them cool rocks. To add to our cultural education, there is some great remnant forest at the site, and lots of terrific birds!
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| Lesser Nighthawk (digiscoped) |
Next up was the Pacific coast where John had a great stakeout bird for us. During his first big year, John found the first record for Giant Wren in Guatemala. They had been previously known just north of the border in Mexico, and at the time John couldn't see why a similar habitat south of the border wouldn't have the birds too. He was right at the time, and now there are several sites within a few miles of the border where this great bird can be found.
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| Giant Wren |
From the wren site we continued to a private shrimp farm where John had permission to bird. This is one of the few great shorebirding areas in the country, and Susan was feeling the need for some shorebirds. We spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through shorebirds and seeing some associated birds in the nearby trees.
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| Shrimp farm shorebirds |
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| Rufous-naped Wren |
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| Rufous-naped Wren |
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| Inca Doves |
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| Green Kingfisher |
I'll leave it here for this first installment, but as you can imagine there is lots more great birding adventures to come!
Your photos of the Unspotted are absolutely exceptional! I have seen a couple of them briefly in Chiapas and never even got close to getting shots of them.
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