Field Guides Birding Tours: January 2010 E-mailing

Happy New Year to all! Have fun identifying some of the recent photos at left, then check our cheat sheet below! All are from our January recent photos gallery (El Salvador, Guatemala, SE Brazil, Australia, Antarctica, and Chile).

Kenya tour spaces? Yes, it's true!
For the first time in years, we have spaces open on Terry Stevenson's Kenya tours, limited to 6 participants (June 25 and October 1 departures). A fluke, or the economy—who knows, but your benefit! If you've been disappointed by full tours before, 2010 may be your year for Kenya...

Cool Bird News: Club-winged Manakin Vibes
Many of you who've been with us to Ecuador have enjoyed sightings of Club-winged Manakins and heard their bizarre display sounds. A recent post on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's blog reports on a Proceedings of the Royal Society article about how the sounds are produced. Check it all out, including some fun display video, at this link. Very cool!

Virtual Antarctica: see George's tour pix
Whether you've been to Antarctica already or not, you'll want to see guide George Armistead's slideshow of images from his recent Field Guides tour—some really beautiful material (and he got to bird with his dad!). George will be reprising the trip, this time on the expedition ship Plancius, January 5-26, 2011. E-mail our office if you are interested!

Jesse

“Jesse Fagan runs a great trip—always thoughtful and eager for the group to have the best experience and see all the birds. This tour was fabulous—lots of birds, lots of hiking to find them, wonderful cultural exposure."
—M.R., Guatemala Thanksgiving 2009

Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air -- View it online
Did you miss the January 10 airing of this show? Fear not! If you love hummers (who doesn’t?) and want to see fantastic new footage and gain some great insights into these avian jewels, you can now view this new episode in the Nature series online here. It’s fabulous, so don’t miss it!

New on the Field Guides Website
We've added new posts to our website since our last emailing...have you missed some? (You can subscribe to our RSS feed here to keep up.) Check out links to what's been happening below:

Louisiana: Red Beans & Yellow Rails Birding Wrap-Up — As guide Dan Lane noted, southwestern Louisiana in November is definitely the land of bird biomass—not to mention some great must-see species like those rails in the tour name! Our inaugural runs were great fun.

Kenya Birding Wrap-Up — A simply amazing diversity of birds and mammals to be seen by our groups—it never gets old!

Spectacular Southeast Brazil Birding Wrap-Up — Our Atlantic Forest exploration from end to end, now split into Parts I and II.

Recently Posted Triplists and Itineraries
Check our recent triplists post for reports from our various groups and guides—Bolivia, Cape May, Mountains of Manu (Peru), Safari Brazil, Chile, Birding Plus Ireland (Birds, Traditional Music & Pubs), Louisiana, Northern Peru, Southern India, and Uruguay. Also, you can view fresh itineraries for our 2010 Yukon, Alta Floresta (Brazil), and fall Cape May tours in our updated itineraries post.

Bret

“An excellent tour. The best feature was the outstanding quality of guiding. It's a pleasure to observe and benefit from Bret Whitney's talent and experience in knowing what birds are likely present, finding them, and showing them to us."
—R. & N.D., Rio Negro Paradise: Manaus, Brazil 2009

Upcoming Tours With Space Available
Here's a listing of our tours with space available through April:

Western Mexico: San Blas & the Sinaloa Highlands: Feb 10-20 with Jesse Fagan & Dave Mackay
Panama's Canopy Tower II: Feb 20-27 with John Coons & local guide
Guatemala: Shade-grown Birding: Feb 24-Mar 6 with Jesse Fagan
Panama's Canopy Tower III: Feb 27-Mar 6 with Chris Benesh & local guide (1 space)
Trinidad & Tobago: Feb 27-Mar 8 with Megan Crewe & local guide (3 spaces)
Honduras: Land of the Emeralds: Mar 6-14 with Jesse Fagan & John Coons
Western Panama: Mar 6-15 with Chris Benesh
Yucatan & Cozumel: Mar 19-28 with Megan Crewe
Panama's Canopy Tower IV: Mar 19-26 with John Coons & local guide (1 space)
Hawaii: Mar 21-31 with George Armistead
Suriname: Mar 26-Apr 10 with Dave Stejskal & Dan Lane
Puerto Rico: Apr 4-10 with George Armistead
Namibia & Botswana: Apr 6-25 with Terry Stevenson (2 spaces)
Lesser Antilles: Apr 10-24 with Jesse Fagan
Colorado Grouse: Apr 16-25 with Dan Lane (2 spaces)
Texas Coast Migration Spectacle I: Apr 17-23 with John Coons (3 spaces)
Texas Hill Country: Apr 19-24 with John Rowlett (2 spaces)
Texas's Big Bend & Hill Country: Apr 24-May 3 with Chris Benesh
Texas Coast Migration Spectacle II: Apr 24-30 with John Coons

View all our tours by: Date — Guide — Region