Field Guides Birding Tours

VENEZUELA: TEPUIS ENDEMICS

Short, one-site tour focusing on the many endemics and other specialties of this beautiful region.
2008
II. November 22-December 1 with Jay VanderGaast 		2009
January 30-February 8 with Jay VanderGaast

$3175 (2008 fee); $3475 (2009 fee). 10 days
From Caracas. Limit: 9
Comfortable accommodations with shared bathrooms, short drives, easy terrain, cool to warm climate. Our staff travel agents can book your air travel for this tour. Contact us at (800) 728-4953 for more information. May be combined with our VENEZUELA trip.

See our triplist for 2008 or 2007 or 2006.

Red-banded Fruiteater
Red-banded Fruiteater
by participant Dan Guthrie
In the remote southeastern corner of Venezuela, immense flat-topped mountains dot the landscape, towering above the expansive grasslands of the Gran Sabana and the surrounding rainforests.  They are the remnants of a vast sandstone plateau that once covered a large area of northeastern South America from the northern border of the Amazon basin north to the mighty Orinoco.  Over time, much of the sandstone plateau eroded away, leaving only these isolated mesas to dominate the landscape.  The indigenous people of the region had a name for the mountains; they called them tepuis—Houses of the Gods—and one can easily believe the gods were truly at work here, creating a whole array of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth.  Millennia spent in isolation have led to a high degree of endemism in the region, and it is the roughly 30 species of endemic birds that will be the main focus of our time here.

Though the tepuis themselves are remote and difficult to access, most of the endemic birds can be seen on the lower slopes of the Sierra de Lema, an area made easily accessible by a good paved road that winds its way from the Rio Cuyuni lowlands up the forested hillsides, eventually leading to the rolling grasslands of the Gran Sabana.  Our time here will doubtless be filled with many marvelous sightings—perhaps a flashy Red-banded Fruiteater sitting quietly in a roadside melastome, or a pair of striking Roraiman Barbtails creeping along the moss-laden branches of a magical elfin forest, or a fruiting tree full of delightfully odd Scarlet-horned Manakins.  Peacock Coquette, Streak-backed Antshrike, Flutist Wren, and Olive-backed Tanager are just some of the many other tepui specialties we will seek out in this region.

As if the tepui endemics weren’t enough of a draw, the lowlands surrounding the Sierra de Lema lie within the Guianan Shield subregion, and the forests harbor many of the specialties of that region too, as well as many other more widespread lowland forest species.  These include some spectacular cotingas, from the impossibly gaudy Guianan Cock-of-the-rock to the subtly plumaged yet bizarre Capuchinbird to the simply gorgeous Pompadour Cotinga.  Among the many wonderful possibilities we could find here are Black-faced Hawk, Guianan Toucanet, hawk-like Red-fan Parrots, Crimson Topaz, Golden-collared Woodpecker, Black-throated Antshrike, Cayenne Jay, and stunning Blue-backed Tanagers and Red-and-black Grosbeaks.

Either on its own or taken in conjunction with our regular VENEZUELA tour, this one-site tour of the tepuis region will provide you with some of the most exciting and memorable birding you’ve ever experienced!

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