Intro
Web Site by John Wilson
This was a trip booked with Limosa Holidays of the UK, by 6 friends from The Glamorgan Bird Club plus two other travellers who booked individually. Our guide from Limosa was Fernando Enrique Navarette from Spain, who had visited Guatemala several times already, although this was the first trip to the country run by Limosa.
Our local guide in Guatemala was Maynor Ovando of Birding Expeditions, a Guatemala-based travel company, plus various other guides who joined us during the trip. Of particular note of these, was 'Aaron' who seemed to have X-ray eyes!
Participants were:
From Glamorgan Bird Club - John & Anne Wilson, Alan Rosney, David Bush, Gareth Jenkins and Mike Wheeler. The other two travellers who came along were Lesley Coley from London and Alan Crosland from Lincolnshire.
On 25th February, we flew LHR to Madrid, where we hooked up with Fernando, then Madrid to Guatemala City where we were met by Maynor and our driver, loaded all our stuff into the smart red Merc minibus and set off for our first accommodation in the old capital of Antigua Guatemala. We were made very welcome at the delightful Posada de Don Rodrigo. We arrived at around 6:30 p.m. local time so after being allocated our rooms we had dinner in a very nice restaurant in the town, where Maynor appraised us of the plans for tomorrow. After a superb dinner we returned to the Posada and sorted ourselves out and crashed, ready for an early start.
The daily summaries are based on my own 'diary notes' I kept. The total list for the group comprised 250 species, but as always on these trips not everyone sees all the birds, so my own personal list was 224 species and my recollections are based on these, although where significant I have mentioned some of the 'group seen' species that aren't on my own list.
PHOTOGRAPHY
All the bird photos were taken hand held with a Canon EOS 70D and Canon 100-400 IS MkII zoom. Forest or early morning situations required fairly high ISO and for small birds a fair amount of cropping so a large proportion are simply record shots and many are pretty 'noisy'. All the scenery etc photos with the exception of a few, were taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMS FZ72 bridge camera.
PHOTOS
I have limited all uploaded image sizes to max 2500 pixels. Images within the text cannot be enlarged. There's a small gallery of images from the day in question at the foot of each daily page, and full galleries accessed from the top menu bar. With all these, click each image to view the full size one. Once one image is full size you can use the L<>R arrow keys or mouse, to move back & fore through the others.
Below is a photo of the lovely courtyard inside the Posada de Don Rodrigo in Antigua Guatemala, our first night's accommodation, around the periphery of which the rooms were located.
Our local guide in Guatemala was Maynor Ovando of Birding Expeditions, a Guatemala-based travel company, plus various other guides who joined us during the trip. Of particular note of these, was 'Aaron' who seemed to have X-ray eyes!
Participants were:
From Glamorgan Bird Club - John & Anne Wilson, Alan Rosney, David Bush, Gareth Jenkins and Mike Wheeler. The other two travellers who came along were Lesley Coley from London and Alan Crosland from Lincolnshire.
On 25th February, we flew LHR to Madrid, where we hooked up with Fernando, then Madrid to Guatemala City where we were met by Maynor and our driver, loaded all our stuff into the smart red Merc minibus and set off for our first accommodation in the old capital of Antigua Guatemala. We were made very welcome at the delightful Posada de Don Rodrigo. We arrived at around 6:30 p.m. local time so after being allocated our rooms we had dinner in a very nice restaurant in the town, where Maynor appraised us of the plans for tomorrow. After a superb dinner we returned to the Posada and sorted ourselves out and crashed, ready for an early start.
The daily summaries are based on my own 'diary notes' I kept. The total list for the group comprised 250 species, but as always on these trips not everyone sees all the birds, so my own personal list was 224 species and my recollections are based on these, although where significant I have mentioned some of the 'group seen' species that aren't on my own list.
PHOTOGRAPHY
All the bird photos were taken hand held with a Canon EOS 70D and Canon 100-400 IS MkII zoom. Forest or early morning situations required fairly high ISO and for small birds a fair amount of cropping so a large proportion are simply record shots and many are pretty 'noisy'. All the scenery etc photos with the exception of a few, were taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMS FZ72 bridge camera.
PHOTOS
I have limited all uploaded image sizes to max 2500 pixels. Images within the text cannot be enlarged. There's a small gallery of images from the day in question at the foot of each daily page, and full galleries accessed from the top menu bar. With all these, click each image to view the full size one. Once one image is full size you can use the L<>R arrow keys or mouse, to move back & fore through the others.
Below is a photo of the lovely courtyard inside the Posada de Don Rodrigo in Antigua Guatemala, our first night's accommodation, around the periphery of which the rooms were located.