After fruit and coffee, during which we were hypnotized by swarms of hummingbirds, we set out on the first hike of the day. Normally we like a big breakfast to get us started, but we were so anxious not to waste a second that couldn't wait to hit the trails. It didn't take long before German started turning up crazy neotropical gems, not least of which was an adorable male Red-capped Manakin.
Red-capped Manakin
Green-celled Cattleheart
Next we headed over to Toucan Tower, an observation deck that gave incredible, expansive views of the rainforest of Pico Bonito National Park. Within just a few minutes we would score Purple-crowned Fairy, Stripe-throated Hummingbird, Black-cheeked Woodpecker, Collared Aracari, Olive-throated Parakeets and White-crowned Parrots. Keel-billed Toucans gathered together in a single, distant tree - the most we would ever see at one time, making the name "Toucan Tower" seem quite apt.
Collared Aracari
German spotted the electric blue and purple colors of a male Lovely Cotinga against the green forest canopy. Then I scoped a female, much less conspicuous in her drab gray, with a dark, speckled breast; she was so different-looking that I wasn't even sure what I was looking at! The birds were both too far for photos, but we were happy to meet a target bird from any distance. The recent Birder's Guide to Travel named the Lodge at Pico Bonito as the best place to find this "avian unicorn," and the Cotinga is even depicted in the lodge's logo. It might seem like we were destined to see this species here, but we would only see Lovely Cotinga one other time, again right near the observation tower.
Pico Bonito National Park
Yellow-winged Tanager
Another visitor settled into view, giving the male Cotinga all the reason in the world to excuse himself quickly. He might have been proud enough of his gaudy plumage with no predators around, but it was a different story with a White Hawk nearby. We would have unbelievable luck with raptors throughout our entire time in Honduras, and it all started with this one. Even though he had his back to us the whole time, it was like he was showing off, wings and tail fanned out for us to inspect and admire every feather.
White Hawk
The sky threatened to rain, establishing a theme for the week, and we headed back down toward the lodge. We didn't get very far before we added our first trogon and our first motmot of the morning. German used playback of a Broad-billed Motmot and turned up a Blue-crowned instead -- not so surprising since they sound nearly identical. We'd seen a Turquoise-browed Motmot silhouetted against an overcast sky the evening before as we shuttled in from the airport. Even in silhouette it was an awesome sight, since we could make out that distinctive tail shape; it was even more amazing now that we could see a motmot in all it's technicolor glory.
Blue-crowned Motmot
Brown Jay
The trogon was a Slaty-tailed. Trogons seem almost mythical, being so completely unlike any birds we've seen in the U.S., and given how elusive Elegant Trogons can apparently be even when they show up within their limited corner of Arizona. This bird represented an entirely new taxonomic order on our life lists (one of three we would add), adding punctuation to the fact that we were birding in the tropics. It shares a color scheme with Elegant Trogon (green/blue above, red below), but was quite distinct from the other trogons we would find around the lodge. We finished the short trek back to the restaurant and grabbed some breakfast to fuel another round of power-birding.
Slaty-tailed Trogon
Now we picked up Gartered Trogon over by the "Serpentarium," where there was both a male and a female. Unlike the Slaty-tailed, these had yellow underparts -- as did the Black-headed Trogons that were also common around here. Along the way, Red-billed Pigeons called from treetops, and Brown Jays were every bit as raucous as you'd expect a jay to be, no matter what color they are. Although the jays were one of the more common birds around the lodge, they were never out in the open for long - more than once I noticed them with nesting material, so they obviously had better things to do.
Gartered Trogon (male)
Gartered Trogon (female)
The real show was up in the sky, anyway. A Common Black Hawk flew low overhead. And then another and another. Even higher up the swifts were swirling and hawking. Huge swifts, much bigger than Vaux's or Chimney. These were White-collared Swfits. The collar could be difficult to make out sometimes, even in silhouette they were unmistakable, especially compared with the few Vaux's sprinkled among them. Back to the lodge for lunch and a siesta.
White-collared Swifts
Carolina Satyrs
Facilis Skipper (Eutocus facilis)?
The afternoon began with a drizzle. "Ha! as if that's going to stop us", we thought, right before it started to downpour. We took refuge under the roof of a guard station and waited out the worst of the weather. We would learn that one of the best times to bird was be right after a hard rain, and we picked up Buff-throated and Black-headed Saltators, and Masked Tityra in quick succession. Something big kept flushing along the road behind some low vegetation. It would fly up and suddenly vanish the moment it hit the ground. Eventually, it settled in a clearing, but it still took German's sharp eyes to spot the Common Paraque's camouflage among the rocks and leaves.
Masked Tityra
Common Pauraque
Next, German showed us a bird that makes even the Paraque look ostentatious by comparison. He set his scope on it, knowing exactly where it would be, and had us look at a pale extension growing out of a tree branch - except it wasn't a tree branch, but a juvenile Great Potoo. There are two kinds of potoo around Pico Bonito, but we set our expectations super low, knowing their mastery of arboreal disguises. Little did we know that German would put us on a Northern Potoo the very next day.
Great Potoo
Cocoa pod
Plain Satyr (Cissia pompilia)
A little farther along we heard a terrible cacophony, like a dog fighting a rooster. Somewhere on the other side of these trees was a Plain Chachalaca. Strangely enough, we could have seen this species when we lived in Georgia, where there's an established population on Sapelo Island, about two hours south of our apartment in Savannah. Even though we had to strain to see it, I'm glad our lifer was a wild bird in its native range, instead of an introduced game bird. On the way back to the lodge, German led us down a narrow trail through dense vegetation, where, behind us, a stocky ground bird flew in and quickly disappeared inside the forest. It all happened quickly, but that was the glimpse of a Little Tinamou represented one of the most primitive and ancient bird groups. In that flash, we could barely distinguish it from a large pigeon, and yet it something altogether different from the any other type bird we've seen.
Chestnut-colored Woodpecker
Melodious Blackbird
Blue Morpho - a large and glorious butterfly in flight, shown here with its less-than-dazzling underside
We would "only" see 46 species on our first full day in Honduras, but it seemed like hundreds. And the day felt like it stretched into three. We were exhausted but giddy, and excited to do it all over again the next day. Not that we were ready to give up exploring once the sun set -- nighttime is moth-ing time, which deserves a post of its very own.
The time had finally arrived to go on our belated honeymoon to Honduras about a year and a half after our wedding! It just seemed like a distant planned trip with plenty of time to prepare, and then suddenly it was here. After studying here and there for months, and then cramming on the birds (and mammals) of Honduras using our field guide and a Pinterest board Nick created, we were as ready as we were going to be (Nick much more so than I, by the way, as he is a much better crammer). After a very anxiety-driven start to our travel with a delayed first leg of our flight that put us in jeopardy of missing our next flight that only had a 45 minute (!!!) layover, we lucked out with a delay on the second flight and gladly made it to Honduras.
Aerial view of Honduras from the plane
Therinia transversaria - One of the first Leps to greet us at the Lodge
Our friendly welcome party, our tour guide for the trip, German (pronounced Herman), and our driver greeted us and drove us 2.5 hours from the airport in San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba to the Lodge at Pico Bonito. As there was still daylight when we arrived, we immediately got out our binoculars as soon as we stepped out of the airport doors, and we picked up our first lifer of the trip – a Grey-breasted Martin! Even as we drove out of the airport, we quickly saw a few new birds including Groove-billed Ani and Great Kiskadee and/or Social Flycatcher. Eager to get better looks, German eased our minds that we’d be seeing plenty of them later at the lodge.
Our tasty welcome drink waiting for us upon our arrival at the Lodge
Sulphur butterfly on a hibiscus
White-banded Satyr
Wide-eyed with excitement, we couldn’t help notice all of the new birds along the drive, like Tropical Kingbird and Turquoise-Browed Motmot. There were even some familiar birds like Great-Tailed Grackle and Crested Caracara. We took in the beautiful scenery of rolling green mountains in the background and plantations of bananas, pineapple, and red palm (not a great crop – in fact, a bad one), with fruit stands dotting the roadsides.
View of the reception/lobby of the Lodge at Pico Bonito
Geared up and ready to bird!
One of the manicured, flat trails of the Lodge - not too many of those.
After hitting a bit of rain, we arrived at the beautiful lodge in the evening. It was dark, so we couldn’t see just how lovely it is until the morning. We had some dinner, looked around at some of the night critters, and then off to bed to rise up early for our first full day of birding around the lodge. We were awoken by the rainforest’s morning chorus, which was unlike anything we’d heard before. We later found out that it was the Clay-colored Thrush that was dominating with its lovely song. And there was a strange gurgling sound high in the trees that we came to identify as the calls of Montezuma Oropendolas! These are such amazingly beautiful birds, and to hear them call was already amazing, and then we saw them display. Jaws dropped. As Nick so poetically put it, and what I was also thinking, “That’s some bird of paradise sh*t right there!” The male sat on a branch and allowed himself to fall forward just a bit as he cocked his tail and flapped his wings and made that bodacious call.
Clay-colored Thrush - a prettier singer than his looks put on
Montezuma Oropendola
Montezuma Oropendola
As we kept walking towards where we’d have our first quick breakfast of delicious, fresh tropical fruits and coffee, we were greeted by our first new mammal of the trip – Central American Agouti! These house-cat sized rodents timidly roamed the grounds of the lodge, and they would be our neighbors for the next 8 days.
We were then hit by swirls of blue, green, and violet as we came closer to the lobby and restaurant that were lined with beautiful tropical flowers and hummingbird feeders. Every which way we turned, something buzzed by us as we squealed with glee. The most common hummers seen zooming to and fro were the White-necked Jacobins, Northern Violet-crowned Woodnymphs (a subgroup of Crowned Woodnymph), Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, and the big boys, Violet Sabrewings, which are more than twice as large as most of the other hummers. This moment of being the first time that either of us was surrounded by numerous hummingbirds was truly magical. It’s what you see on TV on nature programs and hear about in articles, but it became real life for us just then. These would also be our frequently-seen neighbors for the rest of our trip.
Northern Violet-Crowned Woodnymph on a heliconias flower
Northern Violet-Crowned Woodnymph showing off his iridescent green gorget
Northern Violet-Crowned Woodnymph
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
We had our favorite spot to sit out on the porch of the lodge restaurant (which always had super delicious food, by the way) where we could each have a view of a hummingbird feeder. This was an absolute delight to see the sharing and the squabbling over space at the feeders.
Violet Sabrewing
Violet Sabrewing
White-necked Jacobin
White-necked Jacobin
When we sat to have our daytime meals, we couldn’t sit still long before picking up our binoculars and/or camera. A pair of Great Kiskadees, with their boisterous personalities, hung out right in front of us calling out to each other (Kis-ka-DEE, Kis-ka-DEE!) as they gathered nesting material to build their cozy home nestled and fortified within the cactus arms. German was right to say we’d see a bunch of these guys!
He was also right to say we’d see a lot of Groove-billed Anis! They were EVERYWHERE, which was great. We always felt unsatisfied after never seeing a Smooth-billed Ani in South Florida when we lived there. So these guys definitely made us feel better about our ani-less-ness. They are so suave with their long tails, groovy, chunky bills and fashionably tousled head and throat feathers. There’s something kind of prehistoric-looking about them.
Also a common sight would be a critter of the reptilian variety, the Brown Basilisk Lizard. These large lizards are also nicknamed “Jesus Lizards” as they can run across water in short bursts on their hind legs. We’ve seen some previously in South Florida at a Japanese garden, and they’re hysterical to watch run – flailing their long back legs as they run away from you. Here is a young one that doesn’t quite have a big crest of an adult yet.
We were also treated to views of the stunning Long-billed hermit zipping around the feeders and the beautiful, bright pink ginger flowers. What it lacked in bright colors, it made up for it with its large size and impressive long, slender-tipped tail. It looked like a little bandit with its dark eye line. We also occasionally saw its much smaller cousin, the Stripe-throated Hermit, but we could never quite sneak a pic of him.
Long-billed Hermit feeding on a ginger flower
Long-billed hermit in perfect iron cross formation
One other hummer that was not really expected around the area as it is more of a mountain species this time of year is the seemingly subdued Brown Violetear. It’s definitely understated in overall color, but in the right light, you can catch a glimpse of its shimmering violet ear patch and the touch of green and violet on its throat.
Brown Violetear
Northern Violet-Crowned Woodnymph feeding on a ginger flower
Dirce Beauty
There was so much buzzing around us, it made our heads spin! These birds in this post are just the ones we saw everyday commonly around our bungalow and the reception and restaurant area. If you want to see what other great things we saw, you’ll just have to wait and come back for more!
A typical morning of Clay-colored Thrushes singing and the Hummingbirds zipping at the feeders
