Welcome to our February emailing! 

We hope your 2022 is off to a birdy start. In this issue you'll find a link to our popular Recent Photos Gallery, this time with more than 100 images from participants and guides on recent Field Guides tours to six destinations (Colombia, Mexico, Ghana, Brazil, Ecuador, and Puerto Rico); eight triplists from recent tours (all have some great photos, and the ones from Gulf of California and Brazil's Rio Roosevelt have some cool videos as well); a roster of upcoming departures through August with openings; interesting bird news and notes; and twelve updated itineraries for 2022.

If you've been pondering your upcoming birding travel plans, here's a quick update on our schedule over the next few months. We moved our Nowhere but Northeast Brazil! and Brazil: Bahia Birding Bonanza tours from January into March; both will still be guided by Bret Whitney and Marcelo Barreiros with respective departures now Mar 11 and Mar 26 (these tours can be taken back-to-back); we have 1 space open on NE Brazil and 6 spaces open on Bahia. Open spaces in general on our 39 tours in the Mar-May period are scarce commodities, so here are a few additional suggestions: Brazil Nutshell (Mar 12, Marcelo Padua, 3 spaces), Ghana (Mar 23, Phil Gregory, 3 spaces), Hungary & Romania (Apr 14 & May 3 departures, Terry Stevenson & Lajos Nemeth-Boka, 3 spaces each), Florida (May 7, Jesse Fagan, 1 space), Uzbekistan & Kazakhstan (May 16, Jay VanderGaast, 4 spaces), and Brazil: Minas Gerais & Tocantins (May 21, Marcelo Barreiros, 2 spaces). Contact our office and we can help put your plans in motion. And our thanks to participant Bill Byers for the delightful image above of Ochre-breasted Antpittas, which you might get to see if you sneak away in late June with guide Willy Perez on our Montane Ecuador tour!

Additionally, and not listed in upcoming spaces below, we have a special March Kenya tour with Terry Stevenson (Mar 5-23) that still has a few spaces open. This is a late conversion of our East Africa Highlights tour, dropping Tanzania from the normal route and adding Masai Mara, Samburu, and Kakamega. If you can act on short notice to join this great experience with Terry, contact Tour Manager Sharon Mackie directly to confirm space.

We have triplists from recent tours linked below, each with some lovely images and some with video clips, and all with great annotations by our guides. Enjoy!

We carefully read each post-tour evaluation we receive from our participants, so that we can continue to offer the best possible birding experiences and service on Field Guides birding tours. Here are a few representative recent comments. From all of us at Field Guides, our thanks for all of your valuable feedback.

Tired of winter? Maybe a last-minute getaway to one of our upcoming tours with space to someplace warm and sunny might be the perfect remedy! Check out the tours below that have availability—some departing rather soon—and contact our office to hold a space or if you have any additional questions.

As always, you can find more information about any of the trips below by clicking on them to visit their tour pages. We look forward to traveling with you—and our thanks to guide Marcelo Barreiros for the photo of a Surucua Trogon from Brazil: Bahia Birding Bonanza (which was recently rescheduled to March and still has space available!).

The excellent OutBirding with Field Guides series has more than 75 videos available covering many areas of interest to birders and nature lovers. We have interviews, discoveries, tips on identification, tour recaps—heck, we even have a video teaching you how to make a Brazilian Caipirinha! All of our videos remain permanently in the library for subscriber access at any time. Have a look at the trailers and descriptions of our videos on our OutBirding Blog. In our two latest videos, you can join guide Jesse Fagan as he takes us on a tour along the Tambopata River in the Peruvian Amazon, or you can join guide Micah Riegner in Arizona while he observes nesting Goshawks and fills you in on the "Cactus" subspecies of the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. If you still haven't subscribed, you're missing out! Just head on over to our OutBirding home page and check out subscription options, either for yourself or as a gift for someone in the OutBirding Store. Subscribers have access to all videos for just $15 per month (or $10/month if paid annually), and we offer a "Lifer" subscription as well.

By now, most birders are aware that a rare Steller's Sea-Eagle has spent some time in Maine this winter. Thousands of birders have gone to see the bird along the Maine coast (including a handful of Field Guides staff!). It is widely believed that this giant eagle has been in the Northeast at several locations since late June of 2021. In fact, a compelling case can be made that this bird was seen in Alaska in late August of 2020. This informative video chronicles the bird's history though late December of 2021 when it was found in Massachusetts. (The video is a bit outdated, as it does not include the eagle's month-long stay in Maine.) The Steller's Sea-Eagle pictured here is not the eagle that has been seen recently. This one is courtesy of participant Becky Hansen from our 2019 Winter Japan: Dancing Cranes & Spectacular Sea-Eagles tour, on which eagle viewing is a definite highlight!

"Wisdom," a Laysan Albatross, is the oldest known banded wild bird on the planet, and she has returned to her wintering grounds on Midway Atoll. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife story linked here has more detail about this remarkable bird.

One of the most imperiled birds on the planet is the Cherry-throated Tanager, with a population believed to be fewer than twenty individuals. As of recently, the species can claim a newly protected home in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The story (linked above) details some modest success in protecting critical habitat for the species.

For as long as humans have observed birds, the mystery of how they navigate during migration persists. There have been countless theories, and current wisdom suggests that a combination of methods directs them. New research has focused on what elements of Earth's magnetic field birds are able to detect, and how they use the information they gain.

Bird Watcher's Digest, a popular magazine and online resource about birds and birdwatching, unexpectedly closed up shop at the end of 2021. Read their farewell article here. It was a multi-decade mainstay of the birding community that will be missed.

For many years, birders have believed that the Snowy Owls that descend in winter upon southern Canada and the United States are starving or otherwise food-stressed. Research over recent decades has concluded that these visiting owls are largely doing just fine. In fact, the researchers conclude that it’s due to a bumper crop of young Snowies during a very good breeding season—not a lack of food—that sends them south.

Do Crows take extra care of their more valuable tools? Researchers have long studied crows on the island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. They recently discovered that these tool-using crows will hold or store their tools when they aren't in use. Remarkably, they seem to prize the better, more-efficient tools a bit more.

Are you looking for a dose of the tropics and some colorful birds? Check out the fruit feeders cam at the Canopy Lodge in El Valle de Antón, Panama, and enjoy the sights and sounds of the birds coming and going. As this is being typed, there's a Clay-colored Thrush, Crimson-backed Tanager, and a Buff-throated Saltator on the feeder! If viewing through your screen isn't enough for you, you could always book a trip on our Panama's Canopy Lodge: El Valle de Anton tour and see it for yourself in December!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is just around the corner, and this year marks the 25th anniversary of the project. This year's count is February 18-21. Click here to learn more, and to see some fun features on the website.