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Happy New Year, and welcome to our January emailing!

Here's hoping that 2023 is treating you well thus far, and that you've got plans for some birding travel with us on the near horizon. If not, you're reading the right email to rectify that!

As we send this off to you, we have two tours in the field. Willy Perez has a group in his native Ecuador, and Doug Gochfeld is leading in enchanted New Mexico. In the next day or so we head off to Japan, Colombia, Suriname, Thailand, and Texas. Adventure abounds!

We're in the thick of winter now, and if winter sports aren't your bailiwick (or even if they are), a late winter or spring getaway can rejuvenate the soul. Below, we have a listing of destinations we think any birder will enjoy that have at least a space or two open. These tours typically fill, so contact our office to hold your spot.

In this email, you'll find links to the newest installment of our popular Recent Photos Gallery—this month's selection contains 100 delightful photographs submitted by participants and guides from Brazil, Australia, Morocco, Colombia, Kenya, Argentina, Louisiana, and Peru. Special bonus this month: We've put together a separate gallery of our favorite 2022 photos contributed by participants and guides—we think you'll enjoy them too! We also have information about added departures, and an opportunity to book a private tour to Kenya. Guide Micah Riegner has given us a new video for a recent trip he took to Oaxaca. You'll also find our regular listing of upcoming tours with space, which includes destinations in Brazil, Panama, and Mexico among other Latin America venues. Take a look below to see if anything piques your interest. Lastly, we feature a dozen new triplists—many with videos—from recent tours and eight updated itineraries for 2023.

Our appreciation goes out to guide Tom Johnson for the great, close-up shot above of a Dusky Grouse from our Colorado Grouse tour. We have two departures coming up in April, and there are still a few spaces available on both. Thanks also to participant Linnet Tse for sharing the image below of a Gray-breasted Mountain-Toucan tossing some fruit down the hatch from our recent Colombia's Cloudforests: The Western & Central Andes tour.
Suggestions for near-term travel
Here are three tours that can help shake the winter doldrums and lift anyone's spirits. Each promises warm days, good food, and great guides. These tours range from 12 to 15 days long including travel and offer spectacular birding. Just click the links to learn more about each tour, and contact our office if you'd like to join us.
Brazil: Bahia Birding Bonanza, Feb 4-18 with Bret Whitney & Marcelo Barreiros
Mexico: Oaxaca's Atlantic & Pacific Slopes, Mar 11-22 with Dan Lane & Micah Riegner
Central Mexico & Baja: Birds, Butterflies & Whales, Feb 12-23 with Jesse Fagan & Doug Gochfeld
Best of 2022 gallery
We thought it might be fun to put together a gallery of some of our favorite images from tours in 2022 (and a couple from late 2021 as well). Just click the image above to see which images stood out to us the most.
New Costa Rica holiday departure added
We are pleased to announce that we've added a second 2023 departure of our popular Holiday Costa Rica: Rancho Naturalista tour for this coming December. The two departures now are:

  • December 21-29, 2023 with Jay VanderGaast
  • December 29, 2023-Jan 6, 2024 with Chris Benesh

Space is available on both departures, just contact our office.
Kenya with Terry Stevenson this July-August
Make your own private group!
We have dates, do you have a group!? It’s unheard of, but we have a wide-open Kenya tour on our Wild Kenya: A Tented Camp Safari route this summer (July 29-Aug 13), so if you’ve contemplated taking the whole family or friends on safari and would enjoy some amazing birding along the way with the country's best-known expert, now’s your chance for a private tour! Call our office to book your group of four to six travelers with specialist Terry Stevenson. You’ll have the trip of a lifetime, no doubt. Plus, the parks are not nearly so crowded as they were prior to 2020, making it a prime time to plan this awesome adventure. Let us help you make it happen! Contact Sharon Mackie in our office to get the scoop and grab the tour.
A fun video from Oaxaca
If you've ever wondered how some of our guides spend their time away from guiding,
guides Micah Riegner and Bret Whitney recently drove to San Jose del Pacifico to celebrate the New Year after completing their Oaxaca tour. Check out this short video of the White-throated Jay, displaying Bumblebee Hummingbird (it sings!), Garnet-throated Hummingbird, and Aztec Thrush they saw. Dan Lane and Micah will be returning to see these birds in March (along with close to 400 other species) on our Mexico: Oaxaca's Atlantic & Pacific Slopes tour. There is still space available if you would like to join them.
Field Guides video series
Our excellent OutBirding video series is an ever-growing collection of all things birds and birding. You can see samples and descriptions on our OutBirding blog page, and monthly or annual subscriptions are available and will give you unlimited access to our video library. You can also check out our YouTube channel where we have recently made five videos available for no charge.
Triplists from recent tours
We have triplists from past tours linked below, each with some lovely images and some with video clips, and all with great annotations by our guides. Enjoy!
Comments from participants
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 couple of representative recent comments. From all of us at Field Guides, our thanks for all your valuable feedback.
“I chose this tour because I have traveled with Field Guides before, and was impressed with how well they are organized and how excellent the guides are. Also, Peru was one of my destinations I have on my to-do list, and the timing was good. Overall it was an excellent tour. Lots of birds in only nine days; good lodges. The best features were Dan Lane, our tour leader, and local guides. Dan was excellent in finding the birds and making sure all the participants could see them. Dan also created and shared eBird lists, allowing the participants more time to look at and enjoy the birds. We had a small group of interested and very good birders, all helping each other to find and see the birds. It couldn’t have been better. This was my first trip with Dan, and yes, I will try to find other trips to travel with him again. This was one of my top ten tours I have taken so far.” H.T. Mountains of Manu, Peru, 2022

"Our overall experience was very good! Great guide, wonderful forest, good group. We would travel with Marcelo Barreiros anywhere! He's a superlative guide. His biology and research background have endowed him with great depth of knowledge of Brazil's birds and their habitats. His extraordinary visual and auditory skills enable him to get everybody on every forest bird. Most of all, he is an engaging companion, good-humored, competent, and funny. It helps. We chose this tour because of Field Guides's superior knowledge of the Brazilian Amazon and the prospect of one lodge in a pristine rainforest setting. Also, the idea of being in a remote place with the historical connection to the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition was appealing. We'd do it again!" K.W., Brazil's Rio Roosevelt: Birding the River of Doubt, 2022
Tours with openings through June
Every month in this section we list tours with space still available for the next six months or so. If you have the ability to get away on short notice, there are some great tours listed below that still have some space. Please have a look, and if anything fits your schedule, just contact our office to hold a space, and of course please do so if you have any questions.

You can find more information about each of the tours below by clicking the links to visit their tour pages. Our thanks to guide Chris Benesh for this image of a Great Gray Owl from our Owlberta: Alberta's Owls & More tour.

SOUTH AMERICA


NORTH AMERICA

MIDDLE AMERICA & WEST INDIES

AFRICA
  • Amazing Angola, May 28-Jun 18 with Terry Stevenson & Errol de Beer (1 space)

EUROPE

ASIA

AUSTRALASIA
Recently posted upcoming itineraries
Click on any image or link below to see the detailed itinerary for the following tours. All of these itineraries are packed with information (and have a few nice photos as well).
Field Guides Incorporated, 9433 Bee Cave Rd #2-105, Austin, TX 78733
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