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Welcome to our May emailing!
Greetings, birding friends! If April feels like anticipation, May is certainly the real thing. Migration is now in full stride across much of the continent, and the pace can be hard to keep up with. One day brings the first vireos, then a cuckoo, the next day a wave of warblers, and somewhere along the way you suddenly realize the orioles, thrushes, and flycatchers are back, too. The trees have leafed out, almost everything is in bloom, allergies are in peak sneeze, dawn arrives earlier and earlier, and many of us are finding entirely reasonable excuses to spend a little more time outdoors than usual.
Things are moving right along here at Field Guides, too. As you read this, we’ve got tours operating in Greece, Arizona, Ontario, Japan, Cape May, Central Asia (that's a swing through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, & Kazakhstan to be precise!), Finland, and Michigan, with more departures preparing to head afield in the coming days.
Below, we announce a new Nebraska tour timed to enjoy Sandhill Crane migration. We revisit a returning itinerary, in the form of a revival of a Kenya tour not run since 2015. We also highlight a pair of departures for our California tour, and we take a look at northern Peru. We also have a reminder about Antarctica. This email is dangling opportunities for Emperor Penguins, Marvelous Spatuletails, pelagic seabirds, flamingos, cranes, condors, bird spectacles, and much more! We also have a touching remembrance by one of our founders about a legendary ornithologist and fellow Field Guides client. Lastly, we have a few odds and ends about birding and birds that we thought we'd pass along.
As always, we appreciate you opening and reading through this emailing. We've also included our monthly Recent Photos Gallery, with about 115 images from tours to three continents. We also have a whopping 20 reports from recent tours, 17 fresh itineraries, two new trip videos, and a list of departures over the next six months that still have space available with a little extra emphasis on fall in Cape May.
Our thanks to participant Valerie Gebert for the fun photo of a friendly Gray-hooded Sierra-Finch perched atop guide Willy Perez's head during our most recent Chile: The Classic Tour departure. We’ll be running this tour again in November, so check out the link above (or in the photo) if you might be interested in seeing Chile with Willy. (And if you want that hat, then click on The Store link for all our gear!)
Our thanks as well to participant Jonathan Klizas for the excellent photo below of a Vermilion Cardinal, taken during our January departure of Colombia's Santa Marta Mountains & Caribbean Coast tour.
| | Northern Peru next month! | | |
Northern Peru is one of the great birding frontiers of South America, and there’s still time to join our Peru experts Dan Lane and Jesse Fagan on this June 13–25 departure—which is sure to have a great guide-to-client ratio. This compact itinerary packs in an astonishing collection of regional specialties, led by the Marvelous Spatuletail, one of the world’s most extraordinary hummingbirds and a Peruvian endemic found only in a small corner of the Andes. But there is much more besides: Royal Sunangel, Rufous-crested Coquette, Yellow-scarfed Tanager, Lulu’s Tody-Tyrant, Ochre-fronted Antpitta, Bar-winged Wood-Wren, and a host of other east-slope specialties await us. We’ll spend six nights at famed Owlet Lodge in Abra Patricia, giving us a real chance for the mythical Long-whiskered Owlet while enjoying some of the finest hummingbird feeders anywhere in the Neotropics. Beautiful scenery, excellent lodges, and a remarkable concentration of birds make this an unforgettable visit to northern Peru.
Please contact our office for more information or to sign up.
(Photo of a Peruvian Racket-tail courtesy of tour participant Kevin Watson.)
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California is one of the most diverse birding states in the country, and these two nearly concurrent departures with Chris Benesh and Micah Riegner approach it from opposite directions while covering an impressive sweep of habitats and specialties. From desert scrub and chaparral to towering redwoods, rich wetlands, offshore waters, and the Pacific coastline, we’ll look for a broad cross-section of western birds including California Condor, the endemic Yellow-billed Magpie, Mountain Quail, Tricolored Blackbird, California Gnatcatcher, Wrentit, Black Oystercatcher, and Greater Roadrunner among the regional specialties. A full-day pelagic trip adds another dimension, with chances for albatrosses, shearwaters, storm-petrels, and other offshore species. With seabirds, shorebirds, migrants, and classic western endemics all in play, this is California birding at its most varied.
Please contact our office for more information or to sign up.
(Group photo at Calaveras Big Trees State Park courtesy of guide Micah Riegner.)
| | A great Kenya itinerary returns | | |
In October, 2027, we’re bringing back our Kenya Highlights tour for the first time since 2015, now with an adjusted itinerary and still under the guidance of the venerable Terry Stevenson—one of Africa’s finest bird guides. Running June 13-July 1 and limited to just six participants, this tour samples many of Kenya’s classic birding and wildlife regions, from the forests of Mt. Kenya and Kakamega to the Rift Valley lakes, the arid north, and the famed Masai Mara. The birding is wonderfully varied, with possibilities including Secretarybird, Hartlaub’s Turaco, Jackson’s Hornbill, Golden-winged Sunbird, Vulturine Guineafowl, Lilac-breasted Roller, Fischer’s Sparrow-Lark, Sharpe’s Longclaw, and a tremendous diversity of raptors, waterbirds, and dry-country species. Spectacles are part of the experience, too, from vast flocks of flamingos spread across Rift Valley lakes to the seemingly endless herds of zebra, wildebeest, gazelles, giraffes, and other plains mammals roaming the Masai Mara. Throughout, we’ll travel in custom safari vehicles and stay in comfortable lodges and tented camps chosen for both location and quality.
For more information, please contact our office and we'll be happy to assist.
(Photo of guide Terry Stevenson and a Lion at Masai Mara, Kenya, courtesy of Terry.)
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Have you made it to Nebraska yet to witness the Sandhill Crane migration? If not, our brand new Nebraska: Cranes with Cory tour is a fine way to make it happen with Field Guides. We’re excited to add this new domestic tour to our lineup: a short, small-group getaway running Sunday through Thursday (February 28–March 4, 2027, and again in 2028), conceived, scouted, and guided by Cory Gregory. Timed for the peak crane migration along the Platte River, this tour puts you in position for one of North America’s great wildlife spectacles. Tens of thousands of cranes pass through this region—some 80% of the global population. Dramatic sunrises and sunsets are filled with massive, deafening flocks lifting off at dawn and returning at dusk in great, bugling waves. Along the way, we’ll also look for early-season specialties such as dancing Greater Prairie-Chickens at their leks, notable raptors such as Ferruginous Hawks and Prairie Falcons, handsome Harris's Sparrow, and a wide array of waterfowl.
NEW TOUR! Nebraska: Cranes with Cory, Feb 28-Mar 4, 2027 & Feb 27-Mar 2, 2028
Please contact our office for more information or to sign up.
(Sandhill Crane swarm, photo by guide Cory Gregory.)
| | ICYMI: Emperor Penguins in Antarctica | | |
In case you missed it, last month we announced a new Antarctic adventure: Emperor Penguins in the Weddell Sea: In Search of Antarctica’s Most Iconic Bird. Guided by Doug Gochfeld and running November 23–December 6, this voyage follows the Antarctic Peninsula before venturing farther afield for a rare helicopter excursion to an Emperor Penguin colony on the sea ice. If seeing the world’s largest penguin is on your wish list, this is your opportunity. Take a look at the tour page for the full itinerary and details.
(Photo of an Emperor Penguin from Antarctica courtesy of tour participant Joyce Takamine.)
| | John Rowlett remembers Dr. Mitchell Byrd | | |
Founder and emeritus guide John Rowlett (aka Peppershrike) has penned this thoughtful remembrance of pioneering conservation ornithologist and Field Guides client Dr. Mitchell A. Byrd.
When Field Guides began offering birding tours in the mid-1980s, I had never laid eyes on Mitchell Byrd. Indeed, none of us had. I’d certainly heard of him and his work on Peregrines and Bald Eagles, for which he was almost single-handedly famous, certainly in the eastern U.S. But throughout the late 80s and early 90s, he had become known to all of us not for the environmentalist acclaim you might think. Mitchell Byrd had a habit of signing up for tours that he really never intended to take for one reason or another.
He’d inquire about a destination, receive the itinerary, then never sign up. We lost count of how many itineraries we posted to him. A well-known biologist at William & Mary…why, he could even be orchestrating his own tours to the score of our careful scouting and painstaking preparations. We fully expected to run into him some day with his group in tow, poaching our expertise. The sole reason we didn’t stop mailing those tour itineraries to Williamsburg was that perhaps someday Mitchell might actually become a tourgoer and we would have turned away a famous biologist who had been simply too indecisive or too busy to flip the script.
Then one day in 1995, Dr. Byrd, after having received “Down Under” itineraries, actually
signed up for two Australia tours! Two big-ticket adventures. This was going to be interesting. Would he actually go? Well, by golly, he did. And did he! These two tours were the prelude to a parade of birding tours Mitchell Byrd took with Field Guides, almost annually, from 1996 to 2011, often two in the same year. As if to commemorate a new millennium, Mitchell took four tours in 2000: Dominican Republic, Abra Malaga & Machu Picchu, Northern Argentina, and Southern Argentina. This amounted to more than two months, by his calculation, that wife Lois was liberated from dutifully packing his lunch. Lois would sometimes join him on tour, but seldom so because, as she often pointed out, “Mitchell’s the only bird I’m interested in.”
During these sixteen years I was lucky to have Mitchell as a participant on several tours.
Whenever his unflagging conservationist work became the conversation on tour, he would
quickly steer the subject to the importance of birding and tour-guiding to conservation. His
conviviality, understated manner, incisive commentary, and shrewd wit (not infrequently a tad risqué) enlivened every trip he took and resulted in our friendship, grounded in Virginia and the local birds and mutual friends we shared. Some of his stories are among the best ever told on Field Guides tours. Few tour participants realized the impact he had on our birds.
By my count Mitchell took at least 23 tours with Field Guides, locking in first with John Coons to Australia, then eventually accompanying almost all of our guides. With the exception of four U.S. tours, his Australia trips, and a trip to South Africa, his birding concentrated in the Neotropics, primarily on “The Bird Continent.” He quickly became a beloved participant, and a favorite of the tour managers who remain, to this day, amused by his exploratory behavior. But Mitchell explained himself this way. While he had no time at the outset to be missing in action for the length of a birding tour, he recognized that, once the executive demands of running the Center for Conservation Biology had somewhat eased, he would find time for birding travel. The pleasure of researching itineraries prepared him to fly when that time came.
Mitchell participated on his last tour with Field Guides in 2010. For a variety of reasons, he was finding less time for birding travel outside Virginia. But this didn’t keep Mitchell from continuing to take pleasure in the discourse of worldwide birding, and he remained on our mailing list for the following years. We continued to see each other in the spring, usually in Highland County, Virginia, a life-enhancing region for both of us, and we would occasionally chat over the phone. In a conversation I vividly recall in 2017, Mitchell mentioned that he feared his international birding days were behind him. He felt he wouldn’t be taking any more tours with Field Guides, so he was self-conscious about continuing to receive our promotional material. However, he asked if I’d intercede for him in order that he might nevertheless continue receiving our newsletters and catalogs. He realized an expense was involved, and he would insist on paying the cost. My heart fractured a bit. By all means, we would keep him on the mailing list, I assured him—of course at no cost! After our conversation, I couldn’t but reflect on how Mitchell’s relationship with Field Guides had begun in the quiet pleasures of birding discourse, pleasures that would continue long after the exuberant joys of birding were over.
“The Byrd Man” passed away in March at the age of 97, taking our friendship with him. He would be the last to acknowledge that his dedication to conservation biology was unmatched; and his gracious contributions to the more modest enterprise of bird tour guiding have touched us all. What a lovely man.
(Photo of Dr. Mitchell Byrd with a Peregrine Falcon by Tim Wright.)
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Birders have long known the many benefits of birding, but it seems that science is starting to get on board as well. A recent study highlighted by the Smithsonian Magazine suggests that learning birdsong and sharpening bird identification skills may do more than enrich our time outdoors—they may also help keep the brain active and resilient as we age. Yet another reason to keep paying attention to the birds around us!
A fascinating new paper in the journal Ornithology explores the use of thermal imaging to directly observe nocturnal migration, opening an entirely new window into the movements of birds after dark. It is no surprise to us that our own guides (and their enthusiasm for migration research and birding innovation), Doug Gochfeld, Sam Wilson, and the late Tom Johnson played a key role in the research. (If you would prefer to read an overview of the research, Cornell University has a nice summary here.)
Did you know one of the world’s most “dangerous” birds turns out to have bizarre glowing headgear that may help it signal in ways scientists are only beginning to understand? A wonderfully strange new study reveals there’s much more going on under that cassowary casque than meets the eye.
A little-known but highly effective forest management approach known as “Good Neighbor Authority” is quietly reshaping how conservation work gets done across public lands—speeding up collaboration and opening new doors for habitat restoration. You can read about it at Audubon by clicking here.
As spring migration accelerates, millions of birds are moving through our neighborhoods and landscapes—here are a few simple, practical ways from the American Bird Conservancy to help make their journey safer.
(Photo of a Southern Cassowary in Australia courtesy of tour participant Kevin Watson)
| | Short videos from recent tours | | |
Many of our tour reports now include highlight videos featuring birds, wildlife, scenery, culture—or some blend of it all.
We have two highlight videos this month. The first is a peppy video full of good birds and even better birders from our Mexico: Yucatan & Cozumel tour, operated last November and guided by Megan Edwards Crewe & Alex Sundvall. Megan created the video. Click here or on the Cozumel Emerald below to see the video. (Photo by Alex.)
The second video comes from our recent Succinct Suriname: Cotingas & Trumpeters tour, guided by Micah Riegner & Sam Wilson. Micah produced a fun highlight reel of the tour. Click here or on the photo of Sam, Micah, and local guide Sean Dilrosun below to see the video. (Photo by Micah.)
| | Field Guides merch is available! We've got shirts, hats, hoodies, mugs, stickers, tote bags, and more—all a click away at our Field Guides Store. Fashionable and functional—sure to keep you comfortable and looking spiffy—check it all out at the store. | | Reports from recent tours | | We have annotated and illustrated reports from recently completed tours linked below, each with some lovely images and some with video clips, and all with great texts 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 two representative recent comments. From all of us at Field Guides, our thanks for all your valuable feedback.
"Our overall tour experience was outstanding. Our guide Alex Sundvall, was great! Clearly, he had sharp bird-finding senses and worked very hard and successfully to maximize the birding experience through a variety habitats and species. Further, Alex was very companionable, courteous, considerate, and fun to hang around. He maintained his energy and an upbeat attitude throughout the tour. He met and exceeded expectations! Although my spouse and I have been on a variety of tours, none involved a larger group (though our Field Guides group of seven was quite small). Among the wide range of guides we've worked with, the FG guide Alex was certainly among the best, as was the general tour venue and results. Five stars all-around!" B.P., Texas Coast Migration Spectacle II, 2026
"The Field Guides experience is better than we had experienced with other birding tour companies. In the first decade of the 2000s, we travelled several times on birding tours. After three trips with Field Guides we decided to use Field Guides for all of our birding tours. This has led to more than 30 tours with Field Guides. We travelled on several trips with Jesse Fagan including three trips to Colombia, and one trip to each of Machu Pichu and Australia. Whenever Jesse spoke of Guatemala we could understand his attachment to this country. So, we chose Guatemala with Jesse and Field Guides for this special tour. We had a good experience as we anticipated. Jesse chose the best opportunities for birding the special birds of Guatemala. These were generally in the highlands of Guatemala. We enjoyed our walking tour of Tikal, and our walking tour of Antigua was a real treat. Our visit to the Refuge of the Quetzal gave us several opportunities to view the male and female quetzals." G.S., Guatemala: Shade-grown Birding, 2026
| | Tours with openings through October | | Each month we list in this section the Field Guides departures over the next six months that still have at least two spaces available (unless otherwise noted). | | |
Cape May, New Jersey, is one of North America’s great migration hotspots and autumn here can be nothing short of spectacular. Our Fall for Cape May tour with Doug Gochfeld (October 3–10) is timed for peak movement, when raptors stream overhead, shorebirds line the beaches, and woodlots can be alive with warblers and other passerines. We’ll explore a variety of habitats across the peninsula—from coastal marshes to dunes and forests—while staying the entire time at a single, comfortable hotel, making for an easy and relaxed pace. With favorable winds, the birding can be exceptional, and the possibility of big flights or even a fabled fallout is always possible.
SOUTH AMERICA
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Galapagos: An Intimate Look at Darwin's Islands I, Jun 13-23, with Mitch Lysinger (1 space)
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Peru's Magnetic North: Spatuletails, Owlet Lodge & More, Jun 13-25, with Dan Lane & Jesse Fagan
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Machu Picchu & Abra Malaga, Peru, Jun 24-Jul 3, with Dan Lane
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Galapagos: An Intimate Look at Darwin's Islands II, Jul 11-21, with Willy Perez (1 space)
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Cloudforests of Ecuador: All the Best of the Wild Northwest, Jul 20-30, with Willy Perez
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Peruvian Rainforests of the Tambopata: Macaw Lick Extraordinaire, Jul 20-30, with Dan Lane
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Northern Peru: Endemics Galore, Oct 3-22, with Dan Lane & local guide
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Spectacular Southeast Brazil (Part I), Oct 16-Nov 2, with Bret Whitney & Marcelo Barreiros
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Southern Argentina: The Pampas, Patagonia & Tierra del Fuego, Oct 29-Nov 14, with Doug Gochfeld & local guide
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Spectacular Southeast Brazil (Part II), Oct 31-Nov 16, with Marcelo Barreiros & Micah Riegner
NORTH AMERICA
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Arizona's Second Spring II, Aug 3-12, with Alex Sundvall
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Oregon: From the Coast to the Cascades, Aug 29-Sep 9, with Cory Gregory & Alex Sundvall (1 space)
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Slice of California: Seabirds to Sierra I, Sep 10-19, with Chris Benesh
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Slice of California: Seabirds to Sierra II, Sep 15-24, with Micah Riegner
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Alaska Fall Goldmine (Part I): Rarities on the Pribilofs, Sep 23-Oct 1, with Cory Gregory
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Alaska Fall Goldmine (Part II): Ross's Gulls in Utqiagvik (Barrow), Oct 2-6, with Sam Wilson
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Fall for Cape May, Oct 3-10, with Doug Gochfeld
MIDDLE AMERICA & WEST INDIES
AFRICA
EUROPE
ASIA & AUSTRALASIA
To learn more about any of these tours or to hold a space, please contact our office.
| | 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). | |
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