Birding
Birds are the other half of my work, not a sideline. I identify them to species in the field and I have run point counts and transects. If you want a trip led on birds, I lead it.
What a birding trip with me is
The itinerary is built on elevation, because elevation is what changes a bird community. The bases are chosen for the forest around them rather than for the drive between them, and we stay long enough at each to work a dawn more than once. If a species on your list calls at first light from one ridge, we are on that ridge at first light, twice if that is what it takes.
Where a site has a local specialist whose ear beats mine in that particular forest – and in a few places it does – I arrange for them to join us for the mornings that matter. You do not organise that and you do not chase it: it is part of the trip I build, and I tell you in advance where I think it is worth doing.
What you also get, which a pure birding tour does not offer, is the rest of the forest. The mammals, the reptiles, the insects, the plants, and the nights. Owls, potoos and nightjars are birds too, and almost nobody is out at the hour they are.
What a mixed trip looks like
Mornings are birds, nights are reptiles and amphibians, and the bases are chosen because both work there. Days alternate so that nobody is asked to do dawn and midnight on the same day.
It suits two kinds of group particularly well: couples where one of you is a birder and the other is not, and people who have done a few single-taxon tours and want to see a place whole instead.
The elevation logic is the same as on a herping trip, from wetlands through lowland forest and mid-elevation to the highlands, because that is what changes the bird communities too. Quetzal country and montane pitviper country are the same place.
Send me the birds you most want. I will tell you which are realistic in your season, which are long shots, and where along the route each one is likeliest.
Tell me what you want to find
A shortlist of ten species is more useful to me than “snakes”. Planning costs nothing, and the more specific you are, the more useful my first reply will be.