Today, I
had the very special opportunity to go birding on the Zamorano University
campus with U.S. Ambassador James Nealon.
Luckily for me, and for birders throughout Honduras, the Ambassador has
been a life-long birder. For the past
couple of years, he has been very instrumental in facilitating interest and
infrastructure development to support avi-tourism in Honduras. He also played an important role in securing
support for the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour from the President of
Honduras.
U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, James Nealon (right) is an avid, life-long birder.
He joined us for a great bird walk on the Zamorano University campus today. Photo Credit:
Oliver Komar.
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Thanks to Oliver Komar of the Departmento de Ambiente y Desarrollo (Environment and Development) at Zamorano University, a group
of ten birders had a great time walking 6km or so through the main part of campus and
through some of the agricultural areas from 6am until about 11am. In addition to the Ambassador, our group of
birders included a few faculty members and a couple of their family members,
two undergraduate students, and two research staff members from Zamorano University. The University’s
President, Jeffery Lansdale, joined us for a wonderful picnic breakfast provided
by the University for the whole group of us at about 8am.
Zamorano University provided us with a wonderful picnic breakfast midway
through our bird walk. Photo Credit: Jody Enck.
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Our
group of birders was quite diverse in term of birding experience and
identification skill. It was fun to be
with several experts and some birding novices on the same bird walk. I could learn about some of the birds from
the experts while also lending a bit of help to some of the novices, too. As it turns out, one of the undergrad
students, Maria José Oviedo, will be traveling to the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology this coming January where she will intern with the Education
Program for about four months. Our big
world sometimes is very small.
Karla Maria Melgar Velis (right) and Maria José Oviedo, two undergrads at
Zamorano University, joined us on our bird walk on campus today. Photo credit: Jody Enck.
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Professor Eric van den Berghe and his daughter,
Crystal, check out some of the birds we saw on the
bird walk. Photo credit: Jody Enck
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We saw
many other amazing birds, too. For
example, we found some newly arrived migrants like Western Kingbird (2),
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (2), and Dickcissel (at least 250). We also observed quite a few species of
warblers that breed in North America – “our birds of summer” that are
Hondurans’ “birds of winter.” These are
the birds that link birding clubs in Central and North America.
During
our walk and over breakfast, I had a chance to share my dream of creating
sister birding clubs between the U.S. and Honduras with Ambassador Nealon. The Ambassador was very enthusiastic about
this idea. He immediately saw potential
for sister birding clubs not only to raise awareness of Neotropical migratory
birds and threats to their habitats, but also to contribute to enhancing the
lives and livelihoods of local community residents. Sustainable development, especially linked to
nature and the environment, is an important joint priority for the U.S. and
Honduran governments. I was particularly
excited when Ambassador Nealon said he thought his office can help facilitate
the development of a network of sister birding clubs.
When I
came to Honduras 12 days ago, I had a very small dream to link some birding
clubs on the breeding and wintering grounds for Neotropical migratory
birds. Nearly every day something
wonderful happens that I could not possibly have imagined to help this dream
start to become a reality. Today was one
of those days. To potentially have
support and some kind of assistance from the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras is
something that I never imagined could happen.
The dream continues to grow.
I am happy you are having a great time in Honduras!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this amazing blog.
See you soon!
Honduras is such a fantastic country. I am up to 273 bird species seen since I arrived. Yesterday, I had wonderful views of Golden-cheeked Warbler up in the Pine-Oak forest by the wind farm.
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