Lake Yojoa Birding Blitz was a Huge Success!

The Lake Yojoa Birding Blitz was a great success!  About forty participants from all over Honduras (and two of us from the United States) spent four days observing, identifying, and documenting birds at about ten locations in the Lake Yojoa area.  With a few more eBIrd checklists to the submitted (yes, that includes me although I have not had access to wifi for a couple days), we are up to 299 species found by the participants.  Most importantly for me, I not only enjoyed finding and seeing almost 200 species of birds myself over the four days, but I found a couple of dozen new friends while participating in the Blitz. 

If you have been following this blog over the last couple of weeks, you know that I have traveled to Honduras as part of an effort to establish sister birding clubs in Central and North America.  Many populations of Neotropical migratory bird species are declining.  Major causes for those declines include loss of habitat on breeding grounds in North America and on wintering grounds in Central America.  Birders in North America and Central America are inexorably linked by the birds that travel between our homes, by our love of the birds, by our concern for those birds, and by our desire to help conserve those birds on into the future. 

I can’t possibly list all the new friends I met from the groups represented at the Blitz.  Here are just a few of the new friends I met from about half of the Clubs in attendance... 

Two of the youngest participants in the Blitz were Norman Espinoza and Daniel Torres.  Both are 16-years old and fairly new birders.  Along with their adult leader, Francisco Rovelo, they represented a youth birding club called the Hummingbirds.  They are a relatively new club associated with Las Tanunas Club (named after Lesser Roadrunners) from in Gracias in Lempira Department.  Daniel and Norman may have been the only birders participating in the Blitz who saw more life birds than me.  Their enthusiasm, deep desire to learn birds, and their wonderful good nature especially brightened a couple of the field trips in which I participated.  I think they would make a couple of great candidates to attend the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Young Birder event next summer.  Although they spoke English pretty well, I gave them Spanish-language Kaufman guide to birds of North America (donated by Gladys Birdsall), so they would have information in Spanish about the Neotropical Migratory Birds we share.

New friends Daniel Torres (left), adult leader Francisco Rovelo, and Norman Espinosa (right) from

Club Hummingbird in Gracias, Honduras (Lempira Department).  Photo credit: Francisco Rovelo.

Two awesome new friends from San Pedro Sula are Hector Moncada and Marlen López.  They are from Club Zorzales (named after Clay-colored Thrush) in San Pedro Sula.  In addition to being a birder, Hector is a scout leader with a deep passion for conservation.  One of his great ideas is to go birding with his friends from the club and then get everyone to go plant some native trees as a habitat restoration project.  He has been birding for about a year, and already has an incredible handle on identifying Honduran birds by sight and sound.  Marlen studies bees and is a bee-keeper.  She only started birding this past spring, and I was impressed that she wanted to attend this event.  In addition to studying all the birds carefully through her binoculars, she took many pictures so she could study those back home.    

Angel Fong is from Los Alzacuanes Club (aka Migratory Raptors) in Tegucigalpa.  An accountant by training, Angel also is an avi-tourism guide.  Not only is he friendly and helpful, he made me laugh a lot!  He was on several of the field trips I attended.  Often he was the person in charge of recording the species and abundance data for entry into eBird.

A boat load of new friends!  Guide William Orellana (left), Angel Fong from Club Alzacuanes in

Tegucigalpa, Victor Gálvez from Club Clorofonia, me, and Marlen López from Club Los Zorzales

in San Pedro Sula.  Photo credit: William Orellana.  

David Hernández and Sarahí Morales are from Club Jilgueros (Goldfinch) in Marcala (La Paz department).   This Club just got started and they don’t have much in the way of birding equipment or resources.  We chose this club to receive the two binoculars donated by Donna Scott and Wes Blauvelt from the Cayuga Bird Club in Ithaca, New York, which is my home bird club.

In my next blog post, I’ll share some information about some of my other new friends from Club Tanunas (Lesser Roadrunner) in Gracias, the local Club in Lake Yojoa – Clorofonia (named for Chlorophonia), and from the Honduran Institute for Forest Conservation, Protected Areas and Wildlife (ICF).  Members from all the groups participating in the Blitz expressed a lot of excitement about the ideas of developing a sister-club relationship with birding clubs in North America.  Throughout the Lake Yojoa Birding Blitz, it was obvious that these mostly young adults are passionate about birds and about bird conservation.  They are very interested in sharing their experiences and their birds with anyone who comes to Honduras to visit.  I hope all of you reading this blog will help support this effort to establish sister birding clubs.