Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour

               I just finished my trip to Honduras.  I’ve really enjoyed meeting with birders from many of the bird clubs in Honduras, and laying the groundwork for establishing a network of sister birding clubs between the U.S. and Honduras.  To wrap up my trip, I have spent the last nine days participating in the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour.

               This Tour was the first of its kind in the country.  The main purpose of the Tour was to bring attention to Honduras as a safe, bio-diverse, and exciting place for avitourists to visit.  The hope is that more avitourists coming to enjoy the country will translate into more protection for the birds that avitourists want to experience, and especially for the habitats on which those birds depend.   

Participants in the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour were welcomed in amazing ways everywhere

we birded on the Tour.  This sign greeted us at te Pico Bonito Lodge on the north coast of Honduras.  

Photo Credit: Jody Enck.

               Five teams of ten birders each competed for nine days to see (and/or hear) as many bird species as possible in designated counting areas.  Each of these teams was led by a dynamic duo composed of an internationally known bird tour leader and a local Honduran bird guide.  Each of the five teams was outfitted with a bus and driver to take us to the counting areas each day, and to transport us to three different geographic areas of the country over the nine days of the Tour.

We chose to call our team "The Ant Swarm" in honor of all the

various bird species that can be found attending ant swarms in the

tropics.  This was the bus for "The Ant Swarm."  Our great driver,

Miguel, made sure we got safely from place to place.

Photo credit: Jody Enck. 

          Our Team was first headquartered at the Pico Bonito Lodge for four days of birding the rainforest and coastal marshes of the north coast.  Then we traveled to the more arid and higher area around the City of Copan (where we stayed at the Hotel Marina Copan) and the Mayan ruins in western Honduras.  Our team wrapped up the Tour by being headquartered for a couple days at Panacam Lodge in Cero Azul Meambar National Park near Lake Yojoa more in the central part of the country. 

               The Tour has been a fun, exhausting, and informative time.  The President of Honduras, Juan Hernandez, has supported this Tour by contributing $20,000 U.S. in prize money to be awarded to in-country conservation projects, facilitating infrastructure improvements for the Tour, ensuring official media coverage, and providing (unnecessary) extra security for participants.  An additional $15,000 U.S.  (approximately) was donated by corporate sponsors.  The funds provided by the President and the sponsors were available to be designated by the competing teams to various conservation programs within the country. 

               I’ll write about our birding experiences in another blog post.  I’ll also write about the in-country conservation programs that received the funds designated by the winning teams.  For now, suffice it to say that the team on which I participated came in third, and was honored to designate $5,000 to a conservation program.  The remainder of this blog post will focus more on some musings about conservation that emerged during my participating in the Tour.

What’s in a name?

               This incredible event was called the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour.  The website that attracted me to want to participate, various emails, Facebook posts, and discussions with Tour organizers all made important points about conservation.  Media about the event raised awareness about conservation needs and conservation successes in Honduras.  The Tour raised and distributed more than $35,000 U.S. to three different conservation programs.  Many participants said they would return, and bring their friends with them next time.  This will produce additional conservation benefits. 

There was a lot of media coverage throughout the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour.

Here one of our team members, an expat from the U.K. now living in Bolivia,

is interviewed for Honduras TV while other team members look on.   Photo Credit: Jody Enck.

               These all are important points.  By many measures, the Tour was a huge success for Honduras.  Yet, I still am left pondering about the connections between these points (and many other possible ones) and bird conservation in Honduras.  If you connect some of those points, what does the picture look like?

Connecting the dots.

Just like there are many stars in the night sky, there are many points of light associated with this tour.  Turning those various points into a “Bird Conservation” constellation requires connecting the dots.  But, this does not mean connecting the dots in some

Drawing of Johan Bayer's "Southern Birds" showing some

bird constellations in the southern sky, including Toucana

in the center of the drawing. 

haphazard way.  Think about all those stars in the night sky.  Recognizing which stars make up specific constellations requires both an understanding of the stories behind the naming of the constellations, and enough imagination to visualize the appropriate connections between stars.

          Understanding and imagination.  Both are important, and neither occur by magic.  Developing understanding and imagination takes focused engagement and transformative experiences.  Here are some examples of what I mean.

          First, this Tour was set up as a fun competition with a goal of seeing as many species as possible.  Many of us (50 birders mostly from the U.S., U.K., and South Africa) did not know very well very many of the birds of Central America.  Because of this, we spent a lot of birding in more open, disturbed habitats where (1) it was

Birding in a corn field planted in the buffer zone of Cero Azul National Park,

Honduras.  Fields like this held good numbers of a diversity of species that  

we recognized, including migratory warblers, orioles, vireos, and flycatchers. 

But, these kinds of habitats lacked any of the habitat-specific birds which  

rely on protected forest areas for survival.  It was ironic to spend most of our 

time birding in areas associated with habitat loss rather than habitat protection. 

Photo credit: Jody Enck.

easier to see birds and get each of our 10 team members to be able to see and recognize birds, and (2) we saw many of relatively common species that are not habitat specific, including lots of Neotropical migratory birds which we were familiar.  I know I loved seeing "my birds of summer" on their wintering grounds in Honduras. 

          Our approach to Tour, however, meant that we focused more on wracking up numbers of species rather than developing an understanding of the special birds associated with the less-disturbed habitats that are most under threat of being lost.  I wonder what it would have been like to focus on visiting natural habitats and trying to identify as many of those species as possible so we could compare the specific list of species and the diversity of species in those areas with birds in the disturbed habitats.

The core area of Santa Barbara National Park is supposed to be protected from firewood cutting and agricultural

production, but more and more habitat is being lost all the time.  Photo credit: Jody Enck. 

               This point was driven home for me this morning when I birded my local patch in Ithaca, NY for the first time in about five weeks.  I conduct an eBird point count in my local woods, and it's always pretty "slim pickins" in terms of diversity and abundance in winter.  The "pickins" are made even slimmer by the fact that most of our "birds of winter" -- Black-capped Chickadees, Northern Cardinals, Tufted Titmice, Black-eyed Juncos, Downy Woodpeckers, etc. -- can be pulled out of the woods to the smorgasbord of backyard feeders that exist in my general vicinity.  My 30-minute point count this morning revealed two American Crows and one Blue Jay.  The resident "birds of winter" sometimes are found in this patch of "natural habitat", but today they were elsewhere -- probably in very disturbed habitats in local backyards.

               In Honduras, many of the resident birds are not likely to be drawn out of their natural habitat to attend feeding stations.  Obviously, a few exceptions exist.  Some of the bigger, charismatic species like Keel-billed Toucan, Collared Aracari, and some of the Motmots certainly will come to feeding stations.  But most of the interior forest birds will be found only in the interior forest.  If you want to encounter them, you have to go to them.  If you want to understand their habitat needs, you have to go where they live.  If you want to imagine what it is like to encounter a mixed-flock of interior forest birds attending an ant swarm, you have to immerse yourself in the interior forest habitats.

          Second, while birding around Honduras, we constantly saw the private homes of everyday Hondurans literally scratching out a living from the landscape.  These hard-working, hospitable people survive on an average of about $300 per month per family.   They live with 3 or more generations of family members in small 3- or

A house on the outskirts of La Ceiba, Honduras.  Can we imagine

the joys and challenges of day-to-day living for most Hondurans? 

Photo credit: Jody Enck. 

4-room homes constructed of cinderblocks and stucco on concrete slabs.  These are the very people who cutting the forest, planting corn, beans, bananas, and other crops on the steep hillsides, and grazing their few cows, goats, or pigs on forest-converted-to-pasture areas. 

          On one hand, we might say it is logical to comprehend why

A Honduran moving some household furniture.  We avitourists walked

right past him with our scopes and binoculars as he and his family

unloaded the cart at the house in the picture above.  We were mere feet

from this man and his family, but our lives were so far apart.

Photo credit: Jody Enck.

these residents use the landscape and change it from primary forest to small-scale agricultural production. But, if this is the primary cause of habitat loss for birds, especially for range- and habitat-restricted species, how does eco-tourism address this?  Even more importantly, how does eco-tourism -- as we experienced it -- help us understand their situation or help us imagine what it is like to eke out an existence in this landscape? 

          We saw these conditions with our very own eyes. We gained information and knowledge about the situation.  We even said hello to a man and some boys unloading a cart of furniture at the back of a small wooden house.  We stood mere feet away from Hondurans living out their lives in their world, but the lives we participants lived were so far apart from the Honduran lives being lived out right in front of us.  How might we have done something different to expand our imagination so that we could actually understand how to make sense out of the information and knowledge we were gaining?

          For the most part, we never really engaged with the people living on the landscape. We rarely talked with them, ate meals with them, or spent the night in their homes.  We never had to cook food we had to grow ourselves or barter for with some little thing we could offer to others in the community.  Instead, we walked on, often right past their homes, often glancing out of the corner of our eyes but not wanting to make eye contact with them or not really wanting to think about the conditions these strong, humble people endure. 

          In an effort to survive in a challenging world, local residents clearly are having a very large impact on habitat for resident and migratory birds in Honduras.  Many of those residents probably know little about the birds in the habitats being lost, and they probably know little about the ecological consequences of their day-to-day actions.  These conditions contribute to a very dark night sky for birds and their conservation.  Increasing awareness of birds, their habitat needs, and the consequences of habitat loss can indeed be akin to having some bright stars in that night sky.  But, these stars certainly have little or no relationship to a bird conservation constellation in that night sky. 

         Bringing people to Honduras to see birds, lots of birds, at least some of which are birds with which the birders may be familiar from back home is a good thing.  Its a star in an otherwise dark night sky.  Making people aware that you can see a diversity of birds in good numbers, and that you can bird safely here in Honduras is a good thing.  It's another bright star in the night sky.  Demonstrating to birders that there is an existing tourism and lodge infrastructure available to them is a good thing.  More bright stars in the night sky.  What, if any, connections do these stars have to the bird conservation constellation?

Which stars in the dark, night sky make up the "bird conservation

constellation"?  Image credit: Theheavensdeclare.net. 

              Understanding and imagination.  How can we birders understand what is needed for bird conservation to be successful in Honduras or in our hometowns?  How can birders expand their imaginations about how birds use their habitats and about how people living close to the land live-out their lives in ways that are more consistent with bird conservation?  Perhaps by more closely engaging with birds in the most imperiled habitats and with local residents -- living a day or a week in their shoes -- would help us better understand the stories behind the naming of the bird conservation constellations, and broaden our imaginations enough to better visualize the appropriate connections between stars in the night sky that reveal the bird conservation constellations.