Birding in Guyana



We needed a plan to be away from our home in Washington DC for both our November election month and our January inauguration time. Went to Italy for all of November and then set up a trip to go birding in Guyana January 17 to 27. “Say what? Where is that anyway? Africa? I know nothing about it. Is that where Jim Jones followers committed suicide so many years ago? (Yes). So why are you going there?” That’s what we heard from everyone we mentioned this destination to.



Decades ago we met a lovely man on a birding trip to the Darien in Panama. He was an excellent birder, who couldn’t say enough good things about his extended time in Guyana. So we filed that info away. We had already birded a lot of other countries in South America and were looking for something new. Noticed a trip offered by Natural Selections tours, who arranged our recent trip to Uganda. But that was being offered in September when we had other plans.



Started out googling best bird guide in Guyana and all sources seem to point to Leon Moore, based in Georgetown, Guyana. We signed up for his 10 day trip to four different lodges known as good birding locations in Guyana’s interior. It would be just Leon and us. Here’s how it all went!



We flew American from DCA TO Georgetown thru Miami. A 5am flight (Arrgh). About 6 plus hours of flying total. Flight was uneventful, and we had great conversation with our seat mate, a contemporary from (of course Indiana - wherever we go in the world we meet people from husbands home state of Indiana, go figure). He was on his way to Guyana with some friends to catch some really big fish (something else Guyana is known for).



It was hot and dry when we arrived at the Gtown airport on Jan 17. Leon came to fetch us in his large comfortable vehicle. He had his teenage daughter with him.

Within minutes we knew we had made a good decision in hiring him - that he was going to be a super guide. He was spotting and identifying birds as soon as we pulled out of the airport and was full of interesting info on Guyana.



Arrival day

After a couple HOURS in hideous rush hour traffic on the main two lane road. We were checked into our hotel for 2 nights - the Grand Coastal Hotel - a kind of fancy place (for Guyana) 15 mins outside of the city center, on the busy main road. By then it was time for dinner in the hotel restaurant. Leon had pointed out that although Guyana is geographically connected to South America (bordering Brazil and Venezuela), it is culturally part of the Carribean. It has also been influenced by Indian culture due to many Indians who came to Guyana as indentured workers way back when. Hence I ordered chicken curry and roti. It was just so so.



Day 1

Next morning early - at 5 or so - drank quick coffee at the hotel and were picked up by Leon for a drive to a boat trip on the Mahaica River. Drove several miles east of Gtown to a casual establishment with boats/dock, restaurant area, and a few rooms for rent. Owner Ramesh powered us slowly down the river. Trees along the river were filled with Guyana’s unique national bird, the hoatsin - a large crested prehistoric looking quite colorful bird. We had seen these birds on the Napo River in Ecuador, but enjoyed seeing them again. In addition we saw many other species and a giant river otter. We were also accompanied by another tourist, a Guyanese born London journalist who was here researching a chapter on Guyana for a Lonely Planet book on South America. We all had a delicious lunch on Ramesh’s porch next to the river. This time delicious roti, a wonderful eggplant dish, chunks of pineapple (salted!), steamed spinach, and good coffee. Drove back to hotel for lunch and a rest before a late afternoon trip with Leon to Gtown botanical gardens. More of a wild open green space than anything manicured. Lots of old trees and lots of good birds. Wandered around there until dusk, when we returned to the hotel.



The hotel was great for people watching - not only locals - of Indian, African, Amerindian, and European descent, but also a handful of tourists and business travelers. Two Scottish oil workers bought us a beer at the bar. Had some jolly conversation with them. Hotel was comfortable, but restaurant food marginal.



Day 2

Leon picked us up early after hotel breakfast. We’re off to the domestic airport for our flight to the Guyanian interior (Lethem) on a 19 passenger Beechcraft. Though the domestic airport was close to the hotel, the most direct route there turned out to be blocks and blocks of crazy parking, drivers, and many vendors for the big Sunday market. Leon showed off some more of his skills - amazing maneuvering through all that crazy congestion to get us out of all that to an alternate roundabout route. Lots of bureaucracy and security at the little airport, but after all that we’re off on our one hour flight to Lethem. Have a little conversation with one of the few others on our flight. She’s from Toronto, traveling solo to a different ranch than ours where she plans to just stay and pursue the giant anteater and “just talk to horses.”. She asks Leon about his guiding biz and we chime in singing his praises. She takes his card. We arrive at the small dusty dry Lethem airport. Leon jumps in-some sort of taxi thing to get to wherever he has another more rugged vehicle parked. We sat waiting and sweating on a little bench outside watching all the interesting action - people, cargo, transport of various kinds. We’re close to the Brazilian border now so we’re hearing a little Portuguese. It’s hot and dry.



We drive a few hours on dusty dirt road to our next overnight stop (Manari Ranch)

Miles and miles of dry savannah. Of course stopping occasionally to look at spotted birds. Manari Ranch was established in the early 1920's as a family cattle ranch and later became a guesthouse in the 1960's due to a great demand for places to host visitors. The place is pretty deserted when we arrived as most staff is attending a funeral for an important community member. Check into our simple room After lunch and a brief rest we are off on a long drive through savannah to the Iring River to walk along there and look for two targeted endemic birds. Of course stop along the way to look at some others. As we get closer to our destination we can see lots of smoke in the distance. Later we can see active flames. And there’s wind blowing toward our destination. No one knows for certain the origin of these fires, but for sure many are being set by hunters trying to flush out animals. When we get to our stop by the river, we can smell a lot of smoke and can see smoke and fire moving in the direction of our return. We decide to abandon our river walk and return to the ranch, fearing that encroaching fire and smoke might block our return path. Guide Leon takes some videos of the fire as well as of a car and a small group of people we see nearby - concerned that they might be responsible for setting fires.



Walk outside the ranch gate a bit still birding. Beautiful sunset. Eat a simple buffet style dinner at the ranch. Food served at these small remote lodges is mostly local, fresh, and good - better at some than others. We’ve eaten chicken, local fish, beef, mixed vegetables including okra, bokchoy, pasta salads, pumpkin. Dessert is often a fruit in cream or a fruit mousse of some kind. One night dessert was JELLO. First time I’d had that in a very long time. Not bad, interesting flavor I couldn’t identify. Turned out, according to cook, to be orange with a dash of coffee.



Day 3 and 4

We set out early for the long drive to Karasabai, an indigenous village, where we will pick up an additional local guide to find the iconic sun parakeets (the name of this tour). Guide Ali is a delightful man and navigates us all to the place on the road where he last sighted these beautiful parakeets. We hop out of the car and walk up and down the road a bit looking for the birds. It was not long before Ali sighted a handful of them high in some trees. We could see them in our binoculars and Leon gave us an even better view through his scope. Truly beautiful especially in the sun- befitting their name - bright orange, yellow, and green. Locals estimate there may be only 200 individuals left - 100 where we are and perhaps another hundred in another location. We watch them in the trees and take photos and videos for some time. Later we have lunch served by Ali’s daughter at a pavilion area near the village and then show our passports at the village admin office. We say goodbye there to Ali and continue our long drive to our next stop at the Caiman House Ecolodge still in the savannah.



This ecolodge is in the heart of the Yupukari indigenous community and managed by that community. It is also a research facility for caiman. Community members capture caiman in the evening, weigh, measure, and release them - maintaining the data on the population’s health. Unfortunately we didn’t see this part of the operation, though we did see a few caiman on our trip down the nearby Rupununi River and later on the Burro Burro River. We did a lot of birding at various locations along the nearby savannah roads. Saw a giant anteater or two…. Many, many new to us species of birds.



Day 5

Another early morning and long dusty road trip to our 3rd location: the Surama Ecolodge, operated by the Makushi people, another of Guyana’s 9 indigenous communities. Of course, more birding along the way…. Here guests stay in individual wood cabins with thatched roofs, each with a front door painting of an indigenous individual. The open to the air dining room is supported by wood columns all of which are adorned with hand paintings of local wildlife. From this lodge we do walks and dusty drives searching for, and usually finding, various target birds. But then the highlight! An 8 mile boat trip down the nearby Burro Burro River to a viewpoint of an active nest of the magnificent harpy eagle. We were so fortunate that the river on our day was navigable (however barely) as it was very low. I say barely because it was a quite challenging voyage. The river, being low, was full of dead trees and branches, requiring our skilled indigenous boatman to go under and even over some of the obstructive vegetation. Indeed our guide, the local accompanying guide, and the boatman essentially portaged us (in the boat) over one section. That was a surprise and just a little scary.

But otherwise, what a beautiful trip. So many gorgeous kingfishers of several kinds flying and perching along the river. A few different herons, a caiman or two.



At last we arrive at our destination on the river. We two geezers are assisted out of the boat and up some muddy bank steps - thanks to our tall and very strong and careful guide and the possibly equally strong yet half his size indigenous guide and boatman. We walk a few hundred feet to an open area with benches overlooking the river. And there across the river at the intersection of two branches of a huge silk cotton tree is the big stick nest of the harpy eagles. And on the nest! Dad! feeding (possibly monkey pieces) to an 8 month old juvenile. So exciting for us all. We have good views of the nest and birds through our binoculars and super guide Leon gives us fab close ups and picture opportunities with his scope. A definite trip highlight!

Of course we also did the usual drives and walks around areas near the lodge, stopping to look at many, many other birds.



Day 7

After 2 nights at Surama, we were off to our final destination - the Atta Rainforest Lodge, which sits in an opening in the middle of the beautiful old Iwokrama forest. This lodge is operated jointly by Surama Village, Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation, and Wilderness Explorers. This is definitely the most “upscale” of these rustic villages. None of which have hot showers by the way. All have generators and solar panels. A short trail walk away is the Iwokrama Canopy Walkway, a beautiful suspended walkway with two platforms 100 feet up in the canopy. After checking in at the lodge, lunch, and a brief rest, we hit the short trail to the canopy walkway. We went up and up lots of wooden (and thankfully wire covered) steps and then one at a time across the swaying walkway to the first platform. There we while away time looking around in the beautiful canopy until nearly dusk. On this occasion it’s pretty quiet up there. We see a fruit crow and a toucan or two, but not much else. These canopy visits, in our experience, vary just like nature itself. Sometimes we’ll see a lot of birds or maybe a sloth or monkey, other times not much at all. But it’s always fun to be up there. Our lodge guide Vento finds us the capuchin bird, which was a target, on the trail back to the lodge. There’s always something interesting to see on the lodge grounds as well: large black curasows, toucans, hummingbirds (one flew right through our room- in one open window and out another), an agouti, various hawks.



We sleep really well on night 1 at Atta, only briefly hearing a couple hard rains during the night. See 2 cane toads on either side of the dark sidewalk between the dining area and our room.



Day 8

Guide Leon wants us outside the dining room at 5:45am to show us something he anticipates will be there at that ungodly hour. Sadly it’s drizzly and dark so that doesn’t happen. We eat breakfast eventually. Sun and rain alternate for the rest of the day. We get out briefly on a drive before lunch to some nearby forest and successfully get the bronzy jacamar, a beautiful tiny bird, that was a target for the area. Chill in the lounge area as it rains in the afternoon. Go out in the car in the late afternoon when there’s a very brief period of reprieve from the rain. See some lovely gray winged trumpeters on the road, our first blue morpho butterfly of the trip, spix’s guan, a blue dacnis , and some jays before more serious rain started again and we decide to return to the lodge.



Day 9

Up at the usual ungodly hour. Had planned to go again to the canopy walk to see what might be there in the am. But it looks like it might rain again so we opt to hang around the lodge instead on our last morning. And of course, Tyler’s lots to see from there as well. By 10am we are packed and ready for our several hour drive back to Lethem for our flight from there to Georgetown. Weather is dry, but clouds are low. Leon casually mentions plan B if our flight is cancelled - a 12 hour trip involving hours and hours of driving and a ferry. Yikes. Fortunately when we arrive at the small airport with plenty of time to spare it appears the flight is a go. We much time to burn we drive to a very casual local spot for lunch - fried chicken, potato salad, mixed veggies. Pretty good. Leaving there we drive across the nearby border with Brazil to a close by park/small lake for a little last minute birding. Don’t see any new birds there, but do see a family of capybaras on the far shore - which, surprisingly, we hadn’t yet seen elsewhere on this trip. It was interesting to see this border area. Guyana has left side driving, while Brazil right side. So at the border an interesting and clever over/under crossroads has been constructed to help ensure a smoother transition. A second interesting, however depressing, thing to see on the Guyana side was a several block stretch of cheap clothing/etc stores with dirt frontages - now mostly Chinese owned- which are mostly frequented by Brazilians seeking Guyanas lower prices.



Our flight Lethem to Georgetown was blessedly uneventful, though it’s raining in Gtown when we arrive. As we deplane down the steps on arrival we’re all provided umbrellas for the short walk to the airport bldg. we 3 take a taxi to our same GTOWN hotel, where Leon has another vehicle waiting for him. We bid him sad farewell and many thanks and collapse in our room. First up a hot shower! Then dinner in the so so yet expensive hotel restaurant - Ie. $95 for 2 bar brand beers, 2 wines, and 2 cheeseburgers (which, after a few tries we’ve we found to be the tastiest bet here). This hotel restaurant however is very popular with local folks who come in couples and families dressed to the nines for various celebrations. Great people watching continues.



We crash early until our 430am alarm to meet our arranged driver at 5 to board our 7am flight. It’s a long drive on dark mostly empty roads to the airport. Our obviously widely read driver engages husband in front seat in a depressingly negative conversation about US politics, Guyana govt, and the recent discovery of oil off Guyana and the resultant development.



I was struck this trip by the dramatic contrast between what we saw in Guyanas lovely wild interior savannah/rainforest and the not so lovely rapidly developing Georgetown and Lethem. Trash, for example, really needs addressing. Around the world many counties (including our own) have made this cultural/societal change over the years. …. I hope they can address that as they develop further…..

Forgot to add bird count- 292 species seen total - probably 50 new to us!

Guyana is starting to be mentioned in the travel pages of newspapers here in the UK , possibly because BA started flying there a while ago (via Trinidad). It is being promoted as an unspoiled , less touristed alternative amazon destination to the usual places. Do you feel it would be of interest to non birdwatchers like me?

Hi again Crellston. Have to say I don’t feel that Guyana would be of much interest to folks not interested in either birding or fishing. There is a trip report lower down here in the Guyana forum from someone who did neither. But I think you can see that it’s difficult (and expensive ) to get around and not a lot going on. It’s sparsely populated, with most people in cities on the coast. The interior is wide swaths of savannah and forest. There’s a well known waterfall, but it has to be reached by flights, which don’t sound too reliable (due to weather conditions mostly). A very diverse population - descendants of Indian indentured farmers, African slaves, indigenous communities, hand ful of Europeans. An interesting mix indeed! Think you two are interested in exploring different cultures, right? It was interesting for us to stay in a couple of the basic lodges run/owned by some of Guyanas 9 indigenous communities. We got descriptions of local govt, language, customs, etc. However one local leader lamented that getting younger people in their communities interested in preserving those cultures (or in anything other than screens) is a real challenge. So I came away feeling that these folks are fighting a losing battle….
They are trying to up their tourist game clearly. One lodge is the locale for research on caiman. Same one has annual or so Turtle Fest as they are obviously trying to protect and study them.

Sounds interesting enough for birding. Always interesting to explore lesser known places. Thanks for the TR. You probably need to escape DC again!

My boss was born in Guyana.