Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour

 For the next two weeks I'll be guiding one of the teams for the first-ever Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour (HBCT). It's a friendly birding competition that raises both awareness and money for bird conservation in this Central American country.

I'm excited to see some new birds, like lovely cotinga, plus getting to see some tropical favorites like toucans, trogons, and even (I hope) resplendent quetzals.

Lovely cotinga, well-named.

There are five teams competing, each with an international guide (Jeffrey A. Gordon, Tim Appleton, Richard Crossley, Adam Riley, and myself) plus a Honduran birding guide. Team/tour participants got to choose which team to be on and we're all competing to see the most bird species. The winning team, and the second-place team, each receive $10,000 to donate to the Honduran conservation cause of their choice.

Birding the Mayan ruins at Copan.

The HBCT was the brainchild of James Adams of Pico Bonito Lodge. He sees it as a way to highlight the birding opportunities in Honduras as well as a way to encourage the Honduran government and people to preserve habitat for birds and wildlife as a way to generate significant tourism revenue.

For some more background into the HBCT, please give a listen to my podcast episode about it.

James Adam, HBCT founder.

I'm not sure if my team will be one of the winners (full disclosure: I've never BEEN to Honduras) but if there's prize for the team that will have the most fun, I'm sure we'll be in the running.

Keel-billed motmot.

Keel-billed toucan.

You can follow along on my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (billofthebirds) feeds, or, follow all the posts from the event on the HBCT Facebook page.

I always consider myself to be so fortunate to participate in such an inspiring and auspicious bird conservation event. Wish us luck!