Bird watching is one of the most popular activities in Central American countries. What began as an activity practiced by elderly American tourists and professional biologists, became part of the tourist offer of towns and rural areas of Guatemala and the rest of Central America.

This interest in visiting places where unique birds could be observed, as well as observing the behavior of others that migrate from the north of the continent during the winter season, has grown so much in the region that, in addition to being part of the offer countries tourism, has caught the attention of the general public.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which forced confinement measures in all countries at the beginning of 2020, and which threatens a second round of lockdowns due to the arrival of a second wave in Central America, led many citizens to listen to the sounds that surrounded them, both in urban and rural areas, and the birds became more visible.

New records

Brown owl. Photo: Esteban Matías / Macaulay library

At the beginning of 2020, during one of the Christmas counts carried out in Guatemala, a group of bird watchers registered, after 115 years, the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia), a bird whose last record dated from 1907.

For those with little knowledge, a new registry does not necessarily mean that it is a new species for the country, but rather that it is added to the catalog of existing species within a territory.

In March 2020, according to the Honduran Ornithological Association, another owl was registered for the first time. The bird known as the mochuelo moreno, or unspotted saw-whet owl (Aegolius ridgwayi) was seen in the Montaña de Celaque National Park.

In Costa Rica, the bird watcher Diego Ramírez, through his blog Mr. Birding, listed a variety of birds that could become new records for the Costa Rican country, since previous reports have been in border areas with Panama and Nicaragua. Among the species stands out the Pacific parakeet, or Pacific Parakeet (Psittacara strenuus), which is distributed from southern Mexico to Nicaragua, along the entire Pacific coast.

Another is the Pacific ant (Myrmotherula pacifica), a bird that is distributed from Ecuador to the northern Caribbean of Panama.

The 2021 records

Infographic: The Graphic Press

The increase in new records in the region is mainly due to the increase in sighting activities carried out in Central America. Despite the pandemic, during the last week of December some Christmas counts were carried out, which in the case of Guatemala have already been carried out for 8 years.

The Christmas counts arose at the initiative of Audubon, at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States, as a measure to prevent the hunting of ducks that had endangered this species in the North American country.

On their social networks, a group of Guatemalan birders announced the new record of the Nicaraguan seed-finch (Oryzoborus nuttingi), which was seen in the western part of the country.

In El Salvador, as in Guatemala with the burrowing owl, a bird was registered that had “disappeared” from the official list of birds in that country for 90 years. As reported by La Prensa Gráfica, a group of media photographers spotted the lead vireo (Vireo plumbeus montanus) in Chalatenango, in the north of the country.

“El Vireo Plomizo is a specialist in forests, living over a thousand meters high, very little known, with only a few records. The first are due to the American ornithologist A. J. van Rossem, who found it quite common in pine-oak forests in San José El Sacaré, La Palma, Chalatenango and in Chilata, Santa Isabel Ishuatán, Sonsonate, in 1927 ”, says the media.