Group tour versus private

Many people who come to the area where the quetzal resides are not serious birders. This results in large group tours with many people using a cell phone to try and get a photo and not being able to follow the guide’s instructions for locating the bird. This photo is only a portion of the large groups that we were surprised to see that descend on the area early every morning.

When we want to get some serious bird watching done, we hire a guide for just the two of us. Raul is holding a branch out of the way so Mike can get a better shot of a Long Tailed Silky Flycather. Now that’s helpful! We love having a great guide one day, gathering all their knowledge, and then heading out on our own as well afterwards to put that knowledge to work for us and try our luck. He was our guide in the morning for the quetzal and then we continued on with him for several hours.

Here is the Long tailed silky flycatcher. The other good thing about having the guide for just the two of us is that we get to spend as much time as we like with each bird. We like to watch their behavior as well as photograph. In fact, Chris commented that this bird reminded her of our cedar waxwing birds in the states. And wouldn’t you know, Raul confirmed that is what species they are related to - they really don’t look like the typical small flycatchers.