Quetzal Tours

09/14/2024

If you have not yet donated to a conservation project this year, here is your opportunity. We are still short $3500 of my fundraising goal. Please help if you can. Details at the link below. Thank you!

White-bearded Helmetcrests

06/10/2024

Announcing a new upcoming birding tour:

COLOMBIA -CENTRAL AND WESTERN ANDES

Led by Oswaldo Cortes and Nick Komar

September 16-26, 2024

Price: US$3600 double occupancy
Group size: 8 plus leaders.

Contact Nick to reserve your seat and/or request itinerary. Cell/text 970-449-3645, or email [email protected].

Photo credit: Buffy Helmetcrest by Oswaldo Cortes

03/16/2024

Announcing upcoming guided birding opportunity:

LESSER PRAIRIE-CHICKEN Lek with Joe Kipper. This a 2-day, 1-night Jeep tour from The Colorado Front Range (Denver area), departing 8 AM Monday March 25
and returning Tuesday night 8 PM. Customers will ride with Joe from and to the US34 park n ride at I25 in Loveland, Colorado, unless other arrangements are made directly with Joe. The group overnights in Oakley Kansas, where they will join Kansas guide Jim Millensifer at a private blind for viewing the lek on Tuesday morning. The fee includes all transportation, gasoline, lodging at the Kansas Country Inn in Oakley, viewing blind access fees and professional guiding, as well as a hearty country breakfast at the Inn following the morning lek visit. The fee does not cover other meals or tips.

There is limited space on this tour. Maximum group size is four. We will share the photography blind with 6 other viewers. Jim offers this special opportunity under license with the Kansas Department of Natural Resources.

Besides the displaying Lesser Prairie-chickens, a threatened species that Is no longer viewable in Colorado, we expect to see Greater Prairie-Chicken, other pheasants and quail, several raptor species and other specialized prairie species. We will look for longspurs, Mountain Plovers and Burrowing Owl in Colorado along the route to and from western Kansas. 

The fee is $400 per person (double occupancy; single supplement is $50.). Couples pay $600. Make checks payable to Quetzal Tours. Call Nick Komar at 970-449-3645 for more info or to reserve your seat.

02/19/2024

Announcing SOUTH TEXAS RARITY SWEEP, Feb 26-Mar 2, 2024. Group size 4, 1 seat available. There are more than a dozen vagrant bird species visiting the Rio Grande Valley and lower Gulf coast right now including this Cattle Tyrant. We will go for all of them and more! Guided by Nick Komar. Cost $1800 includes ground transportation, driver, guide, access fees, local guide fees. Meals not included. Double occupancy. Single supplement $200.

Locations will visit include the Santa Margarita Ranch, Salineño Wildlife Reserve, Roma Bluffs, Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, National Butterfly Center, Frontera Audubon Center, Estero Llano Grande State Park, Oliveira Park Parrot Roost, Resaca de la
Palma State Park, the Brownsville dump, UT Texas at Brownsville.

Target vagrant species include Mottled Owl, Bare-throated Tiger-Heron, Brown Jay, Crane Hawk, Rose-throated Becard, Gray-collared Becard, Roadside Hawk, Fan-tailed Warbler, Golden-crowned Warbler, Crimson-collared Grosbeak, Bar-tailed Godwit, Cattle Tryant and more.

The birding pace will be slow but focused. Many of these species are skulkers and we will find them
using my most valuable birding tool- patience. We will also be looking for all the resident specialty species of south TX such as Common Pauraque, Ringed and Green Kingfishers, Muscovy, Red-billed Pigeon, Morelet’s Seedeater, Audubon’s Oriole, Aplomado Falcon, Whooping Crane, etc.

You can join the tour in Denver area Monday afternoon Feb 26 or along our driving route or on the morning of February 27 in Corpus Christie. Birding will begin Tuesday morning, Feb 27 at Corpus Christie. Bruce Wild will be the driver. Cole Wild will be the spotter and second driver. I (Nick) will be the guide and your personal Birding Assistant/Mentor. Please share this announcenent to your birding network.

01/13/2024

I published perhaps my final blog post for my 2023 Big Year of birding. Updated species number is 890, ten short of my goal of 900 species in the USA and Territories. One benefit of visiting the Territories was seeing some of the rarest species in the world. In late December, I spent 8 days in the Mariana Islands with Nick Komar where we observed some incredibly rare birds such as this Mariana Crow (wild population 215 birds) and other critically endangered species such as Guam Rail, Micronesian Megapode, Tinian Monarch and Saipan Reed-Warbler. Here is a link to the blog: biggestyear2023.blogspot.com.

12/17/2023

Two weeks to go and I am still 50 species short of my goal of 900 bird species in USA and territories. I just completed 6 days in American Samoa with Oliver Komar. The Samoan Myzomela was one of 20 year birds we found there. More details at Biggestyear2023.blogspot.com. Tomorrow I am off to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.