WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide

02/18/2025

Steve Howell reports from the conclusion of another wonderful tour to Honduras. Read on below for some of the highlights of the trip.

02/11/2025

Our WINGS Arizona: A Winter Week tour with Jake Mohlmann just completed an incredible week of birding and sightseeing throughout the southeastern portion of Arizona. A sampling of hotspots included Portal in the Chiricahuas, Patagonia Lake State Park, and the Huachuca Mountains all the way up to Montezuma Pass.

We had good looks at multiple species of thrashers during the week, the Sandhill Crane show at Whitewater Draw had as many birds as ever, and the range-restricted Arizona Woodpecker took the cake for most wanted.

It’s always a good thing when the bird of the trip is a tough decision. Maybe it was the Rufous-capped Warbler, likely only one of a few in the country, that came in to catch bugs at its favored little puddle in Florida Canyon… or maybe it was the male Elegant Trogon, just as scarce in winter, that we finally tracked down after searching several spots throughout the week.

To join the 2026 Arizona: A Winter Week tour, visit our website here: https://wingsbirds.com/tours/arizona-winter-week

01/24/2025

We just got finished experiencing the best of Southern Argentina from its wind-swept grasslands of the pampas to the sub-Antarctic forests lining the Beagle Channel.

Enjoy these highlights from WINGS tour leader Jake Mohlmann and please visit our website to learn more about this unforgettable trip!

01/20/2025

Our popular “Newfoundland in Winter” tour recently cued up for another year, with five excited birders braving the elements to score some wonderful winter birds. Participants came from across the US and Canada to enjoy the diversity of northern species that call this island home – and they were not disappointed.

Early surprises came in the form of rare visitors from very different directions – an ABA-rare Common Gull and a long-staying Pink-footed Goose from Europe, along with a Yellow-throated Warbler from much further south.

Always a highlight, Dovekies (aka “bullbirds” to local Newfoundlanders) took a little extra work this year, but we managed to track down several as they foraged in sheltered bays and coves.

An encounter with two Willow Ptarmigan foraging on the sub-arctic tundra was a special treat,
as were other denizens of the north including King Eider, Great Cormorant, Canada Jay and Boreal Chickadee.

Local celebrities such as Black-headed Gulls, Eurasian Wigeon and dozens of Tufted Ducks were of course on full display.

We even enjoyed a flock of 40+ Purple Sandpipers at the easternmost edge of the continent – just one of many special moments during a great week of birding in the North Atlantic!

To join our next Newfoundland tour, visit our website here: https://wingsbirds.com/tours/newfoundland-winter-birds

01/17/2025

Steve Howell reports from another wonderful tour to San Blas, Mexico, where unseasonal cold and rain made for an interesting time...

Please enjoy these highlights, and visit our website to learn more about this popular trip!

01/11/2025

WINGS Leader Jon Feenstra and his family were directly affected by the LA fires and lost their home (and entire neighborhood). Friends have set up a GoFundMe site to support them. Please consider helping them if you are able to: https://gofund.me/87271224

Dear Family and Friends, Our hearts go out to our beloved f… Jill Kupcha needs your support for Support the Feenstra family devastated by the Eaton Fire

01/07/2025

A quick dive into science with WINGS Tour Leader, Steve Howell. Steve noticed one unexpected result of the recent Cruise (Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand and Australia) in December 2024 was noticing apparent redpoll evolution in ‘real time’... enjoy the photos and explanatory captions!

Darwinian redux with true finches—another (sub)species of Redpoll on the way?
This isn’t as crazy as it might seem, and there’s even precedent for such ‘anthropogenic evolution’: The Orkney Vole—on its namesake Scottish islands—is formally described as a distinct subspecies of the European Common Vole, yet arrived on the islands with humans some 5000 years ago. What might subantarctic redpolls look like in 5000 years? And will humans still be around to find out? © Steve N. G. Howell.
I thank Heritage Expeditions and WINGS for the opportunity to visit the amazing NZ subantarctic islands, and John Martin, Luke Seitz, Rod Morris, Alvaro Jaramillo, and George Armistead for discussion of this underappreciated subject.

12/29/2024

Steve Howell & Luke Seitz report from their recent trip around the remote and rarely visited Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand and Australia, home to eight penguin species including three endemics… Please enjoy these highlights!

Please visit www.wingsbirds.com to learn about more tours offered through WINGS.

12/04/2024

Before the upcoming WINGS Subantarctic Islands Cruise in New Zealand, Tour Leader Steve Howell did what anyone about to spend 18 days at sea would do—go on a pelagic trip! But this was out of the North Island, with warmer waters and different birds, run by The Petrel Station (https://www.thepetrelstation.nz/), a monitoring program built upon pelagic day trips. And what a day it was, with 19 species of tubenoses! Enjoy these photos from Steve here showcasing some beautiful birds!

12/04/2024

Fabrice Schmitt reports from the recently completed Chile tour: The spectacular country of Chile rewarded us this year with another wonderful trip, a long list of incredible birds, and impressive scenery.

Starting in Patagonia, we were blessed by fantastic views on a pair of the unique Magellanic Plover, Tawny-throated Dotterels and Least Seedsnipes with chicks, a group of King Penguins packed on a windy Tierra del Fuego beach, Lesser Rheas running together with Guanacos on the Patagonian steppe, great views on the endangered Ruddy-headed Goose, and more!

Near Puerto Montt, we enjoyed the majestic Nothofagus forest, where we met and heard the fantastic Chucao Tapaculo, and plenty of other stunning birds such as Black-throated Huet-huet, Des Murs’s Wiretail, Slender-billed Parakeet or White-throated Treerunner! We also had a lovely excursion on Chiloé Island, having a boat ride to a small Humboldt and Magellanic colony, and found large flocks of wintering (or austral summering!) Hudsonian Godwit.

In Central Chile, we enjoyed the comical Moustached Turca running on the barren slopes of the impressive Andes while a group of Condors soar high in the sky. We also did a memorable pelagic trip off Valparaiso, having amazing views on no less than four species of albatrosses (Black-browed, Salvin’s, Buller’s and Northern Royal) and plenty more seabirds and even the minuscule and recently described Andean Storm-Petrel.

Finally, the Northern part of the country rewarded us with even more impressive sceneries, such the beautiful Parinacota volcano in the background of Chungara lake, or the majestic altiplano steppe, where we found Giant Coot, Puna Tinamou, Black Siskin, no less than three species of Flamingoes, and quite a few Viscachas (sort of hybrid between a rabbit and a kangaroo).

We ended the trip by a visit to the most arid Atacama Desert and some oasis, where we found the critically endangered Chilean Woodstar. We also stopped by a colony of Markham’s Storm-Petrel, small seabirds breeding in crevasse in the middle of the driest desert of the World. With the help of an endoscopic camera, we even had views on chicks ready to depart soon for their first flight to the Ocean!

An eBird report illustrated by many photos taken by the participants can be consulted here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/291729

12/02/2024

Skye Haas reports on our September tour to the capital city of bird-watching: Set at the southernmost tip of New Jersey, Cape May is renowned for epic migrations, as well as the rich birding community that has grown up here over the years. Conditions were a little challenging in some regards, with a prolonged north-easterly blow which didn’t allow for any major migratory movements, but our species count of 148 was right on our annual average for this tour. The easterlies made for some good looks at a few seabirds such as flocks of Black Scoters and several Parasitic Jaegers! We ended up with a nice selection of songbirds observed, with Alder Flycatcher, Philadelphia Vireos, Blue Grosbeak among the highlights and 18 species of warbler including Prairie, Black-throated Blue and Ovenbird. What was notable about this week was the incredibly high water levels due to the storm surge which made for some great shorebirding as birds ended up having large concentrations in just a few locales providing some excellent studies! We saw 20 species of shorebird, many of which gave us some cracking good looks! Another byproduct of the flooded salt marshes was some in our face looks at the normally skulky Saltmarsh Sparrow - our afternoon with them becoming a favorite memory of the trip for some! The high waters also allowed our salt marsh boat tour to really get into some of the back bays, and I’ve never had as many Clapper Rails on this tour as we did this year, as well as point-blank looks at a Great Cormorant!

11/26/2024

We just finished a marathon trip through southern Ecuador with tour leader Jon Feenstra, topping out over 500 species in over two and a half weeks of birding. We went everywhere starting and ending in Guayaquil and going clockwise in a big loop from lowland deciduous forest to treeline forest and paramo, to Amazonian foothill rainforest, the upper reaches of the Rio Marañon watershed, some desert and thornscrub and western foothill rainforest. Group favorites included such luminaries as Jocotoco Antpitta, Long-wattled Umbrellabird, and Blue-throated Hillstar.
To learn more about our trips to Ecuador, visit our website here: https://wingsbirds.com/tours?keyword=Ecuador

11/22/2024

Rich Hoyer highlights the recent Guyana 2024 tour.

Endless expanses of undisturbed rainforest, vast tropical savannas, and some incredible bird and other wildlife sightings were memories we’ll take home from this year’s Guyana tour.

We were super fortunate that a Harpy Eagle nest with a chick was within travel distance from our lodging at Surama, and we were even luckier that the adult arrived with a freshly caught sloth just as we did after over two hours of adventuresome travel under and over trees across the B***o B***o River. We treasured every minute of the two hours we spent viewing the nest from a safe distance, and so it was no surprise this received the most votes for favorite sighting of the tour.

An obliging Guianan Cock-of-the-rock was a fine addition to the marvelous Kaieteur Falls viewing, earning a second-place vote, and just as brilliantly colored Sun Parakeets were amazingly cooperative on our early morning drive to Karasabai area.

Additional bird highlights were Hoatzins eating leaves on the banks of the Mahaica River, Jabirus by the road in the middle of the Iwokrama Forest, Green Aracaris in the trees around Atta Lodge, the habituated Black Curassows in the grounds of the same lodge, cooperative Red Siskins coming to a seep, and stunning Pompadour Cotingas at the Iwokrama canopy walkway.

Early in the trip we were treated to the friendly (and hungry) West Indian Manatees right in Georgetown, and our moth light and sheet attracted the stunning silkmoth Rothschildia erycina, which lingered into the morning for all to see.

A stop for the small (i.e., not more than six feet) Green Anaconda sunning on the main dirt road through the country was absolutely necessary.

Finally, our first morning’s drive through the Rupununi savannas yielded the highly sought-after Giant Anteater right trundling next to the road. We all endured the hot days and warm nights, but it was worth it!
(All Photos by Rich Hoyer)

Interested in the 2025 tour? Click Here! https://wingsbirds.com/tours/guyana

10/17/2024

Looking for a last minute trip for the coming New Year? These tours are Confirmed to go in January 2025 with space! Check them out on our website here: www.wingsbirds.com

Argentina: The South - Jan 5 - 19
Newfoundland: Winter Birds - Jan 6 - 12
Colombia: The Santa Marta Mountains - Jan 13 - 21
Minnesota in Winter - Jan 16 - 21
Senegal - Jan 30 - Feb 15 (Confirming Soon!)

10/03/2024

WINGS HAS A NEW WEBSITE!
To celebrate over 50 years in the birding tour business, WINGS is proud to unveil our new website. We’ve been hard at work over the past year to create a fresh online experience while preserving familiar aspects of the original WINGS website. Our goal was to keep our clean style, clear tour information, and ease of navigation, formatted for both full screen and mobile devices, and to highlight our true purpose - offering quality birding tours worldwide. We think the results speak for themselves!
We will be continuing improvements in the coming months, with media updates and several exciting (for us at least!) upgrades that will streamline the website experience. We invite you to check it out!

Worldwide birding tour company based in Tucson, Arizona. WINGS Birding Tours has more than 50 years of birdwatching experience and offers travel packages, tour itineraries, and newsletters.

09/29/2024

WINGS Tour Leader, Jake Mohlmann, gives us the Arizona & Utah tour roundup!"
Learn more about this tour by visiting our website here:
https://wingsbirds.com/tours/arizona-utah/

"We just finished another WINGS tour through some of the most scenic parts of the western United States. Northern Arizona, the canyonlands, and Southwestern Utah provided endless vistas. One memorable location was at Bryce Canyon National Park, where the clouds slowly floated over the endless hoodoos of the main amphitheater. With so many amazing places visited, it’s hard to choose a favorite spot. Multiple people voted Antelope Canyon as that location this year. We had a blast exploring the canyonlands and found plenty of birds along the way!"