On the Trail of Neotropical Migrants, Central America to New England

We don’t know of anyone else doing something like this, and you’ll need to devote some time to this excursion. This unique adventure is designed to provide unusual perspective on the life of birds such as warblers, thrushes, shorebirds, and raptors. In the northeastern U.S., we only “have” neotropical migrating birds for a relatively short period of time. It’s an important time - their breeding season - but no more important than the wintering period of these birds. With special accommodations for travel, we’ll start this trip in the country of Panama, the wintering destination for many of these species. We’ll visit cloud and elfin forests, interesting montane forests, transition and managed habitats that hold a surprising number of migrants, coastal lowlands, and many more habitats. The second half of the trip will be in Maine, which, because of the large portion of the state that is undeveloped, is an important area of breeding habitat for neotropical migrants. At either end, we’ll visit specific habitats, with a goal of seeing the species, and witnessing the key aspects of the breeding and wintering niches. We’ll also see first hand some of the challenges facing these species related to land development, exploitation, and deforestation.