The Door To The Sky

“Puerto de la cielo”, translated means “the door to the sky.” It is such a fitting name for one of the mountains that we drove through. Western Guatemala is such a unique place, boasting 8 of the top 10 highest peaks in all of Central America. Guatemala is home to 37 awe-inspiring volcanos, all but four of which lie dormant. We drove up to this area and encountered some unique landscape with plans to see arguably Guatemala’s best (read: most range-restricted) birds and the only endemic, Goldman’s Warbler. Goldman’s Warbler (Setophaga goldmani) is technically still considered a subspecies of Yellow-rumped Warbler, but with a whole new look and song, it’s sure to be split into its own species. In fact it is already split by the IOC.
Typically Ross likes to find his own birds, but with a slew of difficult game birds on the agenda, a bunch of unique subspecies, no recent gen, and COVID practically upending the eco-tourism industry, we thought it best to hire a local guide, and in doing so inject a bit of currency into the local economy. Esteban doesn’t speak much English aside from knowing all of the bird names, but he’s a really nice guy who has gotten into bird watching and has multiple points all through eBird, which is how we heard of him. By chance we met a friend of his while we were staking out a Blue-tailed Hummingbird, which is how we got his number. Fortunately we were able to coordinate last minute for a day of guiding. Esteban brought along a friend of his, Daniel, a local birder/photographer who rode us in his truck up into the highlands.

There isn’t much in the way of hotels, so I assume many tourists don’t visit this part of Guatemala, but we found a small room at a basic hotel in the town of Todos de Santos (literally the room was so small that the bed was touching 3 of the 4 walls and had no private bathroom.) Even though it was getting late, we opted instead to search for Unspotted Saw-whet Owl by going up a road likely best suited for a 4×4… in the dark. It was so steep up to the location that at one point I literally had to jump out from the passenger seat to physically push the car up the hill while Ross floored the gas pedal just so the car would make it up a particularly steep section. Thankfully it was dark so none of this largely hilarious fiasco was witnessed.
The Unspotted Saw-whet Owl was extremely cooperative and was already singing by the time we arrived. We did have to wait for a nice photo though, but good things are worth waiting for.

We spent the entire next day walking around the rocky outcrops and highland pine forests. By early morning we already had views of Ocellated Quail, one of our biggest targets, Singing Quail, and Buffy-crowned Wood-partridge. Three game birds before 9am?! Perfect. Maroon-chested Ground-Dove, a bird that world listers used to twitch during large bamboo blossoms because it was thought to be too rare to see otherwise, came unnaturally easy. We simply heard one calling and there was a road to the exact tree it was sitting in. BAM! No bamboo necessary.

Goldman’s Warbler also came easy. Once you get to highland coniferous woodlands with pines and junipers above 1800m elevation, they are downright common. This adorable black and yellow warbler was easily our favorite bird of the day!
It was a long day of walking and searching for Black-capped Siskin, our last remaining major target, but in the end Ross managed sightings of two individuals. I missed the siskins and truthfully, I’m not that bothered as they weren’t high on my want list. But for the amount of walking I did I surely deserved to see them! Goldman’s Warbler is a fine enough reward for me!

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Overall it was a very successful day and I would highly recommend a visit to see the highlands of Guatemala to see one of the most range-restricted warblers in the world, as well as the guiding services of Esteban! If you’d like to visit the area and utilize Esteban as a guide, you can contact him at WhatsApp +502 5381 0540.