Surely one of the most highly anticipated and extraordinary birds of any trip to Guatemala is Resplendent Quetzal. It’s bright green and red, nearly neon, with long, showy upper tail covert streamers descending long past the crisp white tail feathers. It’s the national bird, and the currency is named after it. Locals love it and are proud to show it. Pictures of Resplendent Quetzal are plastered everywhere. By now, we really, really wanted to see it.
Although we heard several on our very first day in Guatemala, we didn’t see any and thought it wouldn’t be much of a problem, as we could see it later. But then later came and we still hadn’t seen a single Resplendent Quetzal! It was time to remedy that so we headed off in the direction of Ranchitos de Quetzal, a reserve in Central Guatemala.
We decided to make a trip to the town of Coban for White-breasted Hawk, a subspecies of Sharp-shinned Hawk with an all-white belly, just in case, however unlikely, it gets split someday. As we stood on a small hillside, we were distracted by a flock of various wintering warblers which produced a lifer for the both of us in the form of Hermit Warbler! Just a few minutes later a White-breasted Hawk was spotted attacking a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk! Our roadside stop was worth it! (Initially we visited a private reserve owned by Max Noack to try for the hawk as it is very reliable on his property, but we dipped it on our visit. It was still a great hike with sightings of several species.)
Emerald Toucanet 
Hermit & Grace’s Warblers 
Common Pauraque 
White-breasted Hawk (Sharp-shinned Hawk)
Out of desperation, and the desire to finally see Resplendent Quetzal, we drove over to Ranchitos de Quetzal, a private refuge home to many humid, evergreen forest dwellers! But just before the refuge we stopped on a side road along the way in a completely different habitat where Ross had another large flock of warblers, this one containing a male Golden-winged Warbler! With this dry forest habitat only a 10 minute drive away, we assumed we would go to the refuge, see the quetzal in the morning, and then head back to bird the road where we could find several targets that couldn’t be found in the reserve. Oh how naïve…
We were here at Ranchitos de Quetzal to look for this quetzal, but finding it was proving difficult! It wasn’t supposed to be this hard! We spent all morning and didn’t even get a whiff. We were one week into our trip and had yet to take a single break. I’m not joking when I say Ross birds HARD. The “rest” we were planning on taking back in our room because we were finally staying at a location for more than one night, was starting to look like a distant thought. One can’t stop birding when there’s a target to find, especially not a target like Resplendent Quetzal. And so we walked up and back, and up and back, and searched for this bird determined not to stop until we found one. And then at 11am, when the sun was high and activity very low, Ross found a nice male sitting in a tree! Thank goodness! We had perfect views of a stunning Resplendent Quetzal to close out our morning! (Perfect views, but not perfect photos.) I guess we could take a small nap afterall! And just like that we headed back to our room to relax during the hottest portion of the day so we could spend a significant amount of time walking the trails after dark in search of roosting birds and whatever herps we could find. (I’m not sure if it counts as a break or not if we were planning to be out super late to make up for it…)
The endemic Yellow-blotched Palm Pit-viper (Bothriechis aurifer) was specifically calling our names! We were very fortunate to run into Fred Muller, a French ex-pat living in Guatemala who happened to be staying at Ranchitos as well. Fred guides clients specifically in botany and herps! If there was one person who would be able to spot the pit viper it was him! Our first night unfortunately did not produce any exciting snakes, although Fred was very adept at pointing out frogs and unique species of plants. I guess when you are conditioned to finding herps at night it becomes second nature! Fortunately on our second day Fred managed to find a pit viper and we got to photograph it that night! This venomous snake is neon green with a beautiful yellow scaled pattern. What a gorgeous creature!
Ranchitos de Quetzal is a lovely place to visit. The room is perfectly adequate and the hot shower is nice after a long day in the field. There’s multiple hummingbird feeders around the lodge, along with platform feeders for the banana eaters. Early in the morning, even Unicolored Jays and Azure-hooded Jays come down for a free meal! The trails are well maintained and the habitat looks great. There’s an orchid garden on the property with dozens of species of orchid for you to examine up close. Probably the only downside to Ranchitos de Quetzal is the proximity to a major road frequently travelled by large trucks, motorbikes, and various other loud-engined vehicles. It’s hard to venture anywhere without hearing the engines roar as they climb up the hill. But walk far enough in and the sounds become muffled and the possibilities for finding birds are endless.
If you have any interest in visiting Ranchitos, there is a local bird guide, Rudy, who is very knowledgeable about the birds in the area. He doesn’t speak much English but he’s very enthusiastic and Ross and Rudy went birding together one morning and even spotted a Coyote, apparently a very rare mammal for Guatemala! It was Rudy’s first sighting! Feel free to contact Rudy via Whatsapp (+502 3297 7999) and he can take you out along the trails at the refuge.
If you have any interest in seeing the flora and fauna that Guatemala (or all of Central America) has to offer and would like to support an extremely friendly and knowledgeable local guide, I highly recommend Fred Muller for any naturalist services. He has a vehicle, speaks several languages fluently, and is extremely talented when it comes to finding, identifying, and photographing herps. Fred also does a lot of guiding for botany as well and would be happy to show orchid-lovers as many orchids as their hearts desire. Feel free to contact him via WhatsApp at +502 5378 3289.
