Senior Leader James Lidster writes from Ghana:

I’ve just found time to catch up on my e-mails after a hugely successful first tour to Ghana–so successful that the second group is arriving this evening! Ghana is a beautiful country, with good hotels, friendly people, and some terrific habitat and birds.

Violet Turaco, photo by James Lidster.

The obvious highlight for those who made the walk were five Yellow-headed Picathartes. Ghana remains the best place in the word to see this species, and our afternoon visit to The Cave was one few will ever forget. To see this enigmatic bird after a reasonable walk was fantastic. Then, as we walked back to the bus in darkness, groups of local children came out of their houses, singing and dancing: what an afternoon!

In addition to the picathartes, our highlights included Fraser’s and Dusky Eagle Owls, Brown and Standard-winged Nightjars, African Finfoot, White-spotted Flufftail, Black and Blue-headed Bee-eaters, ten species of hornbill, Saddle-billed Stork, Congo Serpent Eagle, Bateleur, Black Sparrowhawk, Afep Pigeon, Blue-headed Wood Dove, and Forest Robin–not to mention the turacos, parrots, umpteen sunbirds, rollers, kingfishers, African Elephant (ok, it’s not a bird, but it was a highlight!), flocks of wintering shorebirds, Preuss’s Cliff Swallows, Preuss’s Golden-backed Weavers…

Writing this short list of highlights just makes me realize how many great birds there are here. And now comes the difficult part: writing the tour report, which could go on for pages and pages, and making sure that the second group sees the same wonderful selection. Birds are birds, of course, but it can’t fail to be equally superb!

Bateleur, photo by James Lidster.

Photo by Rick Wright.

The scientific name of the Common Chaffinch is Fringilla coelebs. The species name–the source of the English word “celibate”–translates as “widower,” a whimsical Linnaean reference to the fact that Chaffinches form single-sex flocks in the winter.

And we’d thought we were going to have Palenque, among the loveliest and birdiest of all Mexican destinations, to ourselves this year! But a delightful article in the Times this morning seems to have let the gato out of the bolsa.

Agami Heron, photo by Chris Wood.

Never fear. Rich Hoyer’s late-January tour to the wonders cultural and natural of Palenque will be a great time even if it isn’t our secret. The tour is confirmed to run, January 24-31, and there are still a couple of spaces open. But not for long, I’m sure!

The Texas Coast in April is one of the most reliably exciting destinations in all of North American birding, and the American Birding Association will be taking full advantage of the area’s wild diversity of breeders and migrants at its 2009 Convention. As always, WINGS will be represented by several leaders on the Convention field trips, and Senior Leader Rich Hoyer is offering a pre-Convention tour of some of the richest birding sites in Northeast Mexico, including Gomez Farías and the El Cielo Biosphere Reserve. Nearly 100 species of tropical birds, among them a number of Mexican endemics, reach the northern limits of their range here.

Double-striped Thick-knee. Photo: Chris Wood.

For more information or to register for this tour, which begins in Brownsville and ends at the Convention hotel in Corpus Christi, call us at 888 293-6443 or write to wings@wingsbirds.com (note that the contact information in ABA’s brochure is incorrect). And then start looking forward to a memorable tropical adventure!

Northern Hawk Owl, photo by Chris Wood.

The past ten days have brought the first signs of what may shape up to be a good winter for northern owls. Snowy Owls have been found in Massachusetts, Maine, and Minnesota, with Northern Hawk Owl reports coming from Minnesota as well. In the past, such early reports of these species have often presaged strong flights later in the season.

Even more exciting are early indications of a major movement of Boreal Owls into Minnesota. As many as fourteen (!) were banded in a single late-October night in Duluth. Minnesota in Winter is probably the best place in North America to see this small owl, and it looks like 2009 could be the year to do it!

We’ll be following any invasions of these and other boreal species carefully all winter, and will keep WINGS clients up to date here at The Wingbeat.

Our wide assortment of birding destinations world-wide means that WINGS deals with a large number of ground agents and local leaders–and an equally broad array of world currencies. As most of you know, the past months have seen significant fluctuations in international exchange rates; happily for WINGS clients, the trend at the moment is towards a stronger and more stable dollar.

Please note that at invoicing we recalculate the prices of all of our international tours, notably including those organized by our British company, Sunbird. We use the exchange rate in effect on the date of invoicing, meaning that–if the current trend continues–our prices will actually be lower, in some cases signficantly lower, than the prices originally published in summer 2008.

For example, the WINGS website, relying on the exchange rate in effect in July, would show a price of about $8,000 for a tour costing GPB 4,000–but if we were to invoice that same tour today, using the current exchange rate, the actual invoiced cost to our clients would be more like $6,240.

Obviously, given the day-to-day variation in exchange rates, we cannot continuously post new tour prices on the WINGS website. But rest assured that any advantages of exchange rate will be passed along when your tour is invoiced.

Thanks to the vigilance of Paul Lehman, WINGS has been able to secure a full complement of rooms for our Spring 2009 tour to Gambell, Alaska. As a result, we are able to take a group of the normal size, letting us reduce the price for that tour some ten percent, to about $4,980.

Join us!

A Crested Auklet feeds just offshore at Gambell. Photo: Jon Dunn.

The Fall 2008 newsletter is now on line, with descriptions of new tours to China, Ukraine, Peru, and Colombia. There are also tempting trip reports from Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Sri Lanka, and some important Tour Updates including lower (yes, lower!) prices for Iceland and Alaska.

If you’re not already receiving paper copies of our print newsletters at home, drop us an e-mail or give us a call at 888-293-6443 and we’ll happily add you to the mailing list!

Our annual autumn visits to the wonderful Haydn festival in Eisenstadt always offer an exciting range of birds to complement the magnificent music. In 2009, though, in addition to our regular September extravaganza, we’re offering a springtime week in this exciting venue.

To commemorate the bicentenary of Haydn’s death, a magnificent musical feast has been arranged, including Gottfried von der Goltz and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Paul Goodwin conducting the Acadamy of Ancient Music, and Adam Fischer and the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic with the Vienna Chamber Choir. And plans are underway, too, for Adam Fischer to conduct the Farewell symphony at Prince Esterhazy’s summer palace at Fertod, the Hungarian Versailles, in the very room where Haydn first conducted it.

As for the birds, many species will be on breeding territory: Savi’s, Moustached, River, Marsh, Great Reed, Icterine, Bonelli’s, and Barred Warblers; Red-breasted and Collared Flycatchers; and Hoopoe, Roller, Golden Oriole, Lesser Gray Shrike, Nightingale, and Wryneck. There could also be Little Bittern, Pygmy Cormorant, Night Heron, Montagu’s Harrier, Red Kite, Red-footed Falcon, Lesser Kestrel, Honey Buzzard, Mediterranean Gull, Caspian and White-winged Terns, and Imperial, Spotted, and Lesser Spotted Eagles. The Great Bustards could be displaying. The Bluethroats will have blue throats. On top of the Schneeberg we’ll search for Alpine Accentor, Alpine Chough, and Water Pipit. And at the Hohenau banding station there could be some exciting surprises in the hand.

If you’ve already enjoyed the Haydn festival in September, this is a unique opportunity for the perfect complementary experience. And if you haven’t experienced Haydn at Eisenstadt, this spring week will provide wonderful music magnificently performed, one of the finest selections of birds in Europe, luxury accommodation in the best hotel in Eisenstadt, and the chance to discuss the music with the performers and other experts—all this will leave you with an afterglow that will stay with you all year. Join Bryan Bland and Amanda Holden for this once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Iceland, with its eerie landscapes, its ancient culture, and its dramatic birdlife, has long fired the imagination. This most captivating of birding destinations has also been among the most expensive–well worth it, of course, but still decidedly pricy.

Until now. Thanks to the efforts of our Icelandic friends and our hardworking colleagues at Sunbird, we’ve been able to reduce to about $4,460 the 2009 price of James Lidster’s ever-popular tour to the land of dark sagas, blue whales, and white Gyrfalcons.

This female Gyrfalcon was at Myvatn on our 2008 tour. Photo: James Lidster.