An international tour operator specialising in worldwide bird watching trips recently completed its first group tour to Guyana in ten years.

According to the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA), the US tour operator Field Guides was encouraged by the Birding Tourism Programme initiated by the GTA and the USAID’s Guyana Trade and Investment Support (GTIS) project.

Field Guides offers more than 120 tours to popular birding destinations throughout the world. It introduced a new outing in 2007, combining bird watching excursions in Guyana and Suriname and based on the success of the visit it is considering a return visit in 2009.

During the tour, seven participants from the US, Canada and Denmark spent nine days in Guyana, including stops at Kaieteur Falls, the Iwokrama Field Station, the Iwokrama Canopy Walkway, Surama Village, Rock View Lodge, and Georgetown. The group was led by Bret Whitney, one of the co-founders of Field Guides and an experienced guide who has discovered several new species in South America and Madagascar.

The GTA said Whitney had many positive things to say about Guyana, noting that the country has friendly people, tremendous preserved areas, and spectacular places to visit for bird watching. He expressed an interest in seeing more of the interior in the future, and he indicated that there are lots of possibilities to expand the group’s work in Guyana. The GTA also said the participants, all of whom were first-time visitors to Guyana, were equally impressed with the nearly 400 species of birds that they were able to identify on the trip. These included the Blood-Coloured Woodpecker, Blue-throat Piping Guan, Crimson Fruitcrow, Dusky Purpletuft, Grey-winged trumpeter, and a wide variety of parrots, including Red-and-Green, Blue-and-Yellow, and Scarlet Macaws.