James Adams


Got Cotingas??? (couple of females in there too...) The Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras.

Birding in Honduras

Alexander Alvarado 

That's the way many of my friends woke up on 25th, stretching out!!!!! Long billed Hermit at Macaw Mountain!

Birds of Honduras

Alexander Alvarado

Just for Oriole lover's!

Streak backed Orioles at Macaw Mountain Copan Ruinas!

Maya new discovery

A bit of Maya history:

Early Maya corn farmers had settled in Lamanai around 1500 B.C., and the first stone buildings appeared between 800 and 600B.C. During what is known as the late Pre-classic period (approximately 450 B.C. – A.D. 300) the city became one of the largest in the Maya area. Other centers outgrew Lamanai during the Classic age (A.D. 300-900), but it continued to expand, reaching its apogee in the seventh century. Then Lamanai began a slow decline. There was no clear break at the end of the Classic period. The inhabitants even built a small ball court (a stadium for the ritual ball game)when great cities such as Tikal, Copan, and Palenque were already ruins and until about A.D. 1200 they carried on repairing the fronts of some pyramids while the forest claimed the backs and sides. The life of Lamanai gradually shifted a mile to the south and the architecture became less ambitious. When the Spaniards arrived, the inhabitants were living in the sort of houses the Maya still build: oval thatched dwellings with stone or pole walls, raised on small platforms. In the late 1630s the Belize Maya through off Spanish rule. It is difficult to say what happened after that. Old world diseases struck hard at Indian populations throughout the Americas.

The remote ancestors of the Maya, like those of all American Indians, most probably discovered the New World by crossing a Bering land bridge from Asia between twelve and thirty thousand years ago.  At that time they were Nomadic hunters and gatherers. About nine thousand years ago, Mesoamericans invented agriculture, gradually developing food staples from wild corn, beans and squash. With faming came settled villages, population growth and societies of greater and greater complexity.

Maya civilization seems to have been stimulated initially by the Olmecs, an enigmatic people who built large monuments during the second millennium B.C. After Olmecs decline, many cultures emerged in Mesoamerica, influencing and interacting with each other as did the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans of the Mediterranean. The Maya have aptly been called the Greeks of the New World. They lived in city-states that differed widely in detail while sharing a rich cultural tradition. Their main achievements were cultural not political. They never built an empire. No two Maya cities were alike. Larmanai had bald pyramids with smoking altars open to the sky. Copan, in Honduras was low and spacious, a city of broad staircases and wide plazas full of statuary.

The ancient Maya, like their modern descendants, spoke some twenty related languages, but in Classic times the upper classes, scribes, priests, astronomers and rulers shared a hieroglyphic writing system and possibly a Mandarin speech. On stone monuments, painted walls and illuminated books they recorded their history and their knowledge. The ruins exhale a powerful sense of loss. From all the jewels of intellect and art produced in these jungles, only three hieroglyphic books survive.   

Running the rapids on Stand-up paddleboard

Rio Cangrejal, Honduras

Lugging a stand-up paddleboard through the jungle to the steepest, most technical river in Honduras might not, at first glance, seem like the brightest idea. The Rio Cangrejal plummets nearly 900 feet over 15 miles, churning over colossal Class V rapids on its way from the rain forest to the Caribbean Sea. If the waterfall-style drops and narrow labyrinths of towering boulders don't get you, the jaguars that prowl Pico Bonito National Forest's riverbanks may well try.

Despite the risk (or maybe because of it), intrepid kayakers have been running the Class IV and V rapids in the upper section of the river for years, ending their trips in calmer waters frequented by whitewater rafting outfitters. No one had ever tried to make the descent on a stand-up paddleboard. Nobody knew if it would be possible.

We decided to find out.

We based ourselves at the Lodge at Pico Bonito, an eco-resort nestled between the Coloradito and Corinto rivers, and arranged a meeting with Udo Wittemann, a professional kayaker from Germany who has been running trips on the Cangrejal for 20 years. The owner of Omega Tours, Wittemann is regarded as the local authority on the river.

It took most of the 45 minutes needed to drive to the Cangrejal to convince Wittemann that we weren't going to die. No one had ever run any river in Honduras on a stand-up paddleboard, so we had to negotiate a trial one-mile run along one of the river's less tempestuous sections. Ken Hoeve, a pro from Colorado, served as a guinea pig while the rest of us sat in a raft. For extra insurance, Wittemann sent his top kayaker, a dreadlocked New Zealander named Simon, to run safety.

Hoeve jumped on his board – the bombproof SuperCharger made by Jackson Kayak – and hooked up his Drift HD Ghost camera to capture what was to become the first SUP river descent in Honduras. The water was warm enough to swim and crystal clear. In one mile, we watch Hoeve hit eight rapids and three high-octane waterfall-style drops. He portaged once, to avoid the aptly named El Diablo rapid, which featured a particularly gnarly rock at the base of a drop.

At the take-out, Wittemann was waiting with his Rottweiler. He shook Hoeve's hand and invited us back to his place for beer. There, we toasted with bottles of SalvaVida, a local beer that translates as "livesaver." After a couple rounds, we convinced Wittemann to accept a stand-up paddleboard in exchange for his promise to let more SUPers take on the river. And that's how Honduras was opened to paddlers.

Birding Conservation Tour

James Adams

Join Us November 4 – 13, 2016 for the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour! Team leaders: Tim Appleton, Richard Crossley, Jeff Gordon, Adam Riley, and Bill Thompson lll, along with 5 expert Honduran bird guides, will be leading this relaxed birding tour to reveal some of the best of Honduras’ birding –AND- raise money for bird conservation here in Honduras and elsewhere….

Toucans and Aracaris

James Adams
Birds are discovering the juicy rambutans outside the office now, and Collared Aracaris seem to be enjoying them especially. As abundant and succulent as these fruits are, it amazes me how birds (toucans and aracaris in particular) will never descend on a fruit-laden tree and strip it. Rather, they will stop by for a minute one day, then a few minutes the next, most times carefully eating just one fruit before flying on. One would think they'd find a good thing and stick with it, no? But I suppose the diversity of the forest here, and their instinctive desire for a balanced diet keeps them on the move... Anyway, I'm happy to see them. They can have all the fruit they want! The Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras.

Lost World

James Adams


A Lost World: The interior of Pico Bonito National Park, Honduras is a fantasy land hidden beyond towering, 7,000 foot escarpments of rock, tucked deep within unseen gorges and canyons, and cloaked beneath a lush carpet of rain, cloud and palm forests. It is so hot, so steep, and so formidable, that few people have ever glimpsed, much less –been- into this most magic of places. Most if not all of the wildlife here has never even seen a human being and new species are probably more numerous than anyone can imagine. I had the privilege to accompany my friend Karl Stanley today, as we boarded a helicopter and threaded our way past verdant cathedrals and forested canyons never explored by man. Here for the first time, are a few of the sights that we recorded from this mystical, magical, holy treasure trove of biodiversity.