Venezuela: Hato Piñero New Year: Dec 27, 2009—Jan 04, 2010

Agami Heron — Photo: Goodell/Barrack

Enjoy great biodiversity where many threatened bird species are easy to see due to decades of conservation efforts. Large tracts of tropical dry forest, grasslands, and amazing concentrations of waterbirds. Good chance for many Neotropical mammals.

Hato Piñero is a 200,000-acre working cattle ranch in the high Llanos of northern Venezuela. Hunting has been forbidden on the ranch for more than 60 years and, as a result, wildlife is remarkably abundant and easy to view. Piñero provides a wonderful blend of waterbird spectacle and woodland birding, including Jabirú, seven species of ibis, Scarlet Macaws, Capped and Whistling herons, huge Horned Screamers, Black-collared Hawk, Red-billed Scythebill, Pale-eyed Pygmy-Tyrant, Pale-tipped Tyrannulet, Venezuelan Troupial, Orinocan Saltator, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, and the increasingly rare Yellow-knobbed Curassow. A boat trip along Caño San Jerónimo reveals dozens of bizarre Hoatzins, five kingfisher species, Rusty-backed Spinetail, Gray-necked Wood-Rail, Sunbitterns, colorful Red-capped Cardinals, and, hopefully, the spectacular Agami Heron.

Comfortable accommodations and excellent home-cooked meals create a "private guest" atmosphere that allows us to enjoy this natural paradise to the fullest. Our days here will consist of full mornings of birding, followed by a return to the ranch house for lunch and a siesta during the hottest part of the day. Later, in mid-afternoon, we will return to the field to catch the last hours of daytime activity. We then work our way back to the ranch house after dark, spotlighting birds, reptiles, and mammals en route. These night drives are a perennial favorite, and routinely produce Gray and Great potoos, numerous owls, nightjars, ocelot, and occasionally Brazilian tapir, giant anteater, cougar, and jaguarundi. Birds are remarkably easy to see, and most of the over 200 species that we see here will be seen repeatedly, allowing us to soak up their field marks and behaviors.

Good accommodations; all nights at one location; morning, afternoon, and evening outings in safari trucks; easy non-strenuous terrain; midday breaks; warm climate.