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Catch up on the latest news from Victor Emanuel Nature Tours by reading the latest VENTFLASH.
Ecuador: The Southern Andes
Paul Greenfield: Aug 25, 08
Our July Ecuador's Southern Andes tour brought us diversity in all its splendor, where habitats, life-zones, ecosystems, and the birds changed from day-to-day, and even minute-by-minute! As is the norm in tropical America as a whole, the unexpected became the expected—and seeing that "unexpected" was often thrilling! We saw 40 species of hummingbirds (!!!) from the species with the world's longest beak—the bizarre Sword-billed Hummingbird—to that with the s...
Ecuador: Amazonia at Napo Wildlife Center
Paul Greenfield: Aug 22, 08
The Napo Wildlife Center (NWC) experience is truly diverse, as well as unpredictable. As we breezed downstream on the powerful current of the Rio Napo, I sensed that something was different; we weren't weaving back and forth as is customary on this two to two-and-a-half-hour journey, magically following deeper channels cut beneath the sandy-brown silt-laden waters. The water levels had risen visibly high due to the heavy rains that were falling along the eastern slopes of the Andes farthe...
Summer Arizona
Kim Eckert: Aug 21, 08
It had been a few years since I had led a late-summer tour in Southeast Arizona, seven to be exact, so I wasn't quite sure how this tour would go. Unique birding sites, distracting scenery, monsoons greening up the countryside and tricking birds into song, a dozen hummingbird species swarming about feeders, trogons and all the rest—would they all still be there as I remembered them? Why I ever had any initial doubts I'll never know. This turned out to be just about the most enjo...
The Pacific Northwest: An Introductory Birding Tour
Bob Sundstrom: Aug 18, 08
Mid-summer is a fine season to enjoy the wildlife and scenic beauty of the Pacific Northwest region. Participants on our 2008 Pacific Northwest Introductory tour, a five-day tour, met mid-afternoon at the Seattle airport, and then we drove directly to the rural South Puget Sound region. Here we birded the upper reaches of Scatter Creek, where a few Vaux's Swifts flew with flocks of Violet-green Swallows, and Willow Flycatchers and a Red-breasted Sapsucker drew our interest. Nearby, we enj...
Papua New Guinea
David Bishop: Aug 13, 08
Thunder literally did "rumble across the heavens," and from the early hours the skies deluged our frontier riverside township with rain Australia can only dream of. Not, you might think, a propitious beginning to our all-day river trip. Fortune though, smiles on the brave, and, as the first hint of dawn caressed the sky, the rain stopped and we were on our way. Cool and refreshing, the skies alone were something to behold, garnished with immense fruit-bats winging their way to roost...
Summer Costa Rica
Jeri Langham: Aug 13, 08
All nineteen of my Costa Rica tours have been unique. Although we visit the same areas, the species we encounter at each location vary somewhat, just as they do when one revisits favorite areas at home. We do take extra time to locate specialties like the male Three-wattled Bellbird, which is the bird on the cover of my personalized checklist, and the Resplendent Quetzal, which is on the back cover. About 90% of the birds on the yearly Trip Lists are the same, but where we find them and how w...
Big Bend Summer
Barry Zimmer: Aug 07, 08
Ten feet over our heads, the star of the Chisos Mountains, the Colima Warbler, flitted about in an oak tree above the trail. Constantly pumping its tail and showing off the yellowish-orange undertail coverts, and occasionally tilting its head down to expose the rufous crown, the highly sought Colima seemed to be putting on a show for our group. Vying for our attention, however, was a stunning scarlet-bellied Painted Redstart in the same tree just feet away. Creeping about the thicker trunks a...
Alaska: Barrow Extension
Kevin Zimmer: Jul 28, 08
Once again, Barrow provided a fitting exclamation point to our Alaska tour season. The weather was good; make that ideal, with persistently sunny skies (around the clock), and temperatures that climbed into the 50–60° F range. In fact, it got so balmy that we witnessed some mosquito emergence on our last day, which is only the second time in more than 20 years of Barrow trips that I've even seen a mosquito there. The shore ice was more broken up than I've ever seen it, which...
Grand Alaska
Kevin Zimmer: Jul 28, 08
If I had to sum up our 2008 Grand Alaska trip in a single word, it would probably be "fog." Within the course of a single trip, we equaled the previous 23-year total of days spent fogged-in at a location due to flights canceled by fog. The trouble started at Nome, where for two days prior to our planned departure, no Alaska Airlines flights made it in or out. Of course, we were paying only minimal attention, because we were too busy enjoying superb birding in what is my single favor...
Gambell/Nome Alaska Pre-trip
Kevin Zimmer: Jul 28, 08
Our Gambell-Nome adventure started with an evening excursion around Anchorage. Sadly, there were no staked out Boreal Owl nests available, so Dave and Louise improvised by taking the group to Lake Spenard and Westchester Lagoon for a nice array of waterfowl (including superb Barrow's Goldeneyes), and what Dave labeled as the "best looks at Hudsonian Godwits that we've ever had." Meanwhile, I was staking out Bluethroat territories and Gyrfalcon nests in Nome, and awaiting the...
Newfoundland & Nova Scotia
Kim Eckert: Jul 16, 08
You might think that this tour's weather was ideal, considering almost every day's highs reached the 20s (Celsius, that is—remember, this is Canada), and the only rain the entire time was a brief, light shower on the last day. The problem this year, though, was the fog, that unpredictable meteorological variable that can threaten to dampen our birding success here every year.Unless our passage by ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland is fog-free, views of fulmars, shearwaters, ...
Alaska Mainland
Barry Zimmer: Jul 11, 08
Our 2008 Alaska Mainland tour faced some difficult challenges with the loss of nearly two full days in Nome due to heavy fog in the area. Despite this we had a superb tour with myriad highlights from most of the Alaskan specialty birds to fantastic mammal viewing, to having Denali (Mount McKinley) in full view for two consecutive days!The Nome section was condensed into a little over a 24-hour period, so we had to maximize our time. Arriving in late morning, we made a brief check of the Telle...
Churchill and Southern Manitoba
Jeri Langham: Jul 09, 08
I have led this tour 22 previous times, but never could have imagined the weather that would confront us this year. In early June, one expects to receive a thunderstorm once or twice during the tour, and maybe even one full day of rain some years. Maybe global warming played a role this year. Whatever the cause, it never stopped raining the first day of the tour. We then had a wonderful day-and-a-half of birding in Riding Mountain National Park before another 24-hour storm hit us. Fortunately...
Colorado Summer Week
Brennan Mulrooney: Jun 30, 08
Our Colorado Summer Week tour has few equals when it comes to visiting a wide variety of habitats in a short period of time. And, of course, when you visit a wide variety of habitats, you can see a great diversity of birds. Add to this some of the most stunning scenery in North America, and you can understand why I look forward to this tour so much every year. Having said that, there are a few birds on this trip that tend to garner the lion's share of attention—three birds that have...
Bhutan
David Bishop: Jun 17, 08
This was the twenty-first VENT bird tour to Bhutan since 1994 when we first began operating in this magical kingdom. We regularly offer two tours a year and they always fill very quickly. So what is it that makes this particular VENT tour so attractive? Quite simply, Bhutan is in a class of its own. Yes, it's an expensive tour, largely because the Bhutanese have decided (in my opinion quite rightly) that they would rather not compromise their culture and spectacular natural environment to...
Grand New Mexico
Barry Zimmer: Jun 16, 08
The fourth day of our recent Grand New Mexico tour stands out as one of the best days of North American birding I have had in some time—and with the amount of birding I do, that is really saying something.We awoke to a nice crisp, sunny morning in Silver City with temperatures in the upper 50s. Our plan for the day was to bird the Mimbres Mountains north of town, with emphasis on Cherry Creek Canyon, and end up at the famous Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. We had barely made it ...
Scotland in Style 2
Peter Roberts: Jun 16, 08
This was the third and last week of VENT's Scottish tour program in 2008. We'd had perfect weather during our first Scotland in Style tour, followed by pretty-near perfect weather (barring the first day) on the Scottish Islands Cruise. This last week in the Highlands carried on in the same vein, with great, clear, dry, mostly sunny weather right up until our transfers to the airport on the last day. That should put a stop to those who mock and make fun of Scottish weather!Our small, c...
Scottish Islands Cruise
Peter Roberts: Jun 16, 08
VENT's 2008 small ship charter around the Scottish Islands followed a very similar route to our successful 2007 cruise. We were blessed by mostly excellent weather and sea conditions after a rough start as soon as we left Aberdeen Harbour at the start of our journey. After the disappointment of being unable to land at Fair Isle the next day, things turned very much for the better during the rest of the week. That evening we made a Zodiac landing at the fine Pictish Broch on Mousa and expe...
Scotland in Style 1
Peter Roberts: Jun 16, 08
During our six full days based in the charming ancient market town of Grantown-On-Spey, we enjoyed a varied and daily program of events. We always keep the program flexible to allow for notorious vagaries of the Scottish weather, but we needn't have worried this year, as it was "set fair" almost the entire week. Everyone enjoyed the Highlands scenery of high peaks, extensive moorlands, and Caledonian pine woodland; the stunning coastal scenery of cliffs, inlets, and offshore isl...
Adak, Alaska
Michael O'Brien: Jun 10, 08
Adak is a remote island in the central part of the Aleutian chain, part of the so-called Andenof Islands. But unlike most other islands in this region, Adak has an extensive infrastructure due to military operations here between 1940 and 1997. During our visit here, we enjoyed the various amenities from an extensive road system, to a comfortable house, to a convenient restaurant where we could always count on a hot meal (Violet was just great!). Our van had seen better days but served us well...
