Cyclo-twitching

Throughout our cycle touring experiences we’ve found a bike to be a fantastic way to see bird-life and wild-life. This page contains any nice photos we manage to take in focus. Where official names are lacking, vague descriptions have to do.

Reflections of a Lagoon, Telchac Puerto, Yucatan

Wildlife of the Cruise and the UK
Wildlife of the Iguazu Falls
Wildlife of South Argentina
Wildlife of South Chile
Wildlife of Mid Argentina
Wildlife of Mid Chile
Wildlife of Northern Argentina
Wildlife of Bolivia
Wildlife of Peru
Wildlife of Ecuador
Wildlife of Colombia
Wildlife of Costa Rica
Wildlife of Nicaragua
Wildlife of El Salvador and Honduras
Wildlife of Guatemala
Wildlife of Belize
Wildlife of Mexico

Wildlife of the Cruise and the UK
Apart from a few dolphins and many flying fish, the cruise was fairly nondescript nature-wise…the UK was a different matter though: Practically the first animal we saw was a wildebeest, then a giraffe! Turned out we were cycling past a zoo!

Wildlife of the Cruise and the UK
Fluffy cattle egret in Recife	Cloud of flying fish escape the cruise ~~boat~~ ship	Welcome home to the UK!
Yellow Wagtail	Oystercatcher	Egyptian Goose
Brighton Seagulls	The tasty Pheasant	Red-legged Partridges
Yellowhammer	Family of Ducks	Swallow
Unicorn Deer	Pied Wagtail	Mr Turkey
Back on the altiplano with the alpacas!	Jenny Wren	Grey Wagtail
Snakeshead Frittilaries

Wildlife of the Iguazu Falls
The Iguazu Falls (particularly on the Argentinean side) were rich in wildlife as we ventured into the jungle again:

Wildlife of the Iguazu Falls
Coatis playing in Brasil	Vultures swirl around the falls	Wildlife becomes more abundant and a little tamer in Argentina!
Butterfly party1	Butterfly party2	Butterfly party3

Quite a lot of butterflies!

Wildlife of the Iguazu Falls
Spiders in the sky	Big big fish	1 of the 40,000,000 caymans in the Parana region
Pretty magpie bird	3-legged terrapin	Spider found some food
Daddy and baby spiders	Rainbow lizards	Lichenous lizard

Wildlife of South Argentina

The pampa of Southern Argentina (and a bit of Chile) didn’t offer much hiding space for animals and birds, and as such it was a veritable safari at times! Here are just some of the things we saw:

South Argentinian Wildlife
Starling-sized robin-type bird – very tame	Evidence of woodpeckers are everywhere	Thrush-type bird in morning light
A relative of the House leek high in the Andes	Magellanic woodpeckers	Pampa foxes
Magellanic goose and its young	Sparrow and the Perito Moreno glacier	Guanaco safari – Torres Del Paine
The flame tree flower	Hawk and Lago Pehoe – Torres Del Paine	Magellanic goose close-up – Torres Del Paine
Cormerants on the Puerto Natales sea-front	Flamingos once again	A ñyandu (rhea) – an ostrich-like bird of the pampa
Playful dolphins on the way ferry to Tierra Del Fuego	Pampa fox-cub at the King Penguin Colony	King Penguins go on an Easter egg hunt

Wildlife of South Chile
On the carretera austral we saw many more condors, but also a fair amount of other wildlife…here it is:

South Chilean Wildlife
Pine-marten near Puyahuapi	Dolphin looking for escaped fish-farmed salmon near Puyahapi	Grebes on Lago Las Torres
Small bird in Villa Cerro Castillo	Bright orange bumblebee	The mighty condor

Wildlife of Mid Argentina
More photos of our wildlife on our travels, the stand-out part being the gold-leaf mushrooms around Bariloche and El Bolson.

Mid Argentinean Wildlife
The gold-leaf mushrooms of mid-Argentina	A close-up of one of the gold-leaf mushrooms	Just one of many thorny plants in Argentina waiting for your tyres!
Gorgeous coloured grebe in Lago Faulkner	Geese!	Crested Cara Cara
Lupins and lake	Small delicate alpine flowers near Dedo Gordo hut	The laughing ibis…how could we forget you!
Barking up the wrong tree	Beachside flowers	Unknown climbing flower by the side of road
Grouse-like bird with it’s running baby!

Wildlife of Mid Chile
Unlike other parts of the trip, where the wildlife we’ve seen has mainly been full of surprises, there were two wildlife destinations to visit in Mid Chile: Valdivia and its sea-lions, and Chiloe with its penguins.

Mid Chilean Wildlife
Philosophical sea-lion in Valdivia	Hungry sea-lion	Sea-gull, some things never change!
Pelican waiting for scraps, fish market Valdivia	The turkey vulture has been following us South all the way from Mexico	guinea-fowl type birds in Valdivia
A coypu forges across the Rio Maulin as we cross with our bikes	Wild rocket with the port of Ancud, Chiloe	Magellanic penguins greet us to their island with noisy cries
Cormorants sheltering on the cliffs of Chiloe	Penguins are perpetually leaving the water…	…and entering the water
A sea-otter relaxes on the rocks	Noisy and different bird in Castro	Black-headed swans and their cygnets
Flowers of the Chilean Araucania	Orchids of Chile and Argentina	Colourful beetle
Brave robin-like bird	Blue-winged beetle	Magellanic (Woody) woodpecker
Patagonian finch	Red-throated bird	More parrots (Argentina)

Wildlife of Northern Argentina
The wildlife of Northern Argentina surprised us, as so much of it was desert-like scrubland. As ever, parrots filled the skies, and the humming-bird hummed even this far South. More spectacular though was the entrance of the Condor into our trip, a truly majestic bird.

Northern Argentinian Wildlife
This cactus looks surprised to see us on Ruta 40	Stork/crane-type bird	Parrots seem to be everywhere in Latin America
Beautiful and tame bird in Amaicha campsite	Cactus flowers	The spider that interrupted our pleasant afternoon on Ruta 40
The snake that woke us up as we cycled off the next morning	The mighty condor	A type of lapwing in the Potrerillos campsite
A Guanaco on the road to Chile	Californian poppies line the road down to Los Andes	Thistle and bees

Wildlife of Bolivia
The wildlife of Bolivia was always rather shy. Given that most of our time was spent above 4000m, there wasn’t much life to see anyway. The one exception was the flamingos which were still there after our near miss at Rio Lagartos in Mexico.

Bolivian Wildlife
Lake Titicaca grebe. Our first new bird of Bolivia	Parakeets are an odd surprise on the altiplano as we take the wrong direction out of Oruro	A juvenile flamingo hasn’t learnt to be scared of cycle tourists yet and poses with its reflection
Spot the cuy….there’s a guinea pig somewhere in this photo…	On the road to Potosi, people start dressing up their animals. Here a donkey…	…There a llama
Beautiful bell flowers as we approach Tarapaya	The first humming bird we’ve seen for a while samples the same bell flowers	The willy cactus on the road to Uyuni
Cactus flowers in Pulacayo	Flamingos enjoy the hot springs too at Polques	Viscocha (half-rabbit, half-squirrel) near Laguna Verde

Wildlife of Peru

Peru had a slow start for cyclo-twitching, mainly because twitching from a bus, at night, is a bit difficult. However the trek to Machu Picchu and the ensuing ride to the Bolivian border across the altiplano around Lake Titicaca more than compensated for it

Peruvian Wildlife
Toilet-brush flowers as we ascend into the Cordillera Blanca	Orchids at Kuelap, note the ruins in the background	Some kind of ‘Bird-of-Paradise’ type-flower on the walk to Machu Picchu
Swallow/house-martin at Machu Picchu. These birds flitted around all over the place	The Machu Picchu rabbit. Rarely seen, but very special!	Beautiful river-bird on the Rio Urubamba on the walk from Machu Picchu
Parrots are hard to photograph. This is about as good as it gets!	Cattle egrets and some sort of black ibis litter the altiplano…	…So do woodpeckers for some reason (there are no trees!)
Sparrow-hawks were everywhere searching for mice in the long grass	These birds of prey manage to find a mouse	Wetlands soon appear with a multitude of ducks
Moorhens/coots are also ever present	The varied colours of the wetlands mirror the varied colour of the ducks’ bills

Collage of waterbirds

Collage of Llama-pac-unas (Llamas, Alpacas and Vicunas)

Wildlife of Ecuador

Ecuador has over 1600 species of birds, however it wasn’t till we reached the jungle South of Vilcabamba that we really stared seeing the rich wildlife this country has to offer.

Ecuadorean Wildlife
Booby and Peacock on Quito’s basilica	A small bird with a long tail taunts us from afar in a tree in Alausi	Bizarre and beautiful plant on the roads round Zhud
Peacock strutting its stuff in the American-occupied village of Vilcabamba	Two eager cyclo-twitchers on the road to Peru (photo courtesy of Dave)	As we leave civilisation behind hooded mountain tanagers appear
A masked trogon hides in the trees	Humming birds still hummed everywhere	Then the butterflies started: butterfly 1
Butterflies 2	Butterfly 3	Butterfly 4
Butterfly 5	Butterfly 6	Flower 1
Flower 2

Wildlife of Colombia

After our brief stay in the wildlife-rich Panama, we hoped to spend more time watching and photographing the wildlife of a new continent in Colombia. We weren’t disappointed, with new birds popping up all over the place, with a short walk in the Valle de Cocora being particularly memorable.

Colombian Wildlife
A sight of ‘yellow-headed blackbirds’ from a distance gives a hint of what is to come.	Buffalo lined the way to Caucasia. This one displays a splendid new hair-do	Huge lizard trying unsuccessfully to hide up a tree
Trees smothered in white, line the Cauca. Closer inspection reveals colonies of cattle egrets	Numerous types of butterfly make a return to our path. Geoff remembers seeing this one in a butterfly farm in England!	Butterfly enjoying the sun in Santa Fe de Antioquia
Valle de Cocora humming-bird feeding station: no.1	Valle de Cocora humming-bird feeding station: no.2	Valle de Cocora humming-bird feeding station: no.3
Very tame long-tailed humming-bird shows off its fantastic tail	Very tame long-tailed humming-bird shows off its fantastic head and belly!	Adorable fluffball of a sparrow poses with red hot pokers
Long-tailed humming-bird ‘au natural’	Brown humming-bird	Crimson-mantled woodpecker
Eagle (pigeon!)

Wildlife of Costa Rica

Costa Rica took wildlife to a new level, low population combined with government policies aimed at sustaining habitats mean that we saw many species once common to other Central American countries, but now only found in numbers here, especially the splendid Scarlet Macaw.

Costa Rican Wildlife
The turquoise-browed motmot posing in Liberia	Cow on road to Arenal, chewing the cud contentedly	Cormorant stretches its wings on the shores of Lago Arenal
Pretty yellow bird near Lago Arenal	Ringed kingfisher prepares to swoop on the otter-herded fish below	Another type of kingfisher on a sign
Red backed blackbird with mate	Another photo of the yellow bird by Lago Arenal	Cattle Egret living up to its name! (Cow seems to be enjoying it too)
Macaws playing in the trees above the highway	Huge crocodiles in the water near Tarcoles	Scarlet macaws exchanging an intimate moment in the trees
Big lizard in Dominical beach area	Leaf-cutter ants, Marino Ballena NP	photogenic toucan who first swooped with us on our bikes, then stopped to pose and preen

Wildlife of Nicaragua

A land of monkeys, motmots, magpie jays and maggots. Our time in Granada and Isla de Ometepe gave some time to appreciate the wildlife of Nicaragua, which while plentiful, didn’t seem as varied as other countries so far.

Nicaraguan Wildlife
A Jacana stalks the weeds of Lago Moyua	Monkey hanging around on one of the Isletas, Granada	Cows lapping up the warm water round the Isletas
Maggot remenants before the doctor intervened in Granada	Watching howler monkeys at dusk, Finca Magdalena, Isla de Ometepe	The very vocal blue magpie jay
Pet squirrel on a string by the beach on Ometepe	Brilliant-coloured crab on the beach at Playa Madera	Close-up shot of the oropendola birds in Nicaragua

Wildlife of El Salvador and Honduras

We really rushed through these countries too quick, and barring a sighting of a blue grosbeak in El Salvador (The brightest blue bird you ever did see), and motmots once out of El Salvador, we didn’t see much.

Honduran Wildlife
Mitch, the rottweiler puppy of Simon in Choluteca	The distinctive outline of the turquoise-browed motmot	One of our first glimpses of the turquoise browed motmot

Wildlife of Guatemala

Birds of Guatemala – In Guatamala the jungle had been allowed to flourish, and with it came many more sightings of parakeets and birds with strange behaviours/noises. On the way into Tikal we saw our first variety of toucan, which looked like it had got a bit carried away with the face-painting stand at the village fete. The ill-fated day to Cobán we heard a bird, which had mastered at least 8 distinct notes, and was hashing them together into a random tune of variable quality, but we have no idea what it was.

Guatemalan Birds
Toucan goes to face-paint class	The pendulum nests of the aptly named oropendola bird.	Parakeet at Tikal, they never stay still!

Wildlife of Belize

We spent a beautiful, long morning watching birds at the Crooked Tree nature reserve, and were lucky to see the majority of the birds they are famous for, including the Jaribu stork, Tiger heron, and two types of kingfisher. We also were able to get ridiculously close the a humming-bird whilst it dried itself in the sun:

Belizian Birds (and spiders)
Vultures oversee an ibis sitting awkwardly in a tree	A rufus-tailed humming bird catches its breath in the sun	Red bird, now identified as vermillion flycatcher
Little blue heron stalks the shallows	The amazing striped throat of the tiger heron	Tarantula in the tent!

Wildlife of Mexico

A world of swamps, coast, and flat flat landscapes, and lots and lots of birds! Many orioles, woodpeckers, waders, egrets, herons, bitterns, pelicans, and others. Many different colours, with crimsons and intense oranges being the most spectacular. The only wildlife we saw has been lizards, geckos and snakes. No mammals at all.

Mexican Wildlife
Crimson sparrow	Catfish surfaces from the depths of a Cenote	Birds in the bush, Coba ruins
Spot the butterfly…Coba ruins	Bird on a branch, Tulum ruins	Two iguanas beasting it out, one won, but we couldn’t tell you which!
Pelican on a stick, Rio Lagartos	Sarah and a package of Bob, Valladoloid hostel