My wife and I recently returned from a birding tour in Central America during which we attempted to also do our “own thing” by accumulating a lot of other natural history observations to upload to iNaturalist. Given that this was a dedicated birding tour–and an excellent one–we had relatively little time to indulge our interest in the full breadth of biodiversity around us. We have found this to be the case on most previous formal birding tours. And this is a continuing frustration for each of these opportunities we’ve had to visit high biodiversity areas in the Neotropics.
This got me wondering if any tour companies offer “Biodiversity Tours” with a broader focus that would cater to, or be suitable for, the iNaturalist community. I know there are generalized “Nature Tours” and perhaps something along those lines would be compatible with our focus, and there are also photography tours of many kinds but those are generally quite technical and tailored to professionals in nature photographers.
The niche I’m talking about would be guided natural history tours that would allow participants to experience and document biodiversity akin to a bioblitz but under expert local guidance.
Not quite billed that way (badum bum) but I several times have recommended private tours from a local company operated by iNatters and heard back each time that not only were the birds given context in terms of local plants and geological features (such as cenotes, etc), but also that native species of plants and endemics along the way were pointed out and explained.
(This is not quite the same thing you are describing but I was delighted to hear it.)
I wonder if botany-focused tours (if they exist for the areas you want to visit) would be more compatible with broader biodiversity recording than birding tours.
I find that even on local outings it is often difficult to reconcile birding with looking at plants or looking for insects – as a friend of mine put it, your head is always pointed in the wrong direction. For birds you are mostly looking up and far away and you need a tele lens or binoculars, while for both plants and insects you are mostly looking at stuff close-up and you may want a macro lens. And lots of arthropods are found on plants, making them a natural pairing that doesn’t require you to divide your attention nearly as much as trying to botanize on a birding expedition would.
(Of course, a botany tour will not solve your problem if you still want to document birds, it would just change which organisms are getting neglected, but I think there can be advantages to not trying to do everything at once.)
Run by @mandiequark, @alan_rockefeller, and @joeysantore, two mycologists and a botanist, the tour leadership was supplemented by expert local leaders in each case. Of course, we looked at fungi and plants, given the leaders, but we certainly looked at everything else as well - go look at all the moths we saw on the Ecuador trip.
There’s an emphasis on contributing iNat observations on these trips, as a way of contributing to local knowledge of biodiversity. On the Ecuador trip, some people collected fungi and lichens, with all the proper permits, for deposit in the national herbarium, as well.
I’ve been on a couple of birding tours. I like seeing birds, but really, I went on those trips as a way to get to cool places and make iNat observations. We certainly saw birds on the Mycena trips (I missed the nesting Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, damn it), but the broader emphasis on all biodiversity made the trips much more enjoyable for me.
I do individual tours instead of group tours. By letting the guide or tour company know that I will also be looking at plants and other animals in addition to birds, I’ve been able to see and photograph a large number of species. The solo part gives me time to look at things important to me while not having to deal with people only interested in putting check marks on a list. The drawback is that the price is higher but there are plenty of individual operators that still offer decent pricing.
This is a project I set up with Nelson Apolo of Ecuador Nature Tours where we looked at everything and he found lodges that provided good locations for mothing, some even with their own moth lights set up.
I was just reading Luis’s most recent trip writeup and found an example of what I mean by “the birds are given context”:
If you’re not familiar with ant swarms, these involve army ants — predatory, nomadic insects that can form massive raiding columns of up to 200,000 individuals, consuming nearly everything in their path. Opportunistic birds follow these swarms to catch escaping arthropods, reptiles, amphibians, and other small creatures. Finding one is every birder’s dream.
Birds become completely focused on feeding, often allowing incredibly close views. Species that are usually difficult, such as woodcreepers and wrens, may perch in the open just meters away, frozen in place as they watch the swarm for their next opportunity.
I honestly don’t even know where to start with what we saw there. One highlight was a Yucatan Jay catching an Ochraceous Bark Scorpion and eating it right in front of us.
Hello from Paraguay!
We do something similar to what you’re describing in our region.
If you’re interested in getting in touch, we can design something tailored to your needs.