I recently took a trip to Guyana after which I tacked on a few days in Suriname and French Guiana. The Suriname part was a combination of general sightseeing and birdwatching and I did have a few birds there that we didn’t have on the Guyana tour. I ended up with 63 species in two days, including 7 lifers, which wasn’t bad considering I had just gotten 100+ lifers in the two week trip to Guyana. French Guiana was uneventful birdwise, since I really went there more for tourism than birding, but since there’s so little information on it, I figured I’d at least give what little info I have.
I arrived at Zorg en Hoop Airport in Paramaribo via Gum Air from Georgetown on a 13 seater Cessna and took a taxi to my hotel, the Eco Resort Inn. As has been noted by others, I have no idea what makes it “Eco” since it’s simply a motel in a fairly urban part of town, although it is along the Suriname River. While waiting for them to get my room ready, I wandered around the grounds, picking up some of the common species: great kiskadee, tropical kingbird, house wren, and blue-black grassquit.
After growing tired of waiting for them to finish my room, I threw on my walking shoes and headed into town to explore. The town is quite pretty, but I didn’t see much bird-wise in town other than flocks of feral pigeons. I ended up my walk at the Palmentuin (Palm Garden), where I added pale-breasted thrush, gray kingbird, short-crested flycatcher, palm tanager (in palms!), and silver-beaked tanagers along with many more kiskadees.
After going back to my hotel and finally checking in, I went down to the riverside on the hotel grounds. This added black vulture and turkey vulture, laughing gull, snowy and cattle egrets, yellow-headed caracara, greater ani, purple gallinule, white-winged swallow, short-tailed swift, and blue-gray tanager. It began to pour at about 6 PM, so I headed inside to safety and ended my day.
The next day I had arranged to go birding with Otte Ottema, who formerly worked for Stinasu, the Foundation for Nature Conservation in Suriname. He met me in a taxi at my hotel and together we went to a local car rental agency, who provided a compact car with air-con for $20 USD including 100 free kilometers (cheap!).
I gave Otte a short list of targets that I figured we might see based on Jan Hein Ribot’s webpage. He went through the list, eliminated a few species as being uinlikely, and concluded that we could get many of the others by going to three main locations – Peperpot Plantation, Weg naar Zee, and the Cultuurtuin Park. I was surprised he put Weg naar Zee on the to-do list, because I only figured one species was possible there, be he felt some others might be possible near there. He was right, of course.
Our first stop was the nature trail at the Peperpot Plantation, where we had the best chance at the largest variety of species including Suriname’s only endemic, arrowhead piculet. Now other reports I’ve read describe the trail head as being less than obvious, but there was now a large sign at the entrance advertising it as the “Peperpot Nature Trail” or Nature Preserve with a large yellow gate. They also now charge admission - $12.50 SRD for foreigners, $3.00 SRD for locals.
We stopped right at the entrance before going in the gate to see what was around. We picked up the common three tanagers (palm, silver-beaked, and blue-gray), a pair of black-crested antshrikes, yellow-rumped cacique, crested oropendola, and orange-winged parrots. We heard ashy-headed greenlets, but having seen them in Guyana, we didn’t make an effort to call them in. Then Otte heard a cream-colored woodpecker. We called that in, but it hid behind the trunk and didn’t give great views. We also had what was probably a pygmy kingfisher fly in for a split second before taking off again.
We finally entered the gate (!) and found another flock of mostly the same species, but added a great antshrike that wouldn’t show itself. At this time Otte heard an arrowhead piculet. We tried unsuccessfully to call it in, but while trying, I found a hummingbird which Otte identified as a plain-bellied emerald, my first lifer of the day. We then turned right down the main, 3 km long trail that eventually leads to the old Peperpot Plantation.
The next lifer was a blackish antbird, which Otte heard and called in, and soon after that we heard another few arrowhead piculets both calling and drumming. I was able to find the drumming male right over our heads and then we saw a couple more zipping around over the trail. Good to get that one under our belts. While watching the piculets a straight-billed woodcreeper called and then flew off.
We walked a little further down the trail seeing brown-throated parakeets and green-rumped parrotlets, as well as adding cinereous tinamou to the heard-only list. Eventually we came to a place where bamboo arched over the trail. We sat down and Otte called in some crimson-hooded manakins – first a female, which Otte says never tend to respond, but then a couple of beautiful males. There was also a cinnamon attila calling nearby but he was well buried in the trees and wouldn’t show himself.
It was starting to heat up and bird song was definitely dropping off, so at that point we turned around. The first new bird on the way back was a little cuckoo who we saw before hearing. Meanwhile, Otte was working his way through the target list, so he picked a suitable spot and gave the white-browed antbird tape a try. Boom! A nice male came right in and after a bit of hide-and-seek gave stellar views. For a black and white bird, it really is quite pretty. We tried another spot for black-throated antbird, another target, but instead got a singing yellow-crested elaenia that unfortunately wouldn’t come into view. We also heard a slender-billed kite over our heads while looking for the elaenia.
As we made it back to the trail head, Otte heard a plain-crowned spinetail. This bird came right in and gave spectacular views, which he said doesn’t happen often. It also meant that we could avoid a stop at the Cultuurtuin Park, which is actually a more reliable spot for the spinetail and the manakin. So I paid our admission fees to the guard, and we headed to a nearby bar/store for some cold drinks.
From there it was back over the bridge to Parbo. Traffic was surprisingly heavy and it took a while to get across town, but we eventually made it to Weg naar Zee around noon. An immature rufous crab hawk was sitting in a tree right across from where we parked. Otte was surprised and disappointed to see that the main trail onto the dike was covered in garbage, but we carefully made our way through that onto the dike.
Otte thought there was a possibility of finding spot-breasted woodpecker in the trees along the dike, but we dipped on that. However, the mix of birds on the mudflats was very good – the big waders were mostly snowy egrets and little blue herons, but there were also tricolored herons and great egrets. The shorebirds there included spotted sandpiper, black-bellied plover, and a lone whimbrel. Otte tried to find a scarlet ibis in the mix, but there weren’t any that day. Then a peregrine flew in and put the whole flock up.
We went down the dike and found a nice soaring osprey and a couple wattled jacanas in a side pool. We also found a perched martin that looked very dark. My first instinct was to think either purple or southern martin, both of which would be good birds for that time of year. However, when we got closer and into better light, we saw it was just a gray-breasted martin.
The we discovered the the far end of the dike had been fenced off before the last patch of woods we wanted to check. Apparently the dike beyond it was badly eroded and they didn’t want people going down there. All we could see beyond the fence were a few soaring magnificent frigatebirds, so we turned around and headed back to the car. On the way, we met a Dutch birder and exchanged sightings. He asked us if we’d noticed the adult rufous crab hawk in the tree right behind us. We hadn’t. Oops.
Otte still had a few more places in that area to visit. He knew of a place to find masked yellowthroat, so we headed there. As we pulled up, we saw a small bird perched in the reeds – a wing-barred seedeater. We then got out of the car and Otte said that he heard a yellowthroat. A quick try with the recorder and nice male came right in and perched on the fence right in front of us. He quickly dropped into the reeds so we moved on.
Further down the road Otte knew of a spot where cinereous becards had nested. Unfortunately there was construction going on there and no nest. We wandered along the dike a bit – it’s an extension of the dike at Weg naar Zee - but it started to drizzle so we turned around. On the way back we turned up mouse-colored tyrannulet and house wren, and spooked up a large flock of black vultures (with a turkey vulture or two mixed in) but no becards.
We got back to the car and headed out, and on the way, I noticed a couple of birds in a bare tree. As I pointed them out to Otte and maneuvered the car for a better view, we almost simultaneously said “And that’s a becard nest!” The male didn’t stick around for long, but the female stayed a bit, then did some tailoring on the nest before also flying off. So after all that, I had my cinereous becards.
On the way back to town, Otte knew of a spot where he’d seen azure gallinule. It wasn’t likely we’d find them in the middle of the day, but we gave it a shot anyway. While watching the marsh, we saw a few cattle egrets, smooth-billed anis, and red-breasted blackbirds. Then a black-capped donacobius popped up and flew toward us. It hid in the reeds for a bit then flew back to where it started from.
It was now around 1:30 and I’d told the rental car company I’d have the car back by four, so we headed back into town, grabbed a delicious Javanese lunch at Otte’s favorite warung (Indonesian restaurant), and headed back to the rental company to settle our bill. In total we’d only driven 65 kilometers so we were well under our limit. I settled up with Otte while waiting for our taxi, who dropped us off at our destinations. The only thing I added for the day was a short-tailed swift flying near my hotel before dark.
The next day I took a shared taxi to Albina and then a pirogue over to St. Laurent de Maroni in French Guiana. This was really a sightseeing visit so I didn’t see much beside the common species. Great kiskadee and tropical kingbird were common, and there was a house wren and a bananaquit in the yard of my hotel. Near the waterfront along the Maroni River there was a large flock of white-winged swallows and a few palm and blue-gray tanagers in a large tree near the water’s edge. And of course there were black vultures and grey-breasted martins over the town and rock pigeons in the center of town near the market.
First thing the next morning I took the bus to Kourou to tour the Space Center there. I added rusty margined flycatcher near my hotel and a yellow-headed caracara and turkey vulture while touring the launch site. Wandering around the city that afternoon I saw some carib grackles, a gray kingbird, and unfortunately, a female house sparrow – the only one for the whole trip - along with the common species.
After a night in Kourou, I took a shared mini-bus back to Maroni, a pirogue back across the river, and then another shared mini-bus back to Paramaribo. It rained for most of the afternoon, so that put an end to the trip, since my bus to the airport at Zanderij was at 2:30 the next morning.