CANATURH: Honduras is a Paradise for birds.

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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Aug. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- What would you think if we told you that in an area equivalent to 1% of all that territory there are about as many birds? Amazing, isn't it? Well that place is called Honduras.

Honduras is, par excellence, a Paradise for birds, and has more than 750 recorded species including migratory and resident varieties; this large number is due in part to the fact that the country is located in the middle of the Americas, which makes it a point of convergence for birds from North, Central and South America, that is to say that many species from North America reach their southern distribution boundary in western Honduras and more than 50 species from South America reach their northern distribution boundary in eastern Honduras.

Honduras has a vast diversity of habitats, which translates into just as many special places for sighting, or hotspots, places that are not exactly jungles, and are for the most part easily accessible; one of these places is located in the vicinity of Lake Yojoa, which is home to more than 400 species of birds, noteworthy among them the Snail Kite, nine species of Wood-Rails and the Keel-billed Motmot, a species endemic to Central America – Honduras is where it can be most easily observed. 

All along the Caribbean coast, Honduras has more than 600 km of beaches with habitats and ecosystems ranging from mangrove forests and coastal lagoons to rainforests and cloud forests, places where a patient watcher can find a wide variety of birds, such as herons, ducks, Woodcreepers, Violet-ears, Trogons and  the Lovely Cotinga with its electric blue and purple colors.

But if you're looking for birds you won't find in other parts of the Republic, the Mosquitia region is the place to go, there you'll find the Vermillion Flycatcher and a variety of South American species, while it's also easy to spot the King Vulture, the Yellow-headed Vulture, and with a little luck, the Black Crake.

Visiting the cloud forests, you can find hundreds of birds, among them the Quetzal, considered by many to be the most beautiful bird in all of the Americas, and if you make your way to the pine forests of the western highlands, in the evenings you can hear the call of the Fulvous Owl, or the mysterious song of the Nightjar, while in the daytime you will easily catch a glimpse of the Tanuna, or Roadrunner, which passes among oak trees festooned with scores of acorns put there by the Northern Flicker.

And it's not only in places where there's leafy vegetation that you can encounter such wonders, in the arid valleys of the country's interior the Honduran Emerald lives, a bird endemic to Honduras, which with  its green colors  and bluish throat offers a rare visual treat for seasoned birdwatchers.   

But if you're anxious for a look at the "heavyweight birds" on the shores of the Gulf of Fonseca, you can see the Jabiru, one of the biggest birds in the Americas, and in Patuca National Park you can spot the world's largest eagle, the Harpy Eagle.  

Honduras is definitely a Paradise for birds, a country where in just one hour you can also have the pleasure of spotting more than 5,000 migratory birds flying from the wetlands of southern Honduras, taking wing for South America.   

www.facebook.com/asho.avesdehonduras
Collaboration of Carlos Alexander Albert ASHO
Asociacion Hondurena de Ornitologia    

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140813/135914 
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140225/MX66043LOGO-b  

Lilian Lagos
Phone: (504) 2232-1927 
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:  www.canaturh.org / honduras.travel

SOURCE Honduran National Chamber of Tourism - CANATURH