For Birders & their Partners
Other tours to Mexico and Central America are out there, but none that take you to the multitude of top birding spots and allow you to bird at a leisurely pace. It’s hard to get enough of a good thing, so our Birders keep coming back year after year. Our Wagonmasters and expert birding guides, Bert and Shari Frenz, have led Birding Caravans throughout Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica.

We spend time exploring the wild places where nature is still in control and birds fly, animals prowl, flowers grow and rain forests are untrammeled. We travel with people who have the same interests; people who like nature, birders both beginning and advanced, and people who want to see and learn more about the natural world around them.

We learn from each other as well as from our birding guides and naturalists. We gather for short presentations about birds, wildflowers and geology. We explore birding sites under the direction of a birding guide, who has been there before and can help in bird identification.

We like the flexibility that these specialized caravans provide. We have the opportunity to choose among many options - birding, sightseeing, hiking, shopping, touring and the ability to control our own agenda each day.

Future Tours
Typically, we change our birding itineraries every year, always looking for new birding sites and refining our routes to previous hot spots. We know many of our customers plan years in advance for their birding trips, so we want to keep you informed of our plans as well. Updates appear on the Frenz’s website before it’s printed in our catalog. Go to www.bafrenz.com for the latest information.

Central Mexico (2009)
We’ve run variations of this route in 2003 and 2005. Our route covers an expansive range of birding habitats from Monterrey’s Highrise in Northern Mexico, south to the high volcanic mountains of Angangueo (10,500 ft.) and La Cima, east to the Valley of Oaxaca, down to the Pacific coast at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, then east to the Maya ruins of Palenque, farther east to the Caribbean coast and north along Mexico’s Gulf Coast. Previous years we’ve tallied 550-600 bird species. Details of this route are on the Frenz’ website. This 65-day trip will start in mid January 2009. Given all our previous customers who have requested this trip, it filled quickly but contact Bert for getting on the waiting list.

Newfoundland & Maritime Provinces (2009)
The rugged countryside of Newfoundland has the appeal of Alaska, but on the opposite end of the continent. Arriving in early spring, we can still catch the icebergs before they drift out to sea and spot the arriving birds primed for nesting. Thousands of gannets and alcids nest on the rocky cliffs, Atlantic Puffins fly where Hump-backed Whales cavort, caribou roam in enormous herds and moose can be found by the dozens. We run two trips, one during spring migration and the second during fall migration. The first starts near a gannet rookery in Quebec, tours Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. After exploring Newfoundland, we finish the first trip at the ferry for those ready to return home. Most of you will want to lengthen your stay in this fascinating province and then join us for the second trip beginning in late July in Nova Scotia where we will see the tens of thousands of Semipalmated Sandpipers migrate through the Bay of Fundy. Contact Bert or check his website for more information on these 2009 trips.

New Zealand & Australia (2010)
Planned for 2010, this will be two back-to-back trips, offering you the opportunity to join either or both tours. We will rent RVs, giving us the freedom and economy to visit many of the great birding sites. If these trips interest you, Contact Bert or check his website on these 2009 trips and get on the list of those to be notified as soon as details become available.

Churchill, Manitoba
This popular and successful tour ran in 2005 and 2007. The Churchill trip is an “end of the rainbow” experience, traveling throughout the Manitoba Province by highway and then at roads end, by train to the frozen Hudson Bay. Our arrival is timed to catch the ice breakup of the Churchill River as it dumps into the bay, a stopping point for northward bound migrants. Some of the many birding highlights are: Sharp-tailed Grouse, Baird’s Sparrow, Chestnut-collared and Smith’s Longspurs, Snow Bunting, Ross’s Gull, Little Gull and Pacific Loon.

Central America
This extraordinary 79-day birding caravan ran in 2008, birding our way through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and El Salvador. In addition to fantastic birding, culminating in a trip list of 719 bird species, we visited Maya ruins at Palenque, Lamanai, Tikal and Copán, volcanoes at Mombacho, Poas and Atitlán, colorful markets and enchanting scenery. With all the birds we saw, here are the ones our birders chose as the top three: Resplendant Quetzal, Snowcap and Red-headed Barbet, all viewed at close range. Look for a future trip encompassing the best of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala.

Yucatan Peninsula
Our best route for sightseeing the Maya ruins and birding eastern Mexico, we have taken various routes in 2001, 2002 and 2004. We visit Uxmal, Chichén Itzá, Cobá, Palenque and many other famous ruins. Other birding sites include Sierra de Los Tuxtlas, La Pesca and the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula where we can find Mexican Sheartail, Yucatan Wren and other endemics that only occur in this remote location.

Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon Territory
& Northwest Territories
Our Wagonmasters made their fifth birding and nature trip to Alaska in 2008, the most ambitious of all, with an itinerary that included the Alaska Highway, iced-over lakes in the Yukon Territory, spring migration on St. Lawrence Island at Gambell and Western Alaska on the Bering Sea at Nome, early nesting along the Denali Highway, the ice breakup on the Arctic Ocean at Barrow, sightseeing and mammal watching at Denali National Park, pelagic trips on Kachemak Bay, Kenai Fjords National Park, Resurrection Bay and the ferry to Kodiak Island including Kodiak bear watching, summering in the Kenai Peninsula, aurora borealis viewing in Chicken and Dawson City, fall colors and bird migration on the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, NWT, and the return trip through Skagway, the Cassiar Highway and ending at Hyder, Alaska, and a visit to Salmon Glacier. For its combination of scenery, mammal watching and rare North America birds this trip is unparalleled.