Tikal National Park - Guatemala

We visited Tikal National Park on March 19, 2026. It is located in northeastern Guatemala about 40 miles from Flores, the nearest city of any consequence and 62 miles by road to the border with Belize. We drove in from Belize City to Flores, spent the night, then to Tikal NP the next morning. Tikal NP encompasses 222 square miles, but the central part of the ancient Mayan city covers about 6 square miles, which is where we spent most of our time, while there. The Maya settled in the area around 900 BC, but the massive Mayan temples were mostly constructed during the eighth century AD when it had a population of about 100,000. It fell into decline at the end of the ninth century and was virtually abandoned. The city was reclaimed by the jungle and it wasn't until 1848 that an expedition sent by the Guatemalan government discovered the ruins. The structures were restored to their current condition during the 1950s and 1960s and it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. 

In 1990 the Maya Biosphere Reserve was created to protect the largest area of American tropical forest remaining north of the amazon, which encompasses 8,341 square miles. It covers much of northern Guatemala and includes Tikal NP,  El Mirador NP, Sierra del Lacandon NP, Laguna del Tigre NP and the San Miguel La Palotada Protected Biotope and makes the area virtually impenetrable to a casual tourist. See the blurry map below. The biosphere is in black and completely in Guatemala, Belize is to the east and Mexico is to the north and west. 

We arrived in Tikal NP about 6:00 a.m., spent time along the road looking for birds and eventually arrived at the area with the ruins where we spent the rest of our time until leaving about 11:30 a.m. The following are photos of animals we saw while we were there:

Brown jay

Black-headed trogon

Gartered violaceous trogon

Masked tityra

Yellow-throated vireo

Black-headed saltator

Ocellated turkey

White-crowned parrot

Orange-breasted falcon

Keel-billed toucan

Rufous-tailed jacamar

Lineated woodpecker

Red-lored amazon

Indigo bunting

Central American spider monkey - also below.

White-nosed coati

Black and white warbler

Golden-fronted woodpecker

Black vulture

Gray fox

Olive-throated parakeet

Turkey vulture

Yucatan squirrel

Plumbeous kite

Montezuma oropendola

Rose-throated becard

Wood thrush

Common squirrel-cuckoo

Rufous mourner

This is a culmination of a pretty amazing morning of exploring and discovery: 19 of the birds photographed above were lifers for me. Tikal NP is a place I would love to spend more time traipsing with a bird guide. 

Central American Spider Monkey

On March 19, 2026 we were in Tikal NP in northeastern Guatemala. We had several encounters with spider monkeys, including one instance where they got quite close to us.  

Two Mexican spider monkeys come close to check us out. 

This particular spider monkey is known as the Central American spider monkey or Geoffory's spider monkey and is listed as endangered by the IUCN. It is found in the south and much of the eastern portion of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and possibly portions of Colombia near the Panama border. There are a number of subspecies, and we saw either ssp. vellerosus, the Mexican spider monkey, or ssp. yucatanensis, the Yucatan spider monkey. On iNaturalist, I submitted two photos and the same identifier on both, kc1rt4pn0sd3, who is the 5th highest identifier of the Central American spider monkeys, with 548 identifications, identified it as the Mexican spider monkey, ssp. vellerosus. AI indicates ssp. yucatenensis, the Yucatan spider monkey, inhabits Tikal NP. Wikipedia notes that a 2015 phylogenetic study indicated that yucatanensis is a junior synonym of vellerosus, which  I take to mean that they are basically the same thing. 

The female clitoris is large and protrude like a penis. It is actually larger than a male's flaccid penis. So females are sometimes mistaken for males by observers. It does appear to have a scrotum, so may be a male. Males and females are about the same size, but females can be slightly larger and weigh slightly more.  

It is one of the largest New World monkeys, weighing as much as 20 pounds. Its arms are 25% longer than its legs and its prehensile tail can support its entire weight and is used as an extra limb. The tail has a palm like pad at the end and can be used for locomotion, to pick fruits and scoop water from holes in trees. The face has a pale mask and bare skin around the eyes and muzzle. The hands and feet are dark black and the body color varies by subspecies and population, and can be buff, reddish, rust, brown or black. 

This is a different spider monkey than the monkeys shown in the other photos above. 

Jaguars and pumas appear to be the only significant adult spider monkey predators, other than humans. However, predation of these monkeys has never been observed. 

My wife, Judy, is a big fan of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Her "Self-Portrait with Monkey 1938" portrays a spider monkey. She kept several of them as pets. 

White-Tipped Dove

My guide, Bobby, saw several white-tipped doves at Finca El Pilar near Antigua, Guatemala. I saw only one, after scanning the vegetation for what seemed like minutes and finally finding it heavily obscured. Birds of the World notes that it is "elusive, and despite its extensive range in the Americas, relatively little is known about its biology." It prefers to forage on the ground, alone or in pairs. It is more often heard than seen, preferring to remain in concealing vegetation or along the edges of clearings and trails. That is consistent with my experience. Look at my photo below and it tells the same story. 

There are 12 subspecies, but I find conflicting information about which one I saw. AI points to ssp. capitalis, the typical form found in the highlands of Guatemala, including the Antigua area. Wikipedia points to ssp. bangsi, found in western Guatemala to western Nicaragua and Honduras (it has capitalis in the Tres Marias Islands and nuttingi in Lake Nicaragua). Birds of the World points to ssp. nuttingi, which includes bangsi, as resident on the pacific coast from Guatemala south to western Honduras and, disjunctly, Lake Nicaragua. Birds of the World does not have an illustration of ssp. bangsi, nuttingi or capitalis, so I'm going with an illustration of ssp. verreauxi. 

Range from Birds of the World. 

Bronzed Cowbird

The bronzed cowbird was another lifer I got at Finca El Pilar outside Antigua, Guatemala. My guide, Bobby, pointed to it high in a tree just as we were pulling in to enter the gated, private, nature sanctuary. I was thinking I'd already seen this species before, but I was confusing it with the shiny cowbird I've seen in both Colombia and Ecuador. 

I saw the nominate subspecies, aeneus, which is found in southern Texas and from eastern Mexico to central Panama. The female is dull black with a brown underbelly and brown eyes. The male has green-bronze, gloss-black plumage with red eyes in breeding season (it is sometimes known as the "red-eyed cowbird") and brown otherwise. The male also has an erectile ruff on the back and sides of the neck (see my second photo above). 

Illustration of a female, ssp. aeneus, from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of a male, ssp. aeneus, from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. 

Bushy-Crested Jay

My favorite find at Finca El Pilar near Antigua, Guatemala, or actually several miles before it in a residential area, was the bushy-crested jay. My guide, Bobby, pulled the car over to the side of the street and pointed several of them out in a heavily vegetated lot with lots of trees. Several of these beautiful, loud jays were flitting about among the trees. I had several failed attempts to photograph them and thought I'd blown it, until another came into view just as we were getting ready to leave. 

I love the yellow on the chin that matches the yellow and orange flower it is standing on. 

The head, neck, breast and upper mantle are black and the remaining upperparts are dark blue with a sheen of green or violet. The underparts are greenish-blue, the undersides of the wings are gray and the underside of the tail is blackish. The head has a stubble-like erectile crown of feathers and the iris is yellow. There are two subspecies. I saw the nominate ssp. melanocyaneus, found in Guatemala and southern El Salvador. It is limited in range to just a portion of Central America. 

Illustration of ssp. melanocyaneus from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.