That’s A Great Question!

We had a great comment from Randy a couple of days ago:

You mentioned "going over the bird list" before dinner. Is that a list of birds you saw during the day, or birds you hope to see on the trip?

It is pretty common (at least at the places we have visited) to be given a check list of the birds in the area we are visiting. 

The Canopy Family has published a wonderful and very useful booklet for each of their lodges.

Every evening, either before dinner or after dinner, we would all sit in the common area and the guide would go over the bird list with us.  Not all of the birds mentioned were seen by everyone.  I kept my own list with me and would write down the birds as we saw or heard them.  Sometimes the birds would be coming so fast I couldn’t keep up so it was nice to go over the list every evening.

This checklist was well thought-out and was compiled and designed by our guide, Carlos.

There was a place to keep track of the areas we visited:

A week’s worth of space to check off birds seen or heard (H):

Mammals were not forgotten:

Additional sightings:

Before we finished for the evening we were given instructions on what time breakfast would be served the next morning and a little information about what we would be doing.  The Notes section was the best way to remember all the instructions.

We received a different checklist when we reached Canopy Lodge:

I'm still filling in some of the checklist from my personal list.  It makes a great keepsake.

Thanks for the question!