Maynor Ovando is a dedicated and passionate Guatemalan naturalist, who left his profession as a civil engineer to find birds every single day of his life. He became an expert birder and guide and now works for Birding Expeditions

Because of his knowledge of bird distributions in the country, Maynor designed routes for birdwatchers that take them through the natural diversity of birds of Guatemala and has lead annual Christmas Bird Counts (CBC) in Atitlan, Tikal, and Antigua Guatemala since 2007. Starting in 2015, he worked with Birding Expeditions staff to promote and lead the CBC of the Biological Corridor of the Resplendent Quetzal—Guatemala’s iconic and dramatic national bird.

Maynor has the first record for Guatemala of a Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis). He reports nearly every one of his bird observations to the citizen scientist database eBird.org, making him among the very top native Guatemalan reporters to eBird. He wants to provide ornithologists an accurate data about bird distributions, especially recent information of the number of species and location of birds. He also shares pictures and song recordings of rare and geographically restricted birds.