Belize! Part VI: Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Mayflower Bocawina National Park, Hopkins

Morelet's Seedeater (formerly White-collared Seedeater) is one of the most abundant and widespread birds in Belize. I was hoping for a Morelet's Seedeater-Morelet's Crocodile combo but it never happened. Photographed at Hopkins Bay Resort.

After Black Rock Lodge, it was time to head over to the coast for the last part of our trip. We made the semi-long drive (by Belize and/or driving with toddler standards) over the Hummingbird Highway without any birding stops, as it rained most of the time...which the Black Rock army ant swarm had correctly predicted, for the second time. We made it to Hopkins in the afternoon, where we checked in to the Hopkins Bay Resort at the very north end of town...this was the first time I've ever stayed at a typical beach resort, and while it worked for our family purposes I wouldn't recommend it to birders visiting here. It's expensive, the birding on the grounds is mostly poor, they spray the beach sand with pesticide every morning (!) and rake up any sargassum on the beach, and they try to claim to be all sustainable despite clearing out large swaths of mangrove forest...not going to be staying there again. On the flip side, I will say I did have a couple great cocktails there, and the resort is right across the street from the old cemetery in town...this is where I lifered Yucatan Vireo, which I was super stoked on, and I also had my first really good looks at Mangrove Vireos a little further north.

Tropical Kingbird are, as one might expect, dirt common in Belize. It's still a nice looking bird though. There were Couch's Kingbirds at several sites but Tropical was generally much more abundant. Photographed at Hopkins Bay Resort.

Hopkins has a lot of visiting foreigners but is also pretty mellow...it's certainly not overrun by tourists and not dominated by sky-scraping mega resorts or anything. There is a great deal of good birding within 45 minutes of town, and with many lodging options it is a sensible place to be based out of for birding in the area if you don't opt for staying at the lodge in Mayflower Bocawina National Park or the rustic Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary cabins. Bordering the west side of town is a huge marsh, which provided some trip birds but more importantly got me my first Ruddy Crake...it was a heard only, but I'll take it!

No matter how many of them you have seen, if Brown Pelicans are plunge-diving next to you, you must stop what you are doing and watch. Or crush. Photographed at Hopkins Bay Resort.

While our lodging sitch in Hopkins wasn't super productive for birdlife, I was able to get out for multiple ace mornings of birding while staying there. One morning I went out to Mayflower Bocawina National Park, just 20 minutes or so up the road. Of course the camera was out of comission at the the time so I've got nothing to illustrate my time there, but the birding was very entertaining and I would definitely recommend a day or two here. Within the boundaries of the park is the Bocawina Rainforest Resort, which gives you excellent access to the area and no doubt has good birding right there on the grounds...I would definitely consider staying there if I return to the area. As for birding the park itself, I was impressed. Highlights included looks at Gray-headed Dove, Blue Ground-Doves, Ornate Hawk-Eagle, and Stub-tailed Spadebills. Here is my eBird list from my visit, if you're interested.

The last birding spot of the trip turned out to be the very best - Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, where I was lucky enough to spend two mornings. Billy had been here before and recommended it highly, and she was right to do so. In doing my research before this trip, I found Cockscomb listed in surprisingly few trip reports despite the blood red pin it sported in eBird's hotspot map...why birders overlook this gem while birding in Belize is a mystery to me. This place is fully legit. Visitors have the option of staying the night here at some rudimentary cabins, but I suspect you have to bring all your food/water/supplies in with you. This was the one place we visited where both diversity seemed very high and bird abundance was staggering at times, and I was super impressed with the quality of birding both days I was there. The place is huge and there are lots of trails to choose from...I totally could have birded there a third day and probably seen a grip of birds I missed the previous days. The entrance road alone is probably worth a whole morning, and the one place I pulled over yielded the only Green Honeycreeper of the trip.

Shockingly, my camera worked one of the days I was at Cockscomb, so here are some more pics!

Northern Waterthrushes are one of the commonest neotropical migrants that winter in Belize. This one would not get out of the path I was walking down so I took its picture.

White Hawks were easy to find on the trip...huzzah! Back before I saw my first White Hawks in Costa Rica some years bak, this was a neotropical bird that really stood out in my imagination...difficult to fathom a bird like this without seeing it with one's own eyes. Like a handful of other prominent birds, I literally dreamed about seeing these (as opposed to just fantasizing about it, like usual) before I actually did. Easily one of the coolest raptors I have ever seen.

While not abundant, Pale-billed Woodpecker is another widespread, fairly common woodpecker...but they are huge, exotic, and are in the same genus as the iconic Ivory-billed and Imperial Woodpeckers. The day after I took this photo, I came back and got a glimpse of it (or its mate) almost get taken out by some kind of large, black raptor that went plunging through the trees after it..it was livid.

One of the many idyllic creeks that run through the preserve. I was unsuccessful, but Agami Herons are regularly found in Cockscomb in places like this.

Ruddy Woodcreeper was a lifer back at Black Rock, but I was able to get a few identifiable photos of this bird here in a nice mixed flock.

While not exceptionally scarce, Slate-headed Tody-Flycatcher are notoriously difficult to actually see...so they say. I had no such misfortune with this tiny todyish tyrant of the tangles, a true trip target. Luckily I had the prescience to memorize their song and found this shrub friend (shrub-friend) relatively easily instead of walking by it obliviously as it sang away, which I've probably done with dozens of other neotropical would-be lifers in the past. How embarrassing. 

One of the wildlife highlights of the trip was seeing this tayra! I only knew what it was because we had seen them close up at the Belize Zoo the week before...way to go Belize Zoo for successfully educating a dumb tourist. A tayra is like a giant mega weasel, a wolverine-otter looking thing. Megawolverotter. It paced back and forth across the trail in front of us a few times for good looks before trotting away.

From this angle it looks more like a bear-weasel combo. This was a very high quality lifer mammal - we also saw brocket deer, which the zoo had prepped me for as well. No jaguar sign (Cockscomb is famous for jaguars) but those were two sweet lifer mammals.

Pretty sure this was a lifer creature as well, white-lipped mud turtle (right?). It was crossing the entrance road during a rain storm. I know I am GBRS #7 in the U.S. and all that, but did you know my first real love of wildlife was herps? 

Billy and Annie in action. Billy's action was probably scanning for a Gray-headed Tanager I failed to get her on before it flew away (sorry Billy). Annie's action was sleeping.

Some unphotographed highlights from Cockscomb: absolutely stunning views of a confiding Black-faced Antthrush (the first I've seen, rather than just heard), lifer Yellow-tailed Orioles and Royal Flycatcher, getting the Leptotila hat trick (seeing White-tipped, Gray-headed and Gray-chested Doves in the same morning), and mixed flocks and concentrations of birds of such quality that I was beside myself.

I'll do one more post to kind of summarize the Belize trip for anyone who is thinking about going, but this will about wrap it up! You can thank Nikon for making a shitty product - the lack of photos to sort really enabled me to actually blog the whole trip in an almost respectable amount of time.

Belize! Part V: Black Rock Lodge

Belize! It wasn't that long ago, but it kinda seems like it? So much good 5MR birding since then! Anyways, to continue with the Belize trip...after leaving the Tropical Education Center/Belize Zoo Jungle Lodge and the pine savanna behind, it began to get serious. As we headed west, actual hills and topography began to appear, which we had seen no sign of until then. The flat, lightly-treed savanna gave way to forests...we were now in a very different part of the country. I was amazed to see a Black Hawk-Eagle cruising low over the road while passing through San Ysidro, as I had only seen one before and that one was something like a thousand feet higher in the sky. We were on our way to Black Rock Lodge, one of the most heavily birded sites in the country, where we would spend five luxurious (by my scumbag standards) nights. Black Rock offers great birding on their property along the Macal River (and along their entrance road), and is situated within an hour of a number of other birding hotspots - I would highly recommend it to anyone who plans to bird in the greater San Isidro area or western part of the country.

We arrived in the area pretty early so decided to detour to DuPlooy's Jungle Lodge for lunch. DuPlooy's, which has been recently bought out and renamed Sweetwater or something like that, is another well known birding site and is also adjacent to the Belize Botanic Gardens. I had looked into staying there, but the price was considerably higher than what Black Rock offered, and Black Rock seemed to have comparable if not better birding on site. Lunch was mellow - outside and way up in the forest canopy. I was amazed to see that there was a group of tame Red-throated Ant-Tanagers coming in to check out the trash and lunch plates left behind by guests. This would be the first of 25,000 occasions I wished my camera had not stopped working...we also had good looks at Golden-crowned Warblers from the dining deck, which we would not end up seeing anywhere else.

It was hot and we were too busy with Annie to attempt any actual birding except to and from the car, so it was straight to Black Rock after that. The drive in is a mix of pastures and young forest until the road comes close to the Macal River, and after that the forest closes in for the rest of the very scenic drive (see above photo).

So, as you know I don't have dozens of crushes to share or anything like that, so will abandon any linear narrative here and just mention some of the birds and experiences from the Black Rock area.

I got 10 life birds at Black Rock, which I will list in increasing order of stoke: White-bellied Emerald (common), Ornate Hawk Eagle (poor looks at an immature), Sepia-capped Flycatcher (one and only of the trip), Ruddy Woodcreeper (much more interesting than the average woodcreeper), Northern Schiffornis (heard a great many, got really good looks at one), Dusky Antbird (two or three), Black-crowned Tityra (one on the entrance road), Ocellated Turkey (saw one individual on two occasions on the entrance road), Black-and-white Hawk Eagle (one seen from the farm area by the river), Red-capped Manakin (several, all males).

The manakins were just absolutely crippling and one in particular was absurdly tame. I was floored. Full on birdgasm...that one left a mark. I had kind of forgotten how fantastic manakins are, but the Red-cappeds here (and some confiding White-collared Manakins) rekindled my love. Black-and-white Hawk Eagles are very uncommon and could have easily been missed even if I had specifically been looking for them, and I fully expected to miss them entirely...but amazingly I had high quality looks at one soaring above the Makal River one afternoon. Looking at eBird data, this was the rarest lifer I got on the trip. The turkey was a big bonus, one of the most charismatic birds on the continent.  While they are common and easy to see in a number of places in Belize, none of those places were actually on the itinerary, so this was a significant bonus lifer.

My incapacitated camera briefly came back to life for a few minutes one afternoon. A flock of Olive-backed Euphonias obliged for the occasion.

This is one of a number of species I saw in Belize that I had only seen previously in Costa Rica back in 2012-2013. Many euphonias can be challenging to ID, but male Olive-backeds are really distinctive.

And with this Yellow-bellied Flycatcher photo, the camera fell back into a coma and I was once again free to bird unencumbered. Both Yellow-bellied and Least Flycatchers were fairly common and widespread; I did not see any other Empidonax.

Now back to your regularly scheduled digiscoping...geri birding anyone? The big fruit feeder at Black Rock's veranda brings in quite a bit of goodness, like this Yellow-winged Tanager. Oddly, I didn't see anything at the couple of hummingbird feeders they have up, I feel like there is some (substantial?) untapped geri birding potential there. Other stuff that came to the feeding platform included Collared Aracaris, Brown Jays, Black-cheeked Woodpecker, Red-legged Honeycreepers, Variable Seedeaters and Olive-backed and Yellow-throated Euphonias.

This Tropical Pewee was remarkably faithful to using this stick as a launchpad for sallies...forest flycatchers aren't exactly the easiest digiscoping targets so I was surprised to get a few hey-this-isn't-total-rubbish photos through the scope.

Other non-lifer highlights of Black Rock:

White-whiskered Puffbirds. There are so many White-whiskered Puffbirds here. Many of them are ridiculously approachable. They are just begging to be crushed, imploring anyone who passes by to photograph them to their heart's content. I did not know such a bird could be so common and confiding.

Raptors. The raptor scene here is something else. Aside from the lifers mentioned above, we also had Black Hawk Eagle (yes, got the Hawk Eagle Hat Trick here), Great Black Hawks, White Hawks, Gray Hawk, Roadside Hawks (entrance road), White-tailed Kites (entrance road), Bat Falcons (hunting dragonflies over the canyon every day - one of the guides said they were Orange-breasted, how embarrassing), King Vulture (regular) and of course the common vultures. Bring your scope to lunch! I somehow managed to not go up the canopy tower, though I fully intended to, and that is probably a fantastic place to scan for raptors from late morning through the afternoon.

The Vaca Falls Trail. This is a very easy, fairly long trail that I spent a lot of time on. I never got bored with it - very, very good birding, and not just in the morning. There is also a great side trail just past the single unlocked gate that you have to open and close to get through, which cuts southwest (to your right) through the forest and rejoins the main trail again further upstream. Be warned that the trail map of the property they provide you with is awful.

Guides. Other than the falcon miscue (and there really is a pair of Orange-breasted in the area, though I did not see them) all my interactions with the guides were very good, even though I never ended up going birding with one...in retrospect, I would have in order to access Elijio Panti NP and see Tody Motmot and maybe Nightengale Wren. Freddie gave me the lowdown on how to see Ocellated Turkey and I pretty much owe him for that bird.

Food. The food was very good, generally increasing in quality as it got later in the day...the dinners were great. I wasn't so in to the communal eating thing (I hate people) but they are all about accommodating the shit out of their guests there, so if you want your group to have your own table I'm sure that can be arranged most nights. Since we had a toddler that's all we did after the first awkward/disastrous dinner there.

One day we headed out to Thousand Foot Falls on Mountain Pine Ridge to check out that area, which is a very unique habitat. I had read a lot of trip reports that mentioned how gnarly the roads there can get after a lot of rain, but we had no problem with the Isuzu and only engaged the 4-wheel drive for a particularly large puddle right before the waterfall. We ended up not birding much on Mountain Pine Ridge but, most importantly, saw one of the resident Orange-breasted Falcons, which the resident caretaker correctly predicted would be visible perched on a far ridgeline after the clouds coming up out of the valley cleared. I was very grateful to have the scope with me here, as otherwise it would have just been a raptor-shaped speck. And yes, it was a high quality waterfall.

Gratuitous family photo with cloud-cloaked waterfall.

Eventually the view changed from a dense cloud bank to a faraway falcon - this is the view from the Thousand Foot Falls overlook.

On the way back from Mountain Pine Ridge we stopped at Green Hills Butterfly Ranch, which we wanted to check out because Annie could see a bazillion butterflies close up and because it is considered the best place to see hummingbirds in the entire country. It was pretty expensive (I think $20 U.S. per adult) but the butterfly propagation operation they have going on is pretty interesting and the hummingbird situation was as advertised.

With my crusher dead, I had to digiscope for photos, which was ridiculous since many of the birds were comfortable with people standing 10 or 15 feet away. Crushing FOMO was raging but there was nothing to be done except for wallow in the midst of exotic hummingbirds. White-necked Jacobins (left and center) were by far the most abundant species, which I had no problems with because they are facemelting and I have only seen a few before. A hulking Long-billed Hermit (right) or two frequently visited also.

Here is a White-bellied Emerald, of which there were several. The other hummingbirds here were Rufous-tailed (obvi), Wedge-tailed Sabrewing, several Violet Sabrewings (great to see those again) and a couple Green-breasted Mangos. Birders who come visit in spring and summer will probably see the pair of Plumbeous Kites that nest there annually, though we were too early for them. There is good forest birding on the property in general, though we did not check out the trails.

White-necked Jacobins are widely distributed and aren't particularly rare in many parts of their range...but they are absolute cripplers! I had to get a facelift after having so many buzz around my head, as my skin partially melted off from their sheer brilliance.

Army ants! I love army ants. They are the faunal spice of the Neotropics. This swarm was on the march a couple different days near the parking area while we were at Black Rock...in fact, while we were leaving, the managers were getting to ready to abandon their office because it was getting overrun by the swarm! If you think honey badger don't give a fuck (remember that?), wait until you meet an army ant column. The attendant bird flock didn't hold anything crazy but it was pretty sweet nonetheless. A couple of guides commented when the swarm first appeared that it was probably going to rain the next day...which sounded bizarre...but they turned out to be right. I am a believer now...army ants predict the weather. You show me ants, and I will show you rain.

Belize! Part IV: Crooked Tree to The Tropical Education Center

By our last day at Crooked Tree, I already considered our visit there Great Success, and if and when I go back to Belize, I would absolutely be down to go back...especially in February or March, when the lagoon is seething with birds and Agami Herons are more dependable. As railer as it was to leave Agamiless, Hooded Warblers were a heartening sight, and brought me comfort on most days during the trip. Come to think of it, I'm almost always having a good time when there are Hooded Warblers around.

This American Redstart was exceptional, pivoting back and forth at this one spot, keeping its attention on me and tail fanned the entire time. Maybe it was trying to tell me something, like "You will never see an Agami Heron" or "Oh hey we met at Point Reyes a few years ago" or "Nikon sucks go Canon".

Yucatan Woodpecker was a prized lifer, one of *nine* I was able to squeeze out of the Crooked Tree area. A marvelous mini-Melanerpes...perhaps belonging in its own genus, Mellownerpes.

Eventually it was time to leave Crooked Tree and see a new part of the country. We got Bird's Eye View Lodge to drive us back to the airport, where we were dropped off at Hertz. After a few minutes we got into our sweet new diesel Isuzu (I didn't know they still made Isuzus, let alone diesels) and were off to the Belize Zoo Jungle Lodge, aka the Tropical Education Center, aka the TEC. I chose to stay two nights at the TEC for four reasons: 1) its proximity to the Belize Zoo, which we figured would be fun for Annie to visit 2) since it was on the way to Black Rock Lodge, it eliminated a long driving day, which is ideal when you are driving around with a toddler 3) it isn't expensi and 4) it gives good access to pine savanna, and the chance to clean up on any specialties of that habitat we missed at Crooked Tree.

The drive from Belize City was easy and uneventful. We ate lunch at Cheers, which is just past the TEC/Belize Zoo on the George Price Highway, and also an eBird hotspot. The food was deec but I suspect something I ate there didn't treat my stomach well later that night...it was brutal, actually...but it was the only place where we saw Tennessee Warblers and Giant Cowbird for the trip.

Eventually we got checked in to the TEC and did a little exploring before sunset. The TEC itself provides good birding opportunities and an extensive, well-marked trail system. One of the highlights of our time there was the evening parrot flight. The number of parrots flying over, commuting to evening roost sites, was really impressive...not massive flocks mind you, but a constant, dispersed stream of birds.

The vast majority were Red-lored, which seems by far the most abundant parrot species in much of Belize. Thankfully their calls are easy to learn, so most birds could be identified by ear before they were close enough to see well.

They were all in pairs. Many of them flew quite low, giving good looks, which is not something to take for granted when it comes to parrots in flight.

Great birds they are.

Besides all the Red-loreds going over, we also had a single adult Yellow-lored Parrot squawking in a nearby tree. It was nice to see a brightly marked individual after seeing Drabby McDrabberson at Crooked Tree earlier in the day.

While looking at the Yellow-lored Parrot, I heard a distinctly new parrot noise, more screechy and raucous than anything I heard before. With jaw clenched, hands trembling, lip quivering, I raised my binoculars with sky high hopes...YELLOW-HEADED PARROTS!!! They were flying low and right towards us.

In fact, they came a little too close for crushing purposes, but that's not something I will complain about. This was a great LIFE BIRD, one I had been really hoping to see. While they have declined greatly and disappeared from parts of their historic range due to habitat loss and the parrot trade, they are still readily findable in much of lowland Belize.

Not an ideal photo, but it is an ideal lifer. This was the only pair we saw on the trip.

The TEC is in a huge swath of pine savanna, good Yellow-headed Parrot habitat. It's also where Black-throated Bobwhites make their bobhomes, and I spent quite a bit of time and energy looking for them, but that pursuit ended in bobfailure. Luckily, wandering around in this habitat did at least connect me with a lifer Plain-breasted Ground-Dove (I'll spare you the awful picture), which also ended up being the only one of the trip.

A handful of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons lurked at the pond. I also heard Boat-billed Herons both nights we were there, but couldn't locate their day roosts.

In retrospect, the TEC was not quite as birdy as it maybe is at other times...it looked great, but birds were simply not as abundant as I thought they would be. That said, one of the commonest birds in the area was, of all things, Thick-billed Seed-Finch. Frankly, I was unprepared for their sheer abundance and sweet, casual songs...I won't make that mistake again.

I did have one mixed flock at the TEC that left me glassy-eyed and slack-jawed...it wasn't massive, but it contained several Yellow-backed Orioles (life bird!), another target I had been drooling over. I don't really associate orioles with conifers, so it was interesting to see these big facemelters take their time foraging in the pines. The flock also contained Yucatan Woodpeckers, Green Jays, a Hepatic Tanager, a Golden-olive Woodpecker, and a surprise Gray-collared Becard, which I've only seen once before and are fairly rare in Belize. It wasn't exactly an "it's happening" flock but it was fully gripping, and in retrospect included an impressive three species I didn't see on any other occasion on the trip.

After the flock oozed away from the trail, I then pished up my lifer Green-backed Sparrows...everything was coming up Steve!

Elaenia. Have any of you considered naming your first/next daughter "Elaenia"? I think it's legit. First of all, no one else is going to have that fucking name, so 10/10 for originality, and it isn't nearly as bracing/esoteric/wince-inducing as "Apple" or "Blanket" or some shit, nor is at as trendy as "Wren" or as common as "Phoebe". It basically sounds like an established name with a nice exotic-but-modest flourish at the end. For real, you can use it, go ahead, just give credit where credit is due.

Granted, elaenias aren't extravagantly beautiful, or talented singers, or really anybody's absolute favorite birds, but they are perfectly fine birds...and in the end, isn't that all we can hope for from our children? That they turn out to be perfectly fine beings? This is a Yellow-bellied Elaenia, a great example of a perfectly fine bird.

The TEC has a range of lodging options that are pretty reasonably priced; we stayed in one of the two houses overlooking the pond, which was pretty sweet and no, the mosquitoes were not that bad. Annie and Billy weren't so into the rain and falling tropical fruits banging on the metal roof at night, but I thought it added character.

AGOUTI AGOUTI AGOUTI

TEC has a lot of confiding agoutis, which are like mini capybaras. They don't get hunted around there so they are pretty nonchalant, as are the Russet-naped Woodrails. A gray fox there early one morning was another nice sighting on mammal front.

I was hoping to have some more amphibian encounters but they were relatively few...and yes, it was for a lack of trying. Having a toddler with you in the tropics is not conducive to night hikes or night anything really. I saw a rad reddish toad (raddish toad) here at TEC but didn't have anything on me at the time to photograph it with...so all I have to share is this very humble frog. Brian Freiermuth suggests it is a juvenile Leptodactylus. Having no idea how to identify any frogs found in Belize, or almost anywhere else frogs exist, I am not one to argue.

The fungus scene in Belize was good, there were a lot of mushrooms out, not that I could say anything intelligent about them. This smurf thing was one of the best ones.

Oh yeah, I doubt they will read this, but my boys Juan Carlos and Gilbert really helped us out and went above and beyond their duties when we had to deal with some medical stuff (I ate the smurf thing). Thanks TEC!

JK I didn't eat the mushroom but we did have to semi-urgently take care of some stuff.

We spent a morning at the mostly-great Belize Zoo, where Annie got to see things like tapirs ("mountain cows"), real Jabirus, this wooden Jabiru, and Harpy Eagles, which she oddly did not have much interest in but the big female had a great deal of interest in her. I had seen one or two Harpy Eagles at a zoo before but it was a privilege to be in the presence of this one, who had chosen to sit on a perch very close to us. I felt like I should bow or something...talk about a spellbinding animal, I can only hope I see a wild one someday. That is some bucket list shit right there...

Right, the zoo. The zoo was good. Great for kids, unless your kids hate animals. All wildlife native to Belize. They've got everything from Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl to jaguars. Anyhow, I didn't see any unusual free-flying birds at the zoo but I don't doubt that good stuff is possible there. BTW I've read in a couple places that in the past the zoo has been really aggressive about making photographers with vaguely professional looking gear pay $$$ to have their cameras out there, but I got a copy of their current photo policy and that shouldn't be a problem any longer.

After leaving the Belize Zoo/TEC area, we took a detour down the Monkey Bay Sanctuary access road on our way to Black Rock Lodge. On that road, destiny had a cruel twist of fate planned for me...my six month old (and apparent piece of shit) Nikon D7200 died after I took a single exposure of a Crane Hawk. Crane Hawks are magical beings, it is known, but I suspect Nikon is to blame this time. Life was mostly pain on the photography front after that, just as the birding really picked up again.

Belize! Part III: Crooked Tree Lagoon by Boat

Birding on foot at Crooked Tree can be very good, but no visiting birder comes here without taking a boat trip on Crooked Tree Lagoon and heading up Spanish Creek...I think that is what they usually do anyway. One morning Billy and Annabelle and I all got on a boat with a Euro family who also had a toddler, which sounds like a potential birding disaster but remarkably worked out pretty well. Also, with that many people on board, the whole thing only cost $35 US per adult...what value! Such savings! Bird's Eye View Lodge organizes these trips and have their boats docked right outside - they also do boat trips to Lamanai, which from what I understand can be very good and potentially offer a chance to see a lot of the same specialty birds (plus Yucatan Nightjar sometimes?), and you get to bird the Lamanai ruins.

We were at Crooked Tree before the thousands of water birds crammed into the area (the level of the lagoon was too high), but the birding was still ace, Leonard was a very solid guide and I recommend it highly.

Let's start with a Snail Kite snailing it up. I never knew I would ever be someplace where Snail Kite was one of the most common birds, but I have now been to such a place. The density of Snail Kites here is really impressive...there aren't ungodly hordes of them, but there are hella. Of course, the reason for this is the abundance of apple snails.

Most of the individuals we saw were immatures or females, but we did see a couple crispy male Snail Kites...or, if you prefer, snale mail kites.

Incredibly, Snail Kite is not the only molluscivorous kite in Belize...Hook-billed Kites specialize on tree snails, though they are known to consume nonmolluscs as well. The notable fact that we have both mollsuc-loving kites here in the U.S. is lost on far too many, for our obtuse, mollusc-blind culture does not place enough value on molluscs, let alone hardcore molluscivores.

Limpkins, on the other hand, place a premium on molluscs. They live here in staggering abundance. There really are ungodly hordes of them...their numbers were a revelation. They are so common that it makes you wonder how there can be places in the world that don't have Limpkins, or how one would actually need to expend energy to find them. At times you can hear them calling constantly from the lodge, but it is much easier to actually see them by boat.

Of course, the Limpkins are here for the same reason as the kites...they love apple snails. This Limpkin was caught in the act, snailing it up.

Some juicy apple snail eggs for your edification. Apple snails crawl out of the water at night to lay their eggs on emergent vegetation above the waterline, then apparently try to beat it back below the waterline before they get eaten by Limpkins and Snail Kites in the morning.

Ringed Kingfisher was another surprisingly common bird here, THANK THE MAKER. Of the 4 species of kingfishers I saw at Crooked Tree, Ringed was the most abundant, followed closely by Belted.

True to form, the Belted Kingfishers at Crooked Tree are just as adverse to being photographed as they are everywhere else. Why a common bird that is so happy sitting out in the open yet is so consistently uncomfortable being around people is one of the great avian mysteries of the world.

Luckily, we did not go to Belize to look at Belted Kingfishers, and I was really happy with getting lots of quality looks at their giant cousins instead.

We also saw a number of Green Kingfishers from the boat as well. This is a female - males have the rufous breast band, which is the opposite color scheme that Belted Kingfishers use.

I can appreciate a good Little Blue Heron (this one was good) and there are no shortage of them here for you to appreciate at will. At close range, I've found that gazing at the mellowing blues and purples of this bird can lead to interminable pondering of color, perception, the universe, and why certain bird names are hyphenated and other equitable birds are not. I don't mean Red-breasted Merganser, that is actually a pretty standard format, more like Northern Pygmy-Owl (why the hyphen?) or Great Black Hawk, which until recently was Great Black-Hawk. Speaking of which...

Another species I was hoping to connect with on this trip was Great Black Hawk, which I had only seen once before. This really confiding bird was the first adult I've ever seen. Up close, it has quite a different look to it than a Common Black-Hawk, though at the same time I'm not sure I can put my finger on it...there's more majesty there. Cool to see the fine white barring on the thigh so easily.

In Belize, sorting Common from Great Black Hawks is relatively easy, as Common Black Hawks largely stick to coastal areas, with Great Black Hawks dominating everywhere else. We did not find any birds of either species that deviated from this pattern.

If this bird looks familiar to you, you've either birded in the Neotropics before or you've seen too many pictures of the Maine Great Black Hawk (rest in peace) on Facebook. This immature can be easily told from Common Black Hawk by the lack of a malar stripe.

The last time I saw one of these, it was still called a Gray-necked Wood-Rail. Now, it's a Russet-naped Wood-Rail - it's new sister species, Gray-cowled Wood-Rail, only comes as far north as Costa Rica. You don't need to go on a boat to see these, but these flashy things are hard to ignore.

A species I knew we could see from the boat, but I did not expect to see, was SUNGREBE. If there is a bird with an air of mystery about them, it is the Sungrebe. Don't believe me? Well, they are the only member of the tiny and bizarre Finfoot family in the New World and - apparently - the males allegedly have pouches under their wings where they can carry chicks...while flying.

WTF

This boggles the mind. I had seen Sungrebe before, but this was news to me. If your mind is not boggled by this fact, even if you already know it, then you are clearly operating with some kind of defect and I suggest you seek help. I found a recent blog post on this exact subject if you care to learn more...it turns out to be something ripe for further investigation.

As I said, this is a bird of mystery. It was invigorating to get to see these bizarre river lurkers again after almost a decade. Oh, apparently they have crazy striped feet too, which I have yet to see IRL but I think it adds to their weird goodness/good weirdness.

The Crooked Tree boat trips are legendary for consistently finding Jabiru, and we did find one at the very end of the trip. My photos won't go down in the long and storied history of Jabiru crushes, but it doesn't matter...Jabiru Jabiru Jabiru Jabiru Jabiru yeeeeeeeeeahhhhhhhhooowwwwwwwwww what a good bird.

Things haven't quite been the same since seeing Jabirus. I think I am now in the post-Jabiru era of my life. In these times that seem so constantly filled with fear and loathing, it's comforting to know that there are massive Jabirus out there doing fascinating Jabiru things.

Here's another photo of a bird I mentioned lifering in a previous post, a Black-collared Hawk. These range from eastern Mexico down into South America, but are very patchily distributed in Central America. There are so many species of raptors to be found in Central America, but this is one of the most unique! It is the only member of its genus, Busarellus, it eats fish, and it is shaped like a Black-Hawk but is mostly rufous with a white head. Brilliant.

Of course, Crooked Tree isn't someplace a more familiar fish-eating raptor would pass up and we saw a handful of Ospreys.

Everyone loves Boat-billed Herons. Those who don't have simply never seen one...or have no soul, one or the other. Boat-billed Herons are not uncommon and are pretty widespread in the Neotropics, but are usually much easier to see by boat than on foot due to their preferences for roosting sites. I'd really like to see that boat/giant black oil sunflower seed of a bill in action someday. We saw a few Boat-billeds and I gather they are very reliable on Crooked Tree boat trips, I only regret not telling Leonard to get closer for crushing purposes.

And just when you might think that Northern Jacana is a reasonable, unremarkable bird....

...out come the LONG TOES and the charade is over. Unbelievable. And don't get me started about the weird nub-spurs on their wings.

Phew, I think these photos cover the boat trip pretty well, but should also mention that the passerine birding isn't half bad either. Crucially, this boat can deliver Agami Heron, one of my most wanted birds, but through that day none had been seen the entire winter...no, the first Agami Heron of the year was found on a boat that went out the next day. Fuck! Fuck! Need to see that bird something fierce, I don't understand why it isn't talked about more. Can someone tell me what it is like to see an Agami Heron? Do they make you a cry a lot? Pretty sure that's what I would do.

Even without Agami, birding the lagoon by boat was extravagantly good. Do it if you get the chance!