Belize! Part II: Birding Around Bird's Eye View Lodge and The Crooked Tree Pine Savanna

Yucatan Jay was one of the first species of the trip to really get the pupils dilated. This was one of the main target birds at Crooked Tree - in Belize, they are restricted to the northern part of the country - and we had no problem finding them once we got into the right habitat, the pine savanna on the west side of the village.

Yucatan Jays cruise around in big, noisy groups, and are not at all retiring like some tropical jay species. We saw flocks several times. Immature birds are easily identified by their bright yellow bills and yellow eyerings, which makes one constantly think of a Yellow-billed Magpie head attached to the body of another exotic bird. This pretty stationary group was working a modest antswarm and gave great looks, but were oddly the only bird species attending them.

Yucatan Jays have obvious similarities with some birds I have seen before - Purplish-backed and San Blas Jays - which are both in the same genus and generally follow similar design templates. On the other hand Green Jays, which we also saw here, are in the same genus but look nothing like them and were much less enthusiastic about perching out in the open. They were quite unlike the U.S. birds  that make up such a crucial component of South Texas Geri Birding in both behavior and appearance (different subspecies).

Mmmmmm so lifery...these were gripping birds. I hope to greatly expand my nascent relationship with Cyanocorax jays in the coming years. I think getting to know that intriguing genus will furnish a lot of good memories.

Yucatan Jay pro tip...Leonard, one of the BEV guides, told me they regularly come to roost in the evenings in the big trees at the campground next to BEV (where the Woodcreeper Trail starts), so although the light could be challenging they can potentially be found there without venturing out to the outskirts of the village.

Typically, when I go on birding trips to tropical places, I end up owing my friends a number of hjs. Owing other people a bunch of hjs is potentially awkward, but since they are my friends, we usually can enjoy the hjs and laugh about it later. I owe Billy an hj for Yucatan Jay and another for this Tropical Pewee, which was my first. This was one of the handful of lifers I got that I would go on to see regularly and didn't require putting in much effort.

I missed multiple opportunities to crush Roadside Hawks into oblivion due to the comatose camera, but at least I did get a photo that was reasonable enough to share here. Belize turned out to be great for raptors, and predictably Roadside Hawk was by far the most hawk common species, but not having seen them for a few years I was happy to be in their midst again.

Another target species of the Yucatan Peninsula flavor was Yellow-lored Parrot, which (in Belize anyway) have an affinity for pine savanna, much like Yucatan Jay. This species was admittedly a BRAIN BIRD only a few months ago but I was all about getting a lifer parrot. Billy, Annie and I all  took a shortish guided trip to the pine savanna for a morning to look for this and other area specialties. It was a quiet morning for some reason - even Leonard thought so, but we were able to find a young Yellow-lored parrot. They are aptly named, as the yellow lores are the best field mark, but otherwise look similar to the more widespread White-fronted Parrots.

Leonard was a solid guide and generally knew his shit. Another lifer for me that morning was Yucatan Woodpecker, which the BEV guides refer to as "Red-vented Woodpecker". It conveniently dropped into a tree I was already watching because it was filled with Yucatan Jays. Additional nice birds found in this area, which we birded both with and without Leonard, included Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Barred Antshrikes, Olive Sparrow, and Grace's Warblers. There was also an alarming abundance of Acorn Woodpeckers, which made me wonder if I was caught in some portal to my own 5MR...the verdict is still out on that. I think Black-throated Bobwhite is possible here as well but we had no joy with them.

The Pine Savanna tour is pretty cheap if you are interested in having a guide take you out there, but I should warn that the way the trip is priced in the BEV trip list is per person, when the price they charge is actually per person per hour...this seemed deceptive but since this was only supposed to be a two hour trip (which we exceeded by a bit) we didn't feel royally ripped off or anything. A couple lifers always take the edge off.

You can walk there from BEV in less than 45 minutes if you don't stop and bird too much, or if you have a car you can drive out to the habitat in just a few minutes. This habitat is very different than what is near the lagoon and is worth checking out. You can access it by taking the helpfully named "Yucatan Jay Avenue" west out of the village and passing Beck's bed and breakfast, around 17.773495, -88.548095. You can also access this habitat from the main road that goes west from the village to the Western Lagoon, roughly at 17.777639, -88.552676. Note that a drivable sandy track connects these two areas.

I was beside myself when I found this American Pygmy Kingfisher on the Limpkin Trail, quietly sitting in a wooded area low over a tiny ditch that no other kingfisher would deem a reasonable place to be looking for food. This was one of those times where I was just looking where I hoped a certain bird would be...one that I had never seen before...and it actually was there. I probably would not have noticed it otherwise - it is humorously small and never budged or made a peep. I guess being the #7 U.S. birder does have some benefits in other countries.

As advertised it turned out to be pretty confiding...it was sitting in deep dark shadows but this is still probably a better picture than almost anything I've ever gotten of a Belted, which I can see from my backyard...how embarrassing. Anyways this turned out to be the only pygmy I saw and one of my favorite lifers of the trip.

My first trogon in Belize was a Black-headed, near the beginning of the Woodcreeper Trail. Black-headed Trogons are pleasantly common and widespread and will readily cripple any seekers. As trogons are wont to do, this one was simply surveying its domain. They look a lot like Gartered Trogons, but the blue eye ring is one good way to tell them apart from this angle.

And yes, for the record, I could have crushed this species flat later in the trip if the camera wasn't in paperweight mode. Life is pain but looking at confiding trogons will always bring your serotonin levels up.

One bird I really wanted to see again was Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, which I'd only seen previously at one place in eastern Mexico a number of years ago. Luckily, I escaped the irony of having my photos of them taken from me again (a cartel stole my camera that trip)...while my camera was doomed on this trip as well, it survived long enough to capture the soul of this LYHV.

While we were eating lunch, Billy pointed out a Great Egret that caught a huge fish on the shoreline, but eventually it decided that it was too big to swallow and simply left it on the shore. An hour or so later, this giddy vulture arrived on the scene, flew right by me with the fish, then landed at the start of the Limpkin Trail.

Just look at this thing bellowing. It was very focused on picking apart that fish and let me get all close and snuggly. I'm crazy about the head of this bird. So similar to a Turkey Vulture in structure, wildly different in color.

Full zombie mode.

Though an easy ID close up, that isn't the case with birds further away. A really useful field mark is the conspicuous white primary shafts on the upperwing, which you can see well here and may be visible when head color is not.

If the bird is soaring high enough - LYHVs often stay fairly low to the ground - the shape of the tail can be helpul as well. LYHV doesn't have quite the prominent wedge shape that are so classic on TUVUs.

Creatures of second growth and disturbed habitats, we saw Plain Chachalacas near BEV and at a great number of other places during the trip.

I was impressed by the abundance of warblers wintering in the country - we had 23 warbler species on the trip, not including Yellow-breasted Chat of course. Magnolia Warblers (above) were particularly abundant Neotropical migrants, along with Least and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Wood Thrushes, American Redstarts, Northern Waterthrushes, Hooded Warblers and Black-and-white Warblers.

Melodious Blackbird is the blackest of blackbirds, and a more accomplished singer than many of them as well. This is one of the true generalist species in the region and seem to be present anywhere there isn't a completely closed forest canopy.

Up next, the Crooked Tree boat trip!

Onward To Melty Face/South to San Vito

Behold; one of my most wanted needed birds of all time.  

In the spirit of finishing what I start, I think it's time, once again, to revisit the Costa Rica trip that part of me seems to refuse to finish wrapping up.  The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive thinks you readers out east could especially use some tropical facemelt about now...so here we go.

After our second round of birding the Talamancas, Dipper Dan and I headed south for unbirded territory.  Once we passed the turnoff to Talari Mountain Lodge in San Isidro, everything was new. We made good time heading south, and didn't stop to bird much except for a Bat Falcon here and a Smooth-billed Ani there...the Southern Pacific Slope of Costa Rica has been heavily deforested for agriculture, at least along the road between San Isidro and San Vito.  There just wasn't much to see. There was one positive aspect to driving through miles of pastureland though...I knew we would have a chance of running into a certain flycatcher that I was hellbent on seeing.

When a Fork-tailed Flycatcher swooped by our car it was all I could do to keep from diving through the window to get a better look at it; a vein in my forehead exploded, sending geysers of blood all over the front of the car and temporarily blinding Dipper Dan.  I wailed and moaned.  My entire life, up to this moment, had been spent waiting for this brilliant bird. There turned out to be a roadside pair that were extremely obliging; I actually got these photos by walking up to the birds instead of gawking at them from the car (which is how I get most of my kingbird and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher pictures).

Much like the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, this is a bird you have to see to believe.  I had one shot at seeing these birds before coming to Costa Rica; I was assured that we would find one in the lowlands east of Veracruz, Mexico, but the day we were to look I was bedridden with intestinal agony. Redemption is mine!  This was one of my top target birds for the trip; we only saw one other during the trip, out near the Esquinas Rainforest Lodge.

That night we met up with Leslie Tucci and Dave Spangenburg, both friends of friends who happened to be living in San Vito at the time.  The next morning it was off to San Vito OTS and the Wilson Botanical Garden for another dose of lifers.  Before we started birding the grounds we got stuck at the fruit feeder, where a suite of sweet tropical birds were going to town on fresh fruits. Silver-throated Tanagers are everywhere in Costa Rica but its hard to not look at them, for reasons I suspect you understand.

As sharp as the Silver-throateds are, very few birds can touch what a Speckled Tanager brings to the feeding station.  It's been two years since I took these photos and I still can't believe this is a real bird. This creature brings the facemlt like few I've ever seen.

The mind reels...and boggles. Talk about a crippler.

Crippling, blinding, facemelting...this bird has it all.  This was a species that I first saw in a field guide, thought "Oh, that looks pretty cool", then saw in real life and thought "Holy shit! How come no one told me about these things?".

Although completely outmatched by the Speckled Tanager in boldness and looks, it was still nice to see a Thick-billed Euphonia come in to join the morning tanager salad.  If you haven't birded south of the border, euphonias of different species are common throughout Central America and occur in a variety of habitats.  I wouldn't be surprised if one showed up in the U.S. someday...for example the distance between Scrub Euphonias in Mexico and McAllen, TX, is shorter than the distance between McAllen and Kingsville.

Above the fruit fray a Blue-headed Parrot stopped in for  a few minutes to catch some sun.  This singular (and very easy to identify) parrot was the only one of the trip, if I remember correctly.

This hawk is a Roadside Hawk.  Along with Gray Hawks, this is one of the most abundant and highly visible raptor species in the country (from a car, anyway), and they can indeed be found along roads and in a variety of disturbed habitats.  We never did see a Gray-lined Hawk though, oh well gotta go back.

Scale-crested Pygmy-tyrant!  This post needed a real rainforest bird, one that will not be drawn into the open by the allures of fresh fruit or sunlight.  This bird was ricocheting around in the foliage right in front of us, flashing it's gigantic, ridiculous crest that is 100% not visible in any of the photos I got. Awesome bird though.

While walking around the woods, we were greeted by a small flock of Crested Guans on the trail. Not an unusual event in many parts of Costa Rica by any means, but as a pinche gringo it takes some getting used to.  If you had only seen turkeys a couple times before and then walked in to a flock of them, you would find it weird too.

More to come from the Southern Pacific Slope...eventually.

The Best Way To Deal

Least Bittern. By far the best looks I've ever had of one, and the only one I saw in 2011. Martinez, CA.

I am proud to announce that I have reached my goal of 550 bird species this year. While a paltry number to serious year listers, it involved only 5 states, 2 countries and one round-trip plane flight, and most importantly....not doing a big year. Pretty good for a casual big year/Ano Tranquilo, I reckon. I didn't think I would be able to make 550 happen, but a trip to California's Carrizo Plain got me a staggering 5 year birds, including embarrassing previous misses like Purple Finch and hard to find birds like Mountain Plovers...not to mention #550, a pair of LeConte's Thrashers frolicking around Soda Lake Road.

Red-shouldered Hawk. Not unusual by any means (to me), but I like the picture. Ventura, CA.

Besides my high number of species this year, what stood out was that about 110 species were life birds! That's almost a 1 to 5 ration, nerds. Of course, this is mostly because I got to seriously bird Mexico finally, but I got a number of new birds stateside as well...Baird's Sparrow, White-rumped Sandpiper, Hudsonian Godwit, Greater Sage Grouse, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Three-toed Woodpecker, Dusky Grouse and Falcated Duck were all lifers. Two of those were in California, my home state, which is pretty sweet.

Today I'll post some pictures that I have not gotten from this past spring, I'll get to the rest of the year hopefully sooner than later. My house, the beloved Sunset Space Station, is embroiled in a foreclosure fiasco with the soulless swine of the real estate industry...being homeless, of course, can complicate one's blog output. Thankfully, we are having a house party tonight, which is the best way to deal with such bullshit.

Happy New Year!

Allen's Hummingbird. Did someone say "facemelting"? Ventura, CA.

Aplomado Falcons are great. I got to see a number of them in Veracruz State, near the coast, where they are not uncommon, and don't wear the tainted jewelry that many of the Texas birds sport. This one was near Alvorado, Veracruz, Mexico.

Roadside Hawk. One of the many lifers I got this year. Chavarrillo, Veracruz, MEX.

Yellow-throated Euphonias can be quite common just a day's drive south of the border, but you probably won't ever see one in the states. Chavarrillo.

Long-billed Thrasher...or in this case, No-billed Thrasher. This is kind of a fuck-up picture, but I like it anyways. Chavarrillo.

Mississippi Kites! So many! Not to mention a Swallow-tailed Kite. Counting massive flocks of raptors was great fun. Chavarrillo.

A Band-backed Wren charges up a tree. Also a lifer. Chavarillo.

Short-tailed Hawks were one of the relatively few resident species we saw every day from the hawk-counting tower. It was a lot of fun watching them hover high over town, then stooping down into people's backyards to kill things. Chavarrillo.

Birders As Art VII

Alexis Jarvio Rodriguez, the unofficial mayor of Chavarrillo, Mexico, poses with a Roadside Hawk in his living room. That was a weird night.

Are We Paranoid, Or Basically Ok?

A big line of birds moving north (puta madre!). Probably a mixture of Turkey Vultures, Swainson's and Broad-winged Hawks. 

Well.

North Dakota, your weather is really bumming everyone out. It's cold. It's raining.  Many birds can't nest in their usual spots, due to high water levels. The unseasonal wetness can't be helping the birds that can nest in their usual spots. I am constantly covered in ticks...which probably isn't weather-related, but it warrants some bitching. 

Mexico, unsurprisingly, had better weather, so here's some more pictures from Chavarrillo.

This week we start the official Piping Plover census. Everyone is predicting very small numbers of birds this year, due to the atrosh weather I've been....piping about. For example, I surveyed the lake that had the most nests out of anywhere on the refuge last year. How many plovers were there? Zero. Cero. Zip. Nothing. Nada. Brutal.

My Año Tranquilo is going along swimmingly...I reckon I'm perched right at 450 bird species in 2011, over 100 of which are life birds (mostly from Mexico). The grand total will reflect where I wind up this fall, as I have no winter plans as of yet, aside from forcing different factions of my social life to hang out together.

I still haven't seen a Baird's Sparrow. It is my North Dakotan grail bird. Rather than seek out some kind of sparrow wizard, I reckon I can find one on my own....but it's been a weird, weird, weird year it seems for birds all over the continent. But the refuge I live in is legendary for its Baird's, so perhaps I will become a sort of Ammodramus Obi-Wan. 

Allegedly, "Ammodramus" translates to "sand-runner" in Latin...so that's something to think about.

Right. In other news, I saw the Aurora Borealis last night for the first time ever, and it was preposterous.

One of the local Roadside Hawks.

Great-tailed Grackles on parade. They often gathered here in the late afternoon and did grackle things in grackle formations.

Blue-gray Tanager. Looks like it made a decision and went with blue today.

This picture speaks for itself.

A "vortex" of Mississippi Kites (in Mexico, there are no kettles, only vortexes). When they get going really fast, they open a wormhole into another dimension. Truth.

Inca Dove, looking scaled back.

A Chavarrillo sunset.

Our Love Went Flat, Just Like That

Playing paper airplane with a Buff-bellied Hummingbird.

Almost two weeks into it now. Things are beginning to settle into something resembling a routine, for good or ill. I am morphing into a better, bronzererererer me. I am usually fed absurd amounts of food, which is one of the things here I could get used to. My Mexicanese gets better word by word, and I can already tell that is a lot better than when I got here. Maybe all that high school Spanish is finally paying off……you were right Sr. Dave, you were right……

There has been a lot of pigeon action around the old casa lately. Alexis, the default Mayor of Chavarrillo, had caught 7 pigeons a while ago to use in our raptor-banding operation…but his niece “liberated” them and we had to go get some more. Carlos, the youngest member of the family I’m living with, was the likely culprit behind the liberation of the one pigeon we were keeping here. We now are keeping 4 (caught next door), but Carlos has a single-minded urge to torment them/help them escape as much as humanly possible, which causes problems for everyone except Carlos…he is both mentally and physically hard to dissuade and the lack of doors that lock around the house/tower do not make things any easier. Picturing being the protector of the pigeons and being the sole hawk counter at the same time causes me much consternation. Will we ever find a way? More updates to come on Pigeongate.

Grayish Saltators absorbing some smoggy sun.

The birding keeps getting better. More and more raptors are finally appearing. And you know what? I’ve been birding well over half my life now, and considering my resplendent youth (well, compared to most birders), that makes me a huge fuck-off bird nerd if you do the math. I’m really, really good at birding people. Number 8 in the nation and all that (need I remind you?). That said, being a raptor counter down here is bloody hard. So far, from the tower itself, we’ve had Common Black-Hawk, Zone-tailed Hawk, Gray Hawk, Roadside Hawk, Short-tailed Hawk, Swainson’s Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, Osprey, Crested Caracara, Bat Falcon, Merlin, Peregrine Falcon, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture (there was a Swallow-tailed Kite over the banding station today….my heart quakes with jealousy)….identifying a colorless silhouette a mile away through heat haze is not for the faint of heart. So I’m still working some shit out, but I’ll be savvy soon enough…the other official counter is usually busy doing other things so its just me doing some brutal self-instruction.

One of the local Roadside Hawks, our spatulate-winged friends. Oh Steve Howell, you and your quirky adjectives...

Other recent events….got lifer Blue-black Grassquits yesterday….watched Groove-billed Anis flop around in a pile of turds…during dinner saw a massive chunk of cement fall out of the ceiling and come inches from landing on Irving’s head…have become intimately familiar with the local moonshine known as cana (it’s distilled from sugarcane, which is grown extensively in eastern Mexico)…pondered the State of Affairs, youth slipping away, Middle Eastern politics, girls…all that stuff. When you spend all day staring at the sky you can’t help but have one of those agonizing reappraisals of self...treachery of the ego. I’m a very complicated man…but at least Felonious Jive is here to help keep my feet on the ground. I think if I put on the Ian Fays everything will be fine…..