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 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!