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.

Sic Semper Tyrannus

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is an Empid I hold, for some reason, in high regard. I first met the species in Pennsylvania back in 2009, and we have since crossed paths in Florida, Mexico, Costa Rica, and now Texas. Photographed at South Padre Island, TX.

Texas is a state rich in flycatchers...with only one exception (Gray Kingbird), every flycatcher that breeds east of Texas is found regularly in the state. And then there are Scissor-tails, and the valley species, and all the vagrants they have been blessed to receive over the years. I'm not ambitious enough to post pics of every flycatcher species I saw out there last spring...but I can do most of them.

Are flycatchers a major headache migraine? Does looking at them make you feel stupid? Do high-ranking birders with mysterious motives make false statements about how often they vocalize? Yes! But that is part of what makes them so great. You don't have to worry about them hybridizing (much) and they are a group of birds that your new birding app won't be able to identify for you for a very, very long time. And they do stuff. Good stuff.

When you get to the end of the post and are drenched in sweat, feel free to cruise over to The Powdermill Reserve (the only place I've seen Yellow-bellied Flycatcher in hand) for a nice post on more eastern flycatchers.

I'm itching to find one out here in California...most (not all) of the individuals I've seen have been pretty easy to ID, and they tend to stand out...they are yellow (er...olive and faintly yellowish) and have a call that isn't a damn "whit" note. South Padre Island, TX.

Least Flycatcher...the gray flycatcher of the east. It is the most basic Empid of the east, in terms of color and abundance. South Padre Island, TX.

Least Flycatcher, probably the same individual as above. Note the amount of darkness on the mandible (or lower mandible, as most of us say), which is atypical. I've always found the amount of paleness here to be dependably variable in many Empid species, and a field guide could potentially lead the birder astray with this character. South Padre Island, TX.

Acadian Flycatcher has a big head and big bill, a true loggerhead of the Empidonax. South Padre Island, TX.

Traill's Flycatcher (the pre-split name of Alder and Willow Flycatchers) is one of the most troubling species-pairs that eastern birders have to face. Even California birders are pained by this problem, as a handful of legit Alders have been documented in the state over the years...and guess what? We want more. South Padre Island, TX.

This is the same bird as above. Note the overall gray-brown on the upperparts that does not contrast with the throat, rendering it quite dull even by Empidonax standards. There is an eyering present, but it is extremely narrow, which is to be expected in eastern Willow Flycatchers. There doesn't appear to be any greenish coloration from this angle, aside from the inside of the folded wing; it is remarkably drab. By all accounts, this is a Willow Flycatcher.

Here is a different Traill's from South Padre Island. This bird is a bit greener and more contrasty in the throat than the above individual, has a more pronounced eyering and seemingly has a shorter bill. It actually looks considerably different than the above bird. I'm going with Alder Flycatcher on this one. Of course, empids can look quite a bit different in fall, so there's only so far one can go with some of these field marks without hearing a vocalization...but it never hurts to try. South Padre Island, TX.

Eastern Wood-Pewee has the distinction of being one of the most misidentified flycatchers in the U.S., despite being one of the most abundant. Learn the pewees, and then you will love them. Until then, you will not have a healthy relationship. South Padre Island, TX.

Couch's Kingbird. This is a typical brightly-colored bird with a smallish bill. Atypical is how the tail appears completely unnotched. Willacy County, TX.

Couch's Kingbird. There is variation in bill structure in this species, and you can see that this bird has a heavier bill than the above individual, being especially deep toward the base. I reckon Tropical Kingbirds have a more consistent bill length, and still appear longer-billed (and not so big at the base) than this individual. Sabal Palm Sanctuary, Brownsville, TX.

Eastern Kingbird, a true feel-good flycatcher. Everyone can love an Eastern Kingbird. South Padre Island, TX.

Brown-crested Flycatcher. This is cooperi, the subspecies found in Texas, and is less beefy than the magister that reside in Arizona. Note the unimpressive size of the bill. Hidalgo County, TX.

Great Crested Flycatcher. God, look at the tapering of the white border of the first tertial feather! That's what I'm fucking talking about. What I'm not talking about is why Great Crested Flycatcher and Brown-crested Flycatcher have more structural differences in the grammar of their names than the birds do in reality. South Padre Island, TX.

Talari Mountain Lodge II

Back to Costa Rica!

We left off at Talari Mountain Lodge, our first real birding stop of the southern Pacific slope of Costa Rica. The birding was great...mixed flocks, lifers everywhere, feeders and bananas to bring in frugivores. "Birdgasms galore" is a good way to describe the time we spent there. I highly recommend a night or two at Talari, especially if you haven't birded Costa Rica's southern Pacific slope before. The birding is not difficult and of fine quality...other non-photographed birds we had here include Black Hawk-Eagle, Double-toothed Kite, Orange-collared Manakin, Snowy-bellied Hummingbird, and a quail-dove (Buff-fronted?) that I did not get to see.

Blue-crowned Motmots added themselves to our trip list at Talari. I struggle to find the correct words for this bird. Facemelting? Crippling? Blinding? Motmots (all species) are all fantastic birds...they are big, don't move very fast, and are not terrified of you.

Speaking of crippling, meet Bay-headed Tanager. A lot of bird photographers poo-poo the use of flash, but I sure am glad I used it here. Not exactly a brutal crush, but this shot gives you a good idea of what we have on our hands here. Absolutely stunning. Brilliant.

This not an uncommon bird in Costa Rica. You do not have to be a bird Jedi to find one. I am under the impression they don't come to feeders, but we had them in many mixed flocks.

As this male Variable Seedeater can attest, black and white is fashionable for birds in any environment, be it 40 miles off the coast of California or balls-deep in a tropical rainforest. In case you haven't been, this is one of the most abundant and widespread birds in Costa Rica.

This picture is utter bullshit. It captures a moment of utter bullshit. No one in our group knew what this bird was, no matter how long it sat still for. However, I should point out that Stilt did suggest the correct ID, which I incorrectly napesed. The bird is, in fact, a female Turqoise Cotinga, shot in someone's backyard across the street from Talari. I assumed that such a bird (males are some of the most stunning creatures on the planet) would be more partial to actual forest, but this target bird of ours did not give a fuck about my preconceptions.

Here we are idiotically scanning for Turqoise Cotingas right after actually looking at one. At least we were doing it comfortably (and the birding is very good around that deck). I don't know what Stilt is doing but she looks pretty pleased with herself. Dipper Dan is displaying constant vigilance.

After Talari, our next destination was Alexander Skutch's house. He is worshipped by many as a bird god. We got there in the middle of the day, which as everyone knows is the absolute best time of day to go birding in the tropics. Right? We got a few life birds (Rufous Piha, Baird's Trogon, etc.) but the birding was fair at best. Dipper Dan lifered some kind of obscure tyrannulet that was never seen again for the rest of the trip. I can see the potential for the site, but it was not a Great Success. Of course, it may have been a very different story had we got there in the morning.

I should mention that one of my favorite insects now is helicopter damselfly. They boggle the mind when seen in flight...they locomote through the air in a fashion I have never seen before. The fact that they are enormous insects greatly adds to the effect of freezing the brain. I think this is Megaloprepus caerulatus, but if you are a tropical insect nerd feel free to correct me...I tried finding some good flight video online but didn't come up with anything.

This is some kind of small wasp nest, which is attached to a tree trunk. It looked like the tree had a weird penis that wasps were going in and out of. It made no sense to me then, and no sense to me now.

Perhaps these strange insects, bizarre penile extensions, and unfamiliar birds are too much for you. To bring everyone back to earth, here is a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. They are pretty easy to find in Costa Rica during the winter months.

Not as easy to find but a billion times easier to identify, Laughing Falcons are hilarious tropical birds. They hardly seem to move and have disturbingly large heads. They are also loud as fuck.

We blundered into this Tropical Mockingbird pair between Talari and Skutch's. They made everyone very emotional...we didn't expect to get these birds so far from the Panama border.

As evidenced by the habitat visible in this photo, I imagine Tropical Mockingbird will still survive in the coming era of Post-Nature.

You've Been Blessed With Wild Desire

Man. So I just wasted a lot of gas for a totally bogus trip to Hawk Mountain, one of the world's best places to see large numbers of migrating raptors. Its world famous. Ive known about it for years, and I figured I had to do it while I still had time. Of course, the weather has decided to shit on Pennsylvania for the last several days, and I managed to see one (1) raptor while I was there. This is what the kids would call an "epic fail". And now I'm typing this blog with some kind of awful gut-rot corroding my innards, the weather is worsening by the second, and I can't even go birding. Hell, I can't even drink coffee, for fear of causing some kind of irreversible damage. True, I will be visiting my personal physician in Milwaukee next weekend, but its a risk I'm not willing to take. At least I can listen to Off With Their Heads, which always makes wallowing in misery more enjoyable.

Autumn weather has really taken a solid hold in this part of the world. The air is crisp, with the smell of the death of summer hanging in the wind. The leaves on many trees are a mix of greens, yellows, golds, coppers, reds, orange(s), maroons, you name it. It's great, actually, when going outside is a bearable experience. A classic Hank Williams verse comes to mind.....

Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die?
That means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry.

Among all the bird lyrics out there, I think thats pretty poignant. If only what passes for country still these days still had that sound....now we have "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk". Jesus.

Here are some recent pictures from the nearby Powdermill Reserve, where Tarabuddy bands huge numbers of migrants every day.



Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, a species lusted after by many hapless California birders.




Philadelphia Vireo, which apparently significantly outnumber Warbling Vireos in the fall here.



An adult male Mourning Warbler. Aside from this duder, I haven't seen any this year.



Tara, of El Centro fame, shows a Black-throated Blue Warbler who's boss.