Belize! Part I: Arriving at Crooked Tree

Belize is in the books and BB&B is back! I was rewarded with a very pleasing number of lifers, a lot of species I've only seen once or twice before (or heard only), and soaked in the much needed return to the Neotropics. Aside from the potholed condition of a number of the roads, getting around Belize, and birding it, was "relaxed and easy", as some of the tour companies like to name certain tours...which makes me wonder if MAX REBO BIRDING TOURS is still going to pursue the "relentless and stressful" or "bossy and tense" branding schemes they were cooking up? Anyways, I was often birding too hard to be relaxed, and the tension of being surrounded by potential lifers was constantly in the air.

If there was anything to bitch about, it was my new camera body having a major malfunction and being reduced to a paperweight for most of the trip (and no, it did not occur to me bring a spare)...but I'll try to keep my whinging on that topic to a minimum...for now anyways, it arrives at the Nikon shop today...and fortunately had no problems with it while in Crooked Tree, which offers photo ops galore.

The first destination, back on January 5, was Crooked Tree Village, where we stayed at Bird's Eye View Lodge (BEV) for three nights. BEV is right on the edge of Crooked Tree Lagoon and runs guided boat tours (geared heavily toward birders) from directly behind the hotel, as well as a number of other birding tours, and is situated with very good birding within walking distance. When the lagoon begins drying out and getting low, it is possible to walk out of your room and see thousands of waterbirds feeding in the lagoon, but we were too early for that spectacle. BEV is very popular with birders; the Crooked Tree Lodge on the other side of the village also gets a lot of visiting nerds. In addition to all the birding ops, BEV offers three meals a day, has a fridge full of beer you can help yourself to (honor system), and can also whip up cocktails if needed. The air conditioning is nice, and considering that many of the good birding lodges in Belize are either not on the cheap side or are the polar opposite of cheap, the price is right!

Crooked Tree Village is comprised of a mosaic of habitats, with a lot of wetlands (obvi), open areas and edge. Vermilion Flycatchers are absurdly abundant and pretty tame around BEV; this male was having a protracted faceoff with another one a few feet away.

Since you can do a lot of birding without a car at Crooked Tree, we actually had someone from BEV pick us up from the airport instead of getting a rental right away...HOW LUXURIOUS. Made me feel all geri! Rudy, our driver, is also a birding guide, and he pulled over for a random Jabiru (!!!) he spotted foraging near the highway, the first lifer of the trip. This was one of my top target birds and I was obviously stoked to finally see this enormous, stunning monument to charismatic avian megafauna. Jabiru is actually pretty difficult to find in early January (Crooked Tree is famously reliable for them later in winter/spring)...it would have been an incredibly stinging thing to dip on, so seeing one on the drive from the airport was a hell of a way to start the trip.

The next morning at dawn, I followed a strange call north to the Limpkin Trail, which turned out to be another lifer...why hello RUFOUS-BREASTED SPINETAIL it is nice to meet you!!! This ended up being the only one I would see, though their quick and concise three note call is unmistakable (sounds like "i LOVE you" or "i HATE you"...or perhaps "i'll KILL you") and I heard many more during the trip.

Social Flycatcher is, of course, very common in Belize, but were not quite as abundant as I have seen them in parts of Mexico and Costa Rica.

Other lifers I picked up early on were Tropical Pewee (somewhat overdue...or maybe hella overdue?) and Black-collared Hawk, which I found while scoping the opposite shore of the lagoon during a rainy lunch at the lodge. This is a definitely good place to bust out a scope!

Right, I'll have a couple more Crooked Tree posts coming up, so will use this post to throw up some more of the landbirds found while walking around.

How about more flycatchers? Yucatan Flycatcher was on the target list, but I ended up with a resounding dip on that one - Crooked Tree was the only place we visited where they were somewhat expected. We did have lots of Dusky-capped Flycatchers though (which presumably are constantly misidentifed as Yucatan Flycatchers), including this very confiding bird.

Mangrove Swallows were abundant at Crooked Tree and were extremely approachable. Their white rumps are obvious in flight but perched they look very much like Tree Swallows with little white supraloral stripes.

The Tropical Mockingbirds were abundant and approachable too...I'm beginning to sense a pattern here.

Several warbler species that we often strive to see well in the U.S. take on very different personas in Belize...I guess everyone relaxes when they get to Belize. The American Redstarts at BEV were helping to fill the niche typically reserved for House Sparrows, which seem to be absent from most of the country. 

To change things up, Lineated Woodpeckers were neither abundant or extremely confiding, though I fortunately saw them on the reg. Lineated is in the same genus as Pileated, as you could probably guess.

You are probably wondering about the GERI BIRDING...well, the lodge did offer geri birding, but apparently were not yet putting out the fruit feeders they have done in the past (it wasn't high season for birders yet). They did have a cluster of hummingbird feeders which attracted a number of Baltimore and Black-cowled Orioles, the inevitable Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, and this Green-breasted Mango. I also saw mangos (mangoes???) on the entrance road.

Ruddy Ground-Doves seem to be one of the commonest and most widespread birds in Belize...I have no problem with that.

Late one afternoon I took a walk on the Woodcreeper Trail, just south of BEV. Not much in the woods besides mosquitoes and a handful of frustrating calls I didn't know, but when I got back to the trailhead I ran into an excellent mixed flock. In the fading light a couple of Rufous-browed Peppershrikes came out for great looks, the only ones I would end up laying eyes on for the trip.

For the Woodcreeper Trail, I should say that it is very intriguing habitat (taller, more intact forest than what is nearby) but I was never able to get in there in the mornings, which is probably a good idea. I felt that Gray-throated Chat could be a possibility on the trail and that patch of forest had a lot of potential. The big trees near the entrance of the trail and in the campground also were pretty birdy and worth looking over. Other nearby walks a birder would be into from BEV include the entrance road and the previously mentioned Limpkin Trail, which will take you all the way back to the lagoon causeway if it isn't flooded. If you want to go for a longer walk, you can go west to the pine savanna for a whole other suite of species, but more on that later.

I'm sure that when the lagoon is lower you can walk the shorelines for quite a ways as well (thus getting to bird the wooded edge as well as the lagoon), though that seems like a chiggery prospect if much grass has grown in.

The cloudwatching on the lagoon was often excellent in the afternoons.

One of the hallmarks of Neotropical birding are the combos. This is the first Solitary Sandpiper-pig combo I have ever experienced.

And I will leave you with this...balls. Straight up pig balls. How does that grab ya?

Much more Belize coverage to come! And no more huge pig balls, I promise.

To Bird or To Rage? Todos Santos (Part 1)

Costa's Hummingbirds are the wee kings of cripple, tiny bastions of facemelt. Much sought-after by many birders, to find where they are truly common, one usually has to find oneself in the middle of some strange and random spot in the desert. For any birders who find themselves in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, any longings for Costa's Hummingbirds would be more than satisfied.

Baja California Sur. Most people go there with one thing in mind...raging. Cabo San Lucas is known worldwide for its rage opportunities and beaches (but mostly for rage). However, others go to BCS with something in mind besides forcefed tequila shots, and there is much more to see other than the debauchery in Cabo.

One such place is Todos Santos, just over an hour's drive northwest of Cabo San Lucas on the Pacific side of the peninsula. It's not unknown by any means. Many gringos go there to both visit and live, as the town is known as a small art community and has an abundance of good food (which, to be fair, can be said of most Mexican towns). Birders make it there from time to time as well, and can get a decent fix while birding areas in and outside of town. Xantus's Hummingbirds, Gray Thrashers and Belding's Yellowthroats can all be found without difficulty in the pueblo, and many western migrants and desert residents lurk as well.

I almost felt bad crushing this fragile little gem...almost...

Of course, I have to point out the obvious fact that any birder travelling to Todos Santos is probably more interested in this hummingbird, the one found in Baja California Sur and no place else. Xantus's Hummingbirds (LIFER) are common in the lowlands in winter...and crushing them felt really, really good.

The avian community down in southern BCS is strange, at least for someone who has not been there before...a strange mix of species one would associate with California's coastal chaparral and the Sonoran desert, with some endemic passerines and a pygmy-owl thrown in. Crested Caracaras (above) are, thankfully, a regular sight in the desert and near the edges of town.

I was lucky enough to recently sample the BCS avefauna (truly, it was a sample, not a gorge), mostly while based out of Todos Santos. BB&B and 10,000 Birds (where the Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive will post) will have total coverage, and tips for any future visitors. It was a very interesting birdscape, and we did not even get into the Sierra de la Laguna or the sewage ponds at La Paz.

And for the record, I highly recommend both tequila consumption and debauchery, just do it on your own terms...unless you are in college, then all bets are off.

Mmmmmmm...another life bird, and a Baja endemic at that. Meet the Gray Thrasher, denizen of the peninsula's desert scrub.

We were lucky enough to have all three of the lowland Baja endemics lurking within walking distance of our house. Gray Thrashers were the least numerous of the three, which is kind of funny considering how globally rare the local subspecies of Belding's Yellowthroat is...more on them later.

Cactus Wrens roam around in small, raucous groups, bearing little resemblance to the smaller Troglodytes (that's wrens, not cave-dwellers) that are found throughout the U.S. Strangely, it was here in Todos Santos where I really got the feeling that these birds were behaving much like Rufous-naped and Spotted Wrens, other Campylorhynchus I've seen in other parts of Mexico.

I like this pose...the barred flight feathers melt easily into the barring on the tail. What is the significance? I'm not entirely sure, but a nerve has been struck.

Among the throngs of Common Ground-Doves in Todos Santos, the semi-aware observer can pick out Ruddy Ground-Doves as well. We saw two different birds on the trip, both along a random road in the north part of town. EBird has a couple of reports of substantial numbers of RUGDs in the area, so be vigilant.

Seemingly the most abundant bird in Baja California Sur, White-winged Doves are everywhere. They are thriving. They even invite American Kestrels into their flocks, for good or ill. It is worth mentioning that during our stay, we saw no Eurasian Collared-Doves in either Todos Santos or La Paz...in fact, eBird does not show any records for Todos Santos at all.

Behold, the White-winged Dove. Their wings may blind you in flight, but the face pattern allures.

It's been a while, so I am now dismayed to have the dishonor of presenting to you, yet again, a terrible photo of a good bird. This is a male Varied Bunting, photographed near Punta Lobos, just south of Todos Santos. These cripplers are uncommon in BCS, but not unexpected.

One afternoon we tried to get out into the desert to find a nice cactus forest to walk through. The road I chose was a poor choice (there was a lack of large cactus to admire), although we may have gotten somewhere interesting if our completely overpacked car had not overheated. Still a nice sunset though, despite the heaps of garbage and animal bones.

Birding La Selva III: Meeting The King, A Sweaty Jacamar Experience, and A Delicous Egg Sack Thing

After taking a break from Hainer showing us life birds, we decided to bird the entrance road all the way back to the main road, as directed by "The Dude" in his top knotch blog, Costa Rica Living and Birding. Although this is not really the deep forest that much of La Selva offers, it was very birdy nonetheless, even mid-afternoon. After we birded the road and had our second round of puttering around the cafeteria and drinking coffee, a vulture kettle appeared low over the treetops that contained a couple of birds I was dying to see on the trip...King Vultures.

King Vulture is one of those birds I've always known about, but are so exotic and blatantly facemelting that it was hard to reconcile that I was finally seeing them. They threw out the traditional, semi-shitty way I view vultures and made me have to completely rethink the entire family.

The birds made multiple low passes over us, leaving us with the cliche "soul-satisfying" views that birders are always going on and on about. Look at that face!

While we would go on to see King Vultures at several other locations, none of those looks approached anything like what these La Selva birds gave us.

We identified this as a Rufous Mourner at the time, which I still think it is...

...although the larger Rufous Piha looks almost identical. Still a very cool and cooperative bird, with hilariously small feet.

Rufous-tailed Jacamar, another amazing tropical bird. I really had a chance to crush this species better but it was so damn humid that I literally could not see through my glasses for quite a while (let alone my camera), no matter how many times I tried to wipe them down. There were 3 jacamars all hanging out next to the road, calling and flycatching, and I just could not get my shit together. Sigh. I like this picture at least.

Chestnut-sided Warblers are everywhere in Costa Rica, including puddles in roads.

A Crested Guan impresses the tourists next to the cafeteria. I did not expect them to be so tame...I may or may not have sharted with glee at this point.

Paltry Tyrannulet is another ultra-abundant Costa Rican bird. They are ubiquitous, and superficially similar to an astounding number of other birds. Note the cicada on the left, and the white egg sack thing on the branch.

Mmmmmm....delicous egg sack thing.

And life goes on for the Paltry Tyrannulet.

We saw plenty of Ruddy Ground-Doves. Their abundance does not hide their good looks. All photos today were from La Selva Biological Station.