Grand Belize Part I: Crooked Tree and Hidden Valley Mar 01—05, 2011
Posted by Barry Zimmer
Barry Zimmer
Barry Zimmer has been birding since the age of eight. His main areas of expertise lie in North and Central America, but his travels have taken him throughout much of the wo...Related Trips
Twenty feet away from us, a stunning, breeding-plumaged Agami Heron stalked slowly along the riverbank. Wispy, powder-blue plumes adorned its chestnut-colored neck, but no one could take their eyes off the gigantic, dagger-like bill of this rarely seen tropical heron. As we watched, an American Pygmy Kingfisher dashed by, though hardly anyone noticed, as we had already studied that incredible species at leisure a short while earlier. The boat trip at Crooked Tree Lagoon is always my favorite part of our Grand Belize Part I tour. It combines several highly sought species with a sheer abundance of birds that are up-close and easy to study. Among other more common species, we tallied three magnificent Jabirus, numerous Black-collared Hawks, adult and immature Great Black-Hawk, two Laughing Falcons, several Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures, a dozen or more Snail Kites, Roseate Spoonbills, Limpkins, Bare-throated Tiger-Herons, Boat-billed Herons, Muscovy Duck, nearly 20 Gray-necked Wood-Rails, three Sungrebes, too many Northern Jacanas to count, four species of kingfishers, and Rufous-breasted Spinetail! All that in just four hours!
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Agami Heron, Crooked Tree, Belize— Photo: Brian Gibbons |
Land birding in the pine/oak savanna near Crooked Tree was equally productive. A family group of the regionally endemic Yucatan Jay foraged within 20 feet of our group for over ten minutes. Bat Falcon; White-fronted, Red-lored, and Yellow-headed parrots; Canivet's Emerald; Yucatan Woodpecker; Streak-headed Woodcreeper; Rose-throated Becard; and simply ridiculous numbers of Vermilion Flycatchers were among the more noteworthy species. En route to Belize City we stopped at a Jabiru nest where the mother stood shading three downy young!
An afternoon flight took us to Caye Caulker where, with special permission, we visited a private yard in hopes of seeing the poorly known and seldom seen Rufous-necked Wood-Rail. We had incredible views of nearly 20 of these special birds, in addition to fabulous studies of Yucatan Vireo, Black Catbird, and the "Mangrove" subspecies of Yellow Warbler.
The final two days of our trip were spent in the Pine Ridge region at Hidden Valley Lodge. Here we experienced my most memorable moment of the tour. As we stood at the King Vulture Falls lookout, a male Orange-breasted Falcon came screaming in, protesting our presence. Incredibly, he landed no more than 20 feet away in a lone pine at the edge of the canyon drop-off. He remained perched there for easily ten minutes as we photographed and leisurely viewed this very rare and endangered species. It was the best look I have ever had of this bird! Across the gorge, King Vultures drank and bathed in the appropriately named waterfall. Other highlights around Hidden Valley included mating Swallow-tailed Kites, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Golden-olive Woodpecker, Lineated Woodpecker, Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, Rufous-capped Warbler, Golden-hooded Tanager, Rusty Sparrow, and a very rare Lincoln's Sparrow. Feeders at the lodge itself hosted Azure-crowned Hummingbird, Green and Brown jays, Yellow-tailed and Yellow-backed orioles, Hepatic Tanager, and Melodious Blackbird.
We tallied 192 species in four days of birding before heading off to Chan Chich Lodge (Part II of our Grand Belize tour). This trip provides the perfect complement to Chan Chich, as the avifauna of Crooked Tree and the Pine Ridge is quite different from the rainforest there. In combination with Part II, we had an amazing 309 species of birds in ten days!