On the plane we sat next to a woman who was born in Belize and left when she was 15 to move to the US. She hadn´t been back in 30 years. She was bringing her two teenage daughters to Belize for a month so they could, she said, "experience their heritage¨. At the top of her list of anticipated heritage experiences was a visit to the Princess Hotel in Belize City, which is said to rival anything in Las Vegas. By the sour attitudes of her daughters, we could see they had every intention of getting revenge on their mother for subjecting them to this heritage experience. One of them put her shirt over her nose when she got off the plane. We wonder whether they are still here.
I haven´t counted the new additions to my birding life list, but it´s a lot. Brown jay, clay colored robin, red lored parakeet, aztec jay, tropical mockingbird, collared and magnolia warblers, the aptly named melodious blackbird, yellow headed vulture, ringed kingfisher, blue grey tanager, blue grey gnatcatcher, pale vented pigeon, forktailed flycatcher, black cowled oriole, bare neck tiger heron, black bellied whistling duck, spot breasted wren, jacana, social flycatcher, and the big prize, the gorgeous apricot-colored black collared hawk. I also saw a wood stork, the bird who delivers babies. He has been very busy in Belize.
"Pikni da po pipple riches".
Literally, Children are a poor man’s riches
Meaning, Children are often all that a poor man has a lot of, and having many children is widely regarded as a kind of investment against being helpless in old age.
At night as we sat on that lovely deck at Sam Tillet´s we could see fireflies. Can you imagine, fireflies in December? Their lights seemed to come in various temperatures, because there were blue, white and yellow varieties.
Sam Tillet drove us to the New River, pointing out a yellow headed vulture and a roadside hawk along the way. The roadside hawk is usually on a wire next to the road. Sam pointed out a similar looking hawk at the New River landing and told us it was a riverside hawk, but we could see by his smile he was kidding. We took a high speed, noisy, polluting boat that eroded the shore with its one foot high wake on a 90 minute ride to a Mayan ruin called Lamanai (¨Submerged Crocodile¨). There are questionable aspects to this eco tourism.
Snail kites and anhingas hung out by the river. We saw some wonderful Mayan pyramids, one of which we could see from the boat, towering above the jungle. We climbed that one, about 100 feet tall, and got a great view. We also saw a howler monkey family of 3 adults and a baby doing acrobatics about 20 feet directly above us. They seemed to be showing off, and were as curious about us as we were about them.
Along the river, we passed a Mennonite community called Shipyard. Now numbering 4,000 members, they moved there in the 1950s from Mexico to escape the taxes and military. They are responsible for most of the beans, rice and cheese consumed in the country. They don´t believe in electricity or any of its consequences.
Also at Lamanai was the Give and Take Tree. It has spikes that have a mild poison that causes a painful rash. The tree also provides the cure for the rash, in a substance in its bark.
In several places we have seen leaf cutter ants. They make a trail across a yard or across the hiking path, completely removing all vegetation in a corridor about 4 inches wide. They are carrying parts of leaves back to their nest. The ants are about a quarter inch long, but most carry leaf pieces at least twice as big as they are. If they are transporting green and yellow leaves, it is quite a pretty spectacle as they trudge with their parasols. They follow the path by sense of smell, so if our mean guide Ruben scuffs the path with his shoe, they run around frantically until one ant picks up the scent and gets everyone going the right direction again. In their nest, specialized ants of a different caste are in charge of tending the leaves and cultivating a fungus, which is what the ants eat. They are the world´s first farmers. We even saw them working at night. I think of Ed Abbey´s comment that he never had much respect for ants. The formic life, scoffed Ed.
I was sad that there is plastic trash along all the roads and shores we saw in Belize. The citizens seem to have no respect for their lovely environment. Even Ruben, the guide on our birding walks in Crooked Tree, who has lived in the village all his life, opens a piece of candy and throws the wrapper on the ground. Pathetic dogs also abound. There is a bill board on the highway showing a jaguar washing her kittens. The caption is "Our idea of litter". I hope the citizen education campaign catches on.
At Crooked Tree, most of the guests at Sam Tillet´s were birders. One of the women said her husband was an SOB. Spouse of Birder, which I supposed is not quite as bad as being a football widow, but almost. She noted that birders are compulsive. Some keep lists of birds seen in a county, state, and country, as well as any other imaginable category, like a list of bird observed defecating. She said she even knows of people who keeps lists of birds seen on TV and in movies. One of the saner birders, a lawyer from Houston, told this woman she needed to get a life.
The cook at Sam Tillet´s gave us some delicious plum jam, made from the golden plums in the tree next to the observation deck. We ate the same plums that the kiskadees and blue grey tanagers enjoyed.
I saw a bird called the greyish saltator choking an entire blue morning glory blossom into his mouth as if he were stuffing a parachute. He did it again and again. I guess those flowers are a delicacy to him.
Other new birds spotted at Crooked Tree included ringed kingfisher, jacana, common yellow throat, green kingfisher, and mangrove swallow, as well as birds I’ve seen before: grooved bill ani, American redstart, common ground dove, yellow bellied sapsucker, vermillion flycatcher, little blue heron, great blue heron, green heron, tri-color heron, kingbird, boat tailed grackle, hooded oriole, turkey vulture, rose breasted becard, cardinal, coot, pied billed grebe, lesser and spotted sandpipers, catbird, red winged blackbird, white ibis, limpkin, osprey, killdeer, and great egret. Sometimes the cattle egret also stand on the backs of horses and pick bugs out of their hides. Ruben tried to tell us they were horse egrets, but we weren’t buying it.
Ruben took us on a night walk. We felt like intruders on the animals who were awaken by our flashlights. There’s a nightjar called the common pauraque that sleeps on the road at night. Ruben blinded one with his flashlight and was able to pick him up. The poor bird hissed and showed us the expanse of his huge mouth. Steve and I felt guilty about harassing the critters and decided to refrain from any more nightwalks.
Crooked Tree is named for the cashew for which it is famous. There are also guanacaste trees, which look sort of like a bonsai on a 50´ tall trunk. It´s the tallest tree around. We are not in the jungle. Rather, this is the coastal savannah. There are grasslands and some forests of rather small trees including pines, palms and papayas, and some of the trees have been completely enveloped and killed by strangler figs. Even cactus can grow here. There is a sort of prickly pear under the coconut trees at Sam´s. There is also a parasite called snake cactus that drapes itself in the trees.
I haven´t counted the new additions to my birding life list, but it´s a lot. Brown jay, clay colored robin, red lored parakeet, aztec jay, tropical mockingbird, collared and magnolia warblers, the aptly named melodious blackbird, yellow headed vulture, ringed kingfisher, blue grey tanager, blue grey gnatcatcher, pale vented pigeon, forktailed flycatcher, black cowled oriole, bare neck tiger heron, black bellied whistling duck, spot breasted wren, jacana, social flycatcher, and the big prize, the gorgeous apricot-colored black collared hawk. I also saw a wood stork, the bird who delivers babies. He has been very busy in Belize.
"Pikni da po pipple riches".
Literally, Children are a poor man’s riches
Meaning, Children are often all that a poor man has a lot of, and having many children is widely regarded as a kind of investment against being helpless in old age.
At night as we sat on that lovely deck at Sam Tillet´s we could see fireflies. Can you imagine, fireflies in December? Their lights seemed to come in various temperatures, because there were blue, white and yellow varieties.
Sam Tillet drove us to the New River, pointing out a yellow headed vulture and a roadside hawk along the way. The roadside hawk is usually on a wire next to the road. Sam pointed out a similar looking hawk at the New River landing and told us it was a riverside hawk, but we could see by his smile he was kidding. We took a high speed, noisy, polluting boat that eroded the shore with its one foot high wake on a 90 minute ride to a Mayan ruin called Lamanai (¨Submerged Crocodile¨). There are questionable aspects to this eco tourism.
Snail kites and anhingas hung out by the river. We saw some wonderful Mayan pyramids, one of which we could see from the boat, towering above the jungle. We climbed that one, about 100 feet tall, and got a great view. We also saw a howler monkey family of 3 adults and a baby doing acrobatics about 20 feet directly above us. They seemed to be showing off, and were as curious about us as we were about them.
Along the river, we passed a Mennonite community called Shipyard. Now numbering 4,000 members, they moved there in the 1950s from Mexico to escape the taxes and military. They are responsible for most of the beans, rice and cheese consumed in the country. They don´t believe in electricity or any of its consequences.
Also at Lamanai was the Give and Take Tree. It has spikes that have a mild poison that causes a painful rash. The tree also provides the cure for the rash, in a substance in its bark.
In several places we have seen leaf cutter ants. They make a trail across a yard or across the hiking path, completely removing all vegetation in a corridor about 4 inches wide. They are carrying parts of leaves back to their nest. The ants are about a quarter inch long, but most carry leaf pieces at least twice as big as they are. If they are transporting green and yellow leaves, it is quite a pretty spectacle as they trudge with their parasols. They follow the path by sense of smell, so if our mean guide Ruben scuffs the path with his shoe, they run around frantically until one ant picks up the scent and gets everyone going the right direction again. In their nest, specialized ants of a different caste are in charge of tending the leaves and cultivating a fungus, which is what the ants eat. They are the world´s first farmers. We even saw them working at night. I think of Ed Abbey´s comment that he never had much respect for ants. The formic life, scoffed Ed.
I was sad that there is plastic trash along all the roads and shores we saw in Belize. The citizens seem to have no respect for their lovely environment. Even Ruben, the guide on our birding walks in Crooked Tree, who has lived in the village all his life, opens a piece of candy and throws the wrapper on the ground. Pathetic dogs also abound. There is a bill board on the highway showing a jaguar washing her kittens. The caption is "Our idea of litter". I hope the citizen education campaign catches on.
At Crooked Tree, most of the guests at Sam Tillet´s were birders. One of the women said her husband was an SOB. Spouse of Birder, which I supposed is not quite as bad as being a football widow, but almost. She noted that birders are compulsive. Some keep lists of birds seen in a county, state, and country, as well as any other imaginable category, like a list of bird observed defecating. She said she even knows of people who keeps lists of birds seen on TV and in movies. One of the saner birders, a lawyer from Houston, told this woman she needed to get a life.
The cook at Sam Tillet´s gave us some delicious plum jam, made from the golden plums in the tree next to the observation deck. We ate the same plums that the kiskadees and blue grey tanagers enjoyed.
I saw a bird called the greyish saltator choking an entire blue morning glory blossom into his mouth as if he were stuffing a parachute. He did it again and again. I guess those flowers are a delicacy to him.
Other new birds spotted at Crooked Tree included ringed kingfisher, jacana, common yellow throat, green kingfisher, and mangrove swallow, as well as birds I’ve seen before: grooved bill ani, American redstart, common ground dove, yellow bellied sapsucker, vermillion flycatcher, little blue heron, great blue heron, green heron, tri-color heron, kingbird, boat tailed grackle, hooded oriole, turkey vulture, rose breasted becard, cardinal, coot, pied billed grebe, lesser and spotted sandpipers, catbird, red winged blackbird, white ibis, limpkin, osprey, killdeer, and great egret. Sometimes the cattle egret also stand on the backs of horses and pick bugs out of their hides. Ruben tried to tell us they were horse egrets, but we weren’t buying it.
Ruben took us on a night walk. We felt like intruders on the animals who were awaken by our flashlights. There’s a nightjar called the common pauraque that sleeps on the road at night. Ruben blinded one with his flashlight and was able to pick him up. The poor bird hissed and showed us the expanse of his huge mouth. Steve and I felt guilty about harassing the critters and decided to refrain from any more nightwalks.
Crooked Tree is named for the cashew for which it is famous. There are also guanacaste trees, which look sort of like a bonsai on a 50´ tall trunk. It´s the tallest tree around. We are not in the jungle. Rather, this is the coastal savannah. There are grasslands and some forests of rather small trees including pines, palms and papayas, and some of the trees have been completely enveloped and killed by strangler figs. Even cactus can grow here. There is a sort of prickly pear under the coconut trees at Sam´s. There is also a parasite called snake cactus that drapes itself in the trees.
