Birding in Belize

There are tons of birds in amazing Belize. I like birds because; I just like birds even from when I was a baby. I like to watch them and draw then which makes me very happy. I have seen over a 120 species since we have been here in December. Most of them are new to me. They are very very colorful and look exotic. I would like to tell you about each bird I saw but instead I will tell you about the most interesting. We went to different habitats in search of birds such at Mayan temples, lakes, wetlands, rivers, islands and the amazing fig tree.

Pyramids sites are usually in rain forested areas and have many cleared spaces surrounding the pyramids and temples. The birds like these spaces. At Caracol, we saw Oscillated Turkeys which are one of the prettiest birds in Belize. Their feathers are iridescent and shine like copper and other colors. We also saw one of the most amazing vultures. It is the King Vulture. It has interesting head gear and is huge. We saw Keel Billed Toucans which have a large brightly colored bill which is often seen on items such as cereal box labels. This toucan is also the national bird of Belize. There was another pyramid site called Laminai with has lots of birds. There were trogons , which are the size as a crow but with a yellow bill and it has a lot of iridescence feathers especially on its stomach with a blue color sheen and yellow or black eye rings.

Lamanai is on the New River and we had to take a boat to get there. There were herons on the river such as the boat billed and Yellow Crow Night Herons. We saw a Yucatan Poorwhill which is not very common in that area. We saw a limpkin which is a bird where scientists can’t figure out which family to put it in so they made a new one just for this bird. We saw a small colorful bird called a Jacana which is also known as the Jesus Christ bird since it has very large feet which enable it to walk on lily pads and other aquatic plants. Imagine you could do that too. There is also another interesting bird species called the snail kite which only eats apple snails which is a large freshwater snail. It has a special shaped bill to gets into snail shells without cracking the shell. We spotted a common black hawk which also looks a lot like the snail kite except it has a yellow bill.

We had other guided trips to Spanish Lookout and Crooked Tree. These are both wetland sites and the name wetland suits this habitat perfectly because the beaches are mushy muck which I found out was not a good place to walk. At Spanish Lookout we saw a Jabiru Stork nest but not birds were home. The Jabiru could be called the Jumbo-ru because it is one of the biggest birds in the Americas. We looked at a laughing falcon through the spotting scope but it wasn’t very funny. We saw grove billed anis which looks like a grackle with the bill of a puffin. Then there were scissor tail flycatchers and this was the first place we saw the Vermillion Flycatcher which is a beautiful shade of red.

Back at the lodge there was a fig tree which was the most birdee-ist tree that I ever did see. We went there first thing in the morning and we saw Chacahlacas, Summer Tanagers, trogons, Great Kiskadees, and Aracasis which are a small type of toucan. At times there seemed to be more birds on the tree than leaves. The sound was a noisy concoction of calls and songs. And I have to add that the parrots sounded the worse. That’s the story of the magical fig tree.

Our next birding trip was to the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. We saw thousands of Wood Storks and we canoed real close to them. Mixed in with them was a jumbo Jabiru Stork. The Jabiru has a rufus collar and was much larger than the other storks. We spotted Roseate Spoonbills which are pink birds with a spoon shaped bill. There was a Black Collared Hawk which should be called the Rufus Winged Hawk. It was fun to watch the pygmy kingfisher feed and take its food back to a tree for lunch. It was really neat and is one of my favorite birding places. That’s all for now on the Nudibranch Network.

Sophie

PS if you want to see video of a singing Summer Tanager or Wood Storks of Crooked Tree then click on the play buttons

Life on the Atoll

Life on the Atoll (20 February 2010)

We are in Belize City shopping right now in a grocery store. We are getting lots of food because we won’t see a single store for a whole week. The boat leaves in half an hour. We are too far away to walk so we have to get a taxi cab to the dock. We weave through busy streets filled with bicycles, trucks, cars and pedestrians. Then we turn onto a not so busy tree lined street and pull up to the dock. We get there just in time even though we know the boat won’t leave without us.

People load on a huge amount of gas cans, boxes, rolls of toilet paper and everyday items. Pineapples get loose and roll all over the floor of the boat. The Oceanica is our 43 foot boat which takes us 30 miles to Blackbird Caye and back. We see most of the staff and our new guests on the boat. Mr. Kent is our Captain. Wanda is our cook and some of you have skyped with her in your classroom. There is Alton who is an expert coconut open-er-upper and super fixer-upper of things. There is Rose the housekeeper and Richard the small boat captain. Security is Camille the dog. And there’s a hungry guy named Peckish who works at the nearby fishing camp.

We start off and we pass the little islands called Cayes and the MesoAmerican Barrier Reef. Sometimes there are swells when we hit blue water but today they are only 3 feet high. And there we go through Turneffe Atoll and go by lots of mangrove forests. And then we pull up to a long dock with sandy rocky beaches, a big buttonwood tree and coconut trees. Then we see cabanas on the ocean. We start hitting bumps as we head near the reef. Then we see a big palapa with a thatched roof.

We pull up to the dock and I run down the dock happy to see my island again. I startled some wish willies who are basking in the sun when I ran by. Camilla the evil munching puppy meets me with her tail which is wagging and her whole body is shaking. And it is time for teething. She lunges at me with the mouth wide open and I throw a sea grape leaf like a frisbee. Our place, the Oceanic Society owns about 50 acres of land.

I hear a RRRRRRRRRRRRRR from the generator which is the only way to get electricity until they get the solar working. If it’s not a very windy day then the mosquitoes, doctor flies and sand flies come out and bite. It looks like you have been to the doctor or need to go to one. There may be some bummers here but there’s so much more good stuff.

My favorite thing to do is to go snorkeling and fishing. Before it’s too late, we can go for a little swim. The ocean can be really warm here and you can play in it for hours without freezing. It also makes for good snorkeling but you can’t go swim at night because of the crocodiles. When I snorkel, I see thousands of fish called grunts, schoolmaster snappers, butterfly fish and yellow jack which like to hang out around our dock. After dinner, when it gets dark, my Dad and I go fishing. When it’s dark the big fish bite. We usually see two big red eyes underneath the water. We see a big body that looks like a croc. But it is only a tarpon which is a big game fish and it is like the crocodiles of the fishes. We tried to catch it but it just does not seem interested.

I spend a lot of my time homeschooling. It’s a lot like regular school but it is in your home. You also get the full attention of your parent school teachers. I do math, reading, writing and lots of other stuff like you do. I also get to learn about things that are special to me like field trips to Mayan temples for history class or my science class is about 100 yards away on the dock into the coral reef and seagrasses. And I always get to do art class by myself. You get a lot of attention by being the only kid in the class and it is also a lot of fun.

Well, that’s a day in my life at Blackbird Caye.

Sophie

PS We can see both sunrises and sunsets off our little island. It is only a couple of hundred steps from one side to the other.

Reptiles in Belize

There are so many different kinds of reptiles in beautiful Belize and I want to tell you about some that I have seen and held. In San Ignacio, there is a resort that has a green iguana restoration project. The project is to mate and grow them for replenishment in forests. They were in trouble because people were hunting them but now they are protected. We got to go there and visit the iguanas. We got to see them and hold them. My favorite was Gomez. Gomez was a big male iguana who had orange colors because it was mating season. I got to pet him and he looked at me as if it felt real good. He was very smooth and soft and cold, but scaly. He was calm probably because it was a cold day.

The next day we went back to the green iguana restoration project and Eddie, the caretaker, hung 20 baby iguanas on me like a Christmas tree. They were hanging off my hat, my hair, my shoulders, my jacket and the middle of my pants. There were surprisingly calm because if was one of the coldest days yet.

Every day I see iguanas on our island. They aren’t as friendly as the greens and they are a different species. They are spiny tailed iguanas or wish willies. When they get real scared, they run very very fast. They also climb trees and are brownish beige.
We also have salt water crocodiles on our island. We have a big swamp that is loaded with them. A crocodile on our island is 14 feet long and his name is Tommy. There is a guy how works with us named Alton who has an odd way of calling Tommy and the others. It isn’t a whistle and he does not say here boy. Instead he throws a coconut into the brown mangrove water and they have a fake meal. The problem with crocs is that they eat dogs. Other than that, we cannot go swimming at night and don’t get near them in the mating season.

There is another species of croc called the Morelet’s crocodile and its habitat is slow moving freshwater rivers. I held a baby croc during our recent trip to Orange Walk. It liked to sit on my lap. It just laid there and fell asleep. Also there was a smallish boa constrictor that they found crawling around outside our room door. I got to hold it but had to hang on to its head tights so it would not bite. They are no venomous but they do hurt. But it didn’t bite me. That’s all for now. See you later on my next blog.
Sophie

Sophie meets Sylvia Earle

A famous scientist and explorer named Dr. Silvia Earle came to visit our little island to promote new her project called ‘Places of Hope‘. The reason she chose Turneffe Atoll is because of its high number of species of plants and animals found on the coral reefs, seagrasses, mangroves and on the island itself. Turneffe Atoll is also in danger of it being over developed, fished out and destroyed because it has no protection to the plants and animals that live here.

Dr. Earle has many nicknames, like ‘Her Deepness’ or the ‘Living Legend‘ but I found her to just be a nice person with an important mission. My favorite nickname for her is ‘Hero for the Planet‘, because she is so inspiring. She said that people have the power to do many things that have hurt the planet but we have the same power to do things to help the planet. She feels that we have the knowledge and the power to stop the bad things we are doing to the ocean. She said we used to believe that we could take as much out of or put into the ocean whatever we wanted and that it was so vast that it would not matter. But we have found out that it is not true.

I really hate to give bad news, but I’ve been out snorkeling around, listening to the lectures on coral reefs, fish populations and pollution and I believe we have a serious problem. I think the good news is that we really can make a difference now. I believe it’s now or never. I have some ideas about what I can do and am curious about what you think you can do.

1. Use less plastic. I see so much plastic washing up on our beach that it makes me feel very sad. This plastic seems to come from all over the world.
2. There are a lot of half worn shoes that wash up on our beach, unfortunately only one at a time. Can we make worn or unmatched shoes a fashion statement?
3. I buy stuff locally made so it doesn’t have to be shipped all over the world using lots of oil.
4. I don’t eat shrimp! When you see how the Mangroves are cut down, and then the gross places where the shrimp are raised you would not be able to swallow them. Then these festering shrimp ponds are abandoned after a couple of years and left abandoned because the water quality is not good anymore. Even wild shrimp has so much by-catch that is killed. There can be about a ton of fish killed for a bucket of shrimp. This happens is Biscayne Bay and all over the world.
5. REALLY think about what meat you are eating and how much feed does it take to grow the animal. Whether it is a fish farm or a cow. Don’t eat too much slow growing top predator fish or land animals.

A Visit to the Mayan Pyramids at Tikal

Tikal is an old complex of Mayan pyramids and temples. They started building them about 2300 years ago. The rainforest has reclaimed most of this place, but what is visible of the pyramids is amazing. Tikal is inside a huge national park in Guatemala where all the plants and animals are protected.

We walked a long way before we ever saw a pyramid. On our way, we saw many birds like the crested quan, motmots and ruby araucaria (small toucans) as well as noisy howler monkeys. Then we saw a giant amazing superb ceiba tree. The Maya thought about the ceiba tree as being an axle of the Earth and that it was a very sacred tree. I can see why because of its super size and jutting buttress like roots. The rainforest canopy felt like a giant green tree tent because there were so many leaves and trees.

Think of walking through a deep deep leafy rainforest and boom, all of a sudden, a giant grey and mossy green limestone pyramid appeared almost out of the air. We were then in a big grassy field called the Grand Plaza which was surrounded by gi-normous pyramids. Some of the pyramids were the size of 20 story buildings. Oscillated turkeys and coatimundi played in the grass around us. One coatimundi had even toppled over a garbage can which we turned back over. But the coatimundi soon toppled it over again and our good deed was quickly undone.

As we climbed the huge pyramid steps we felt very small, just like the leaf cutter ants that also played in the plaza. It took a lot of energy and time to climb them. Each step came up to my thighs so it was like climbing a big limestone mountain block by block. I had to take a lot of breaks because it was so steep. We finally made it to the top the giant pyramid. There was a room and an incredible view of the surrounding pyramids and rainforest. We climbed lots of pyramids in this way. This made me feel like I was on the tippy top of the world. I’m sure that’s what the Mayan’s felt too. The Mayans must have been great architects to have built those giants. They didn’t have cranes, bull dozers, or any of the modern technology that we have today. So if you have the chance, go there.

Trip to the Blue Hole

This week we set off in the Miss Callie, the marine station’s 22 ft motor boat to the Blue Hole for a snorkeling expedition. Although being a bright sunny calm day, we met with some big swells when we got out in the open water. As we got closer to the reef surrounding the Blue Hole the waves calmed down and we skimmed across bright turquoise blue waters. There we were able to find a good snorkeling spot. If you don’t know about the Blue Hole, I’ll tell you a bit. The book says it is 1000 ft wide and 412 feet deep. This sink hole is believed to be the world’s largest blue hole. It is full of geological wonders and fascinating marine life such as giant stalactites. These structures formed in a dry cavern above sea level during glacial periods thousands of years ago. The sea level rose and the cave top collapsed creating this deep hole.

We had our snorkel trip around the edge of it. When we jumped off the boat all you could see was a deep dark blue abyss, as we swam closer to the reef, the rocky sandy bottom quickly rose up from the depths into a beautiful shallow coral reef filled with lots of colorful fish and interesting marine life. There were many kinds of parrotfish, with their strong beak like bills, munching algae off the corals and making sand. Yes the majority of beautiful white sand we enjoy around here is actually pooped out by the parrotfish. To give you an idea of their showy colors, they are given names like rainbow, stop light and red fin. Some of the other eye catchers are the purple and orange damselfish and the electric blue chromos. On the way back to the boat over that big hole we saw a big school of largish sized yellow tailed snapper, chubs, needle nosed ballyhoos and a couple of horse eyed jacks.

The second part of the trip, we motored over to Half Moon Caye Natural Monument also located in Light House Reef. The Caye is really beautiful. There is the guano rich (not too stinky) Ziricote tree forest which houses a nesting colony of Magnificent Frigate’s and the Red footed Bobbies. Did you know that guano is bird poop? The other two ends have sandy beach sites for nesting sea turtles and super swimming spots. You can also camp on the island, but you had better bring all the food and water you need, because there are no food stores and the nearest one is fifty miles by boat. You can find out more about the Blue Hole, Half Moon Key and other Belize Audubon sites by going to wwwbelizeaudobon.org

Coconut Oil Making

We wanted to visit our next door neighbor so we got in our kayaks and went for a visit. It was very exciting. I sat in the back of Dad’s kayak and was trolling for fish. A nice man from the local resort lent us a fishing rod. This made me very happy and I’ve been using it a lot. Beneath the water swayed turtle grass. And up above sat an overcast sky but it was still warm. We kayaked up to Raymond’s front door. Raymond is our neighbor and visits us a lot at the marine station. This is the first time we went to visit him.

We saw how Raymond makes his coconut oil. He grates the meat of 30 coconuts and pours hot water over it so that the fat floats to the top. When it cools and solidifies, he puts it in a big cooking pot over a wood fire. He cooks it until the oil separates, the water evaporates and the solids toast. The toasted solids are what give the oil its good flavor and the solid called maya is discarded. We believe that maya is Creole for the left over’s or remainders. This takes about 2 hours to cook.

We made perfect dream boats out of coconut husk. Coconut husks are the parts of the coconut that surround the nut. People usually throw this away. But we found a new use for them since they float real well and have the perfect natural shape of a boat. They are very very buoyant and don’t soak up a lot of water which would make them sink. We then put bright red almond tree leaves on them for great wind catching sails. Almond trees grow wild on Black Bird Caye and the nuts inside taste good if you have a machete and the ability to crack them. As for our dream boats, we think they made it all the way to the Virgin Islands.

We found a really cool bug on near the beach. It was big with a wing span of over 3 1/2 inches and it was black with metalize blue color. It has the face and mouth of a wasp. Raymond called it a hunter bee. He said it only comes out certain times of the year and lives in rotten tree stumps. He said it was not dangerous if you don’t bother it. His land had lots of other treasures.

We caught little land crabs to use as fish bait. We turned over logs in the high strand and found a few. They tried to pinch but I knew a trick. My trick is to grab them behind their claws so they can’t pinch. We also saw a pretty blue crab that was too big to catch for bait. When my Dad got way too close, the crab shot like a shooting star back into its burrow. That’s the last we saw of him.

On our way home we saw two tropical or couch’s kingbird catching white butterflies. Kingbirds are a type of flycatcher with a bright yellow chest. I tried fishing with my new crab bait on patch reefs. I didn’t catch any there but I caught lots of grunts off the pier at the marine station. A grunt is a type of fish that can make grunts noises when it’s out of water. We threw most of them back but kept a few for bait.

This is the first entry in my new blog. I hope to write about nature and life of Turneffe Atoll in Belize. We are on a special island called Blackbird Caye. It is only six miles long. It is named after the grackle bird with is a black bird with a very long tail. The grackles get into a lot of trouble by bothering with other birds’ nests. They also can imitate lots of bird calls and also man made noises like electric screwdrivers and squeaky doors. They are like mocking birds.

P.S. If anyone wants a pen pal in Belize, I would be really interested in being your pen pal too. I have an email address at suephia@gmail.com. I will gladly write back to you. You can also write on my blog about what is going on in your world.