This blog focuses on the birds we saw and the locations we visited in the Tucson and Green Valley areas in March.

It took us a couple of visits to Ft. Lowell Park in Tucson see these Wood Ducks, because they kept hidden, but once we learned of their hiding place, viewed from behind the “ocotillo fence,” it was easy. It was nice that the pair were awake and posing together.

Here are two photos of a sparrow that we have only seen once before. It’s a Cassin’s Sparrow, which has a similar size and shape of a more common Song Sparrow.

The Cassin’s Sparrow lives in arid grasslands with scattered shrubs. This photo was taken from a pullout on the road to Madera Canyon. Doug is taking the photo of the sparrow that was singing in the middle of a mesquite bush.

Here’s a view of Madera Canyon in early March.

Wild Turkeys are common throughout the canyon. Although they are not as flashy as the Ocellated Turkeys that we saw in Belize and Guatemala, their feathers are stunning in good light. This one is a female.

Another day, it was too hot to be in the desert, but the upper part of Madera Canyon was cooler for hiking. Wendy took this photo of a male Arizona Woodpecker with her iPhone. It’s all brown back is distinctive.

Florida Canyon is east of Madera Canyon and a little more open. Like Madera Canyon, it has plenty of oak trees.

The riparian area is to the left in the photo below, where oak and sycamore trees grow. The drier hillsides are covered with prickly pear and ocotillo cacti.

We saw a flock of Lawrence’s Goldfinches at Florida Canyon. This black-faced and grey-headed one is a male. They have similar habits to the more common Lesser Goldfinch. The guidebook says that they should be in California or farther south, but they have been more common around the Tucson area in the last few years. They move to where they can find plentiful weed seeds.

Here’s a male Northern Cardinal perched on an ocotillo in Florida Canyon.

On one of the days we were at Florida Canyon, the honeysuckle was in full bloom and the hummingbirds loved it! This is a male Broad-billed Hummingbird.

We saw our first Rufous Hummingbird of the season that day. Rufous Hummingbirds are only found in Florida Canyon during migration. Perhaps this female will end up in our yard in Canada, since they breed throughout British Columbia. The orange-red central spot is easy to see in the photo below.

Here’s a Cooper’s hawk that was keeping watch from a sycamore. We often see Cooper’s Hawks when we’re birding. Perhaps that’s because they feed mainly on birds captured in flight.

This Dusky Flycatcher will be making its way north soon. Perhaps it’s already on its journey. The dull, greyish flycatcher is similar to Hammond’s and Gray flycatchers. This one wasn’t vocalizing which would have made it easier to identify. Sometimes with birds like this, we wait until we examine the photo before we make a final decision on the species.

Here’s a Gray Flycatcher that we saw on the Anza trail near to Desert Meadows Park in Green Valley. It looks very similar to the Dusky. It has a tendency to wag its tail downward, which is unique to the species. It was also vocalizing, so it made the identification easier.

In March, migrating birds start showing up at the Green Valley Water Reclamation Facility. One day, we saw a Black-necked Stilt. This one’s long reddish-pink legs are covered in mud.

We almost overlooked this Lesser Yellowlegs because it was foraging by itself on the edge of a one of the large ponds at the Reclamation Facility. We moved to get a closer view. When there is no other shorebird nearby, it’s difficult to judge the size of a bird, so we looked carefully at its bill. A straight bill that is just a little longer than its head indicates Lesser Yellowlegs, while an upturned bill that isn’t much longer than its head describes a Greater Yellowlegs. It’s more common to see Greater Yellowlegs around the Tucson area, so we were really happy to find a Lesser.

On March 12th, we went to Ron Morriss Park for the Tubac Hawk Watch. We saw six Common Black Hawks kettling together. Here’s a photo of two of them taken when they were quite high in the sky. The Tubac Hawk Watch is famous for being the best spot to see this species migrating in the US. It’s an aptly named entirely black hawk with a white band on its short tail.

On morning in mid-March, we arrived before sunrise to Danny Lopez Park (formally Christopher Columbus Park). Our friend had reported that several Bronzed Cowbirds regularly flew into a lakeside tree for a few minutes just as the sun rose, and then flew off to parts unknown. We saw about thirty fly in at 6:36. Most of them left six minutes later, but this one stayed a little longer which allowed for a better photo. A Bronzed Cowbird has a red eye, but this one’s eye looks even redder because of the sunrise light. This male is perched in a typical hunched posture and shows his thick neck ruff.

The Bronzed Cowbird was somewhere in the middle of this tree surrounded by Great-tailed Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds.

This juvenile Double-crested Cormorant was perched on a log nearby. The early light makes it appear lighter than usual. Because it has orange in front of the eye (the spot called the lore) that means it’s a Double-crested Cormorant rather than a Neo-tropic Cormorant, which is also found in the Tucson area.

That day, we also saw this Hutton’s Vireo, which is considered rare for a city park. We see them frequently in Madera Canyon and other mixed oak-conifer forests. While it has similar colouring to a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, it is heavier and has a thicker bill.

We went to Sweetwater Wetlands several times in March but have included only two photos. The male Blue-winged Teal in the photo below looks ready to start his day, while the others are still dealing with their morning routine.

We may have included a photo of a Snowy Egret in a blog each month this season, but that doesn’t stop Doug from taking more photos and posting another one of this most interesting bird. (Especially if there are reflections involved.)

Here’s a baby American Coot with its parent. Both parents are involved in raising the chicks.

Having brighter colouring than its siblings is an advantage to a young coot, because parents will give special treatment to the brighter coloured chicks. (A Dec. 2019 article by Tim Stephens: The mysterious case of the ornamented coot chicks has a surprising explanation (news.ucsc.edu) explains it in more detail.)

We birded at El Rio Preserve each week in March. Here are three photos from there. The first two are of the pair of resident Mexican Ducks. The male Mexican duck looks similar to a female Mallard, with a yellow bill. Mexican ducks and Mallards have been known to interbreed and until recently, they were considered the same species. We often see a pair of Mexican ducks by themselves, not associating with Mallards.

The birds aren’t aware of us taking their photos, but if they could decide, which photo do you think they would prefer? The awkward shallow water pose or the more stately tandem swimming one?

This is a male Hooded Oriole that was singing his rapid, varied song from a palm tree in a yard bordering the park. The species breeds in the Tucson area, so this one might have arrived at his summer home.

This photo of sunrise on March 14th was taken through the window in the main slide of our Redwood.

March 22nd’s sunset was magnificent. Here’s the photo Doug took at 6:50 from the patio.

And here’s the photo Wendy took five minutes later, from the gate with the telephoto camera on her iPhone.

We are now back in BC, and have been for a few weeks. We will post about our ten days in Arizona in April soon.

This blog post will be about our trip to Northern Arizona and a couple of local hikes. We have included several bird photos, but the majority of the photos are scenic shots.

In the third week of March, the temperature in Tucson was expected to be 40 degrees C (104 F) for a few days. We decided to visit Northern Arizona where it would be cooler, so we booked three nights in a hotel in Flagstaff.

On our way north, we stopped at a piece of desert scrub that although barren-looking, was favoured by thrashers and other desert birds. Other birders had discovered this spot, and its eBird hotspot name includes “(thrasher spot)” in its title. We had visited the same spot in February without success, so we were hopeful that this time we could hear and see a LeConte’s Thrasher. LeConte’s thrashers like dry areas with a few bushes and lots of bare, sandy ground. They also like to sing perched up and luckily this one was far enough above the rest of the shrubbery that we could see it when we were over 200 metres away. It was also lucky that it sang for a long time and stayed in the same place, so we could walk over and skirt around it to get the light right.

The thrasher is just barely visible in the photo below. It’s the highest speck above the bushes.

We had allocated a couple of hours to see the thrasher and we were out of there in 45 minutes, so we had time to drive to see another bird. We continued past Flagstaff, north on US 89 highway, to the historic Navajo Bridge at Marble Canyon. Here’s a view of the Colorado River taken from the Historic Navajo Bridge, a pedestrian only bridge. We got there about 1:30 which was little early for the California Condors to be roosting. There were other birds around; Common Mergansers and American Wigeons way down on the river and House Finches flitting about.

Around two o’clock, some other people saw the condors come in and alerted us. Our binoculars and camera gave us away as “birders.” We saw a couple of condors down in the rocks, and then another two perched on the main bridge. Below, Doug is taking a photo of one of the condors on the rocks.

The California Condor is a critically endangered species that nest high on cliff faces. In the 1980s, the population fell to about 22 birds and now, with captive breeding intervention, there are over 275 free-flying birds. They have transceivers and labels so they can be tracked. We looked up the information about the bird with the OA tag on condorspotter.com and found out that OA is a female who is almost 5 years old. She was hatched at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. She was probably released at the Vermilion Cliffs Release site, which is nearby in terms of distances condors fly in a day. She was trying to sit in the shade of the girders on this hot day.

The condor with the US tag was hatched in the wild in the spring of 2024. Its neck will begin to turn pink in its third year, and will be adult-like in its fifth summer.

We drove back to Flagstaff for the night. It was a long day of driving with some rewarding minutes with special birds.

The next day, we wandered through some juniper / pinyon pine forest just east of Flagstaff at Cosnino Road. We were searching for a Juniper Titmouse and a Pinyon Jay that our friend had seen there a few days before.

We heard the Juniper Titmouse right away, but it took us a little bit to get our eyes on one. Luckily one popped up in the sunshine. They are plain and drab but also cute like every other titmouse. They live year-round in Arizona at higher elevations. We didn’t hear or see a Pinyon Jay.

Next we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument and got there for their nine o’clock opening. The monument was established in 1915, to help preserve the cliff dwellings that are found throughout the canyon that were being damaged by pot hunters.

Only a small portion of the canyon is open to the public. We chose to walk on the 1.6 km (1 mi) Island Trail to begin. The Island Trail is accessed through the visitor centre, then drops down over 50 metres by staircases. The trail then makes a loop around the rock outcrops.

The trail goes right past some ancient dwellings, that were built on the limestone cliffs between 1125 and 1250.

This is the view of the Visitor Centre and the cliff that we descended. Railings and stairways are visible on the trail.

Once we descended the main stairways, we followed the one-way loop trail around an outcrop. There were more stairs along this route as well. The quote that we learned at the Grand Canyon, “Going down is optional, returning is mandatory,” was appropriate here. We did fine with the 273 steps that we came down and went up again, as well as the 190 stair steps along the loop. (A information sign provided the numbers.) The whole trail took us about an hour.

We walked along the rim trail as well and had an interesting conversation with couple from Wyoming at an overlook. We took their photos so they took one of us.

This is a partially reconstructed pueblo that was along the rim trail.

It was still early in the day, so were drove to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. Here’s a view of the crater from an overlook at the border of the monument. Sunset Crater erupted about 900 years ago and is the most recent volcanic eruption in Arizona.

We walked on the Lava Flow Trail on the other side of the volcanic cone. Hiking on the crater was banned in 1973 because the trails were becoming trenches and eroding the cone. From this angle, you can still see the scars where the former trail was filled in.

This is a “squeeze-up” in the Bonita lava flow that was right beside the trail. It was formed when molten lava oozed out through a crack in the solid lava shell, much like toothpaste squeezed from a tube.

Here’s another view of the Bonita Lava Flow, with the San Francisco Peaks in the background. We kept our eyes out for the elusive Pinyon Jays, but only saw Stellar’s Jays.

Because we were in “tourist mode” we visited the Flagstaff Visitor Center. It also serves as an Amtrak Railway station. The downtown area had several breweries within walking distance of each other, but our challenge was where to park. The visitor center staff member gave us a map and explained how to get to the parking lot.

Flagstaff Brewing is one of the oldest brewery in the area, opening in 1994.

It’s a small brewery and they can’t offer all their beers at the same time. Wendy thought their Blackbird Porter was one of the best she’s tasted. Doug enjoyed the Bitterroot ESB. We might need to go back sometime to sample their Agassiz Amber ale. We enjoyed their eclectic decor.

The next day, we visited Picture Canyon on the Rio de Flag, which had the right habitat for Pinyon Jays, although they weren’t there that day. We’ve heard birders describe the jays as being “ephemeral.” Yet even though we didn’t see those birds, we saw some other birds as well as some interesting country.

The area was called Picture Canyon because of the petroglyphs on a rock outcrop. Petroglyphs are rock carvings made by pecking or scratching the outer rock surface to expose a lighter rock underneath. They were formed by people who lived in the area nearly a thousand years ago. Here’s a view of the whole section.

Here’s a close-up of the rock with the “water bird” petroglyph, that is quite high up in the boulders. It’s quite faint, but unlike any we have seen at other sites. It could represent a crane or a great blue heron. The zig-zag to the “bird’s” left could be lightning, water, or mountains. We have seen carvings similar to the animal (bighorn sheep?) at several other sites throughout Arizona and Utah.

On our final day, we drove to Marshall Lake, up on the Anderson Mesa, which is another possible spot to see Pinyon Jays. (Nope) Marshall Lake which is really more marsh than water, was full of coots and other waterfowl. There were a pair of Bald Eagles on a nest as well. We were lucky to be there when there was water in the lake because some years the lake dries up completely. There were several primitive camping sites in the area.

Here’s a Dark-eyed Junco of the Gray-headed subspecies. This one was foraging just a few metres from where we parked the truck and seemed unperturbed with our presence. When we first saw this sub-species several years ago, we thought we had seen a new bird, and we were a little disappointed to discover it wasn’t. The Dark-eyed Juncos (Gray-headed) behave much like the Oregon subspecies that we commonly have in BC.

There was no point returning to the heat of Tucson early, so we checked out the Kachina Wetlands that are just south of Flagstaff. Like most hotspots with water in Arizona, reclaimed water is used to provide bird habitat. Pond #1 (below) always has water and one or two other ponds have water if there is excess. This pond had the most Virginia Rails that we have ever experienced in one location. There was a rail in each corner and another one in between along one side.

This Ruddy Duck has mud on it from its foraging efforts. We made it back to our trailer by about 3:00. It was 38 degrees C (100 F) outside and 30 (86 F) inside. Luckily we got the inside cooled off enough to be able to sleep.

Before the heat wave, we made our annual hike up Wasson Peak in Saguaro National Park (West). Here’s the view from near the top looking down on Tucson.

This section is part of the Hugh Norris trail, that follows the ridge. The granite in this area makes a nice sand for the trail surface.

We went our regular route using Esperanza Sendero to connect to the Hugh Norris trail. We found early hedgehog cactus blooms along this former mine road.

We noticed that cacti that bloomed later, faded quickly because of the heat.

When we got back from Flagstaff, we expected that the heat wave would be over, and even though it wasn’t extremely hot, it was still hot. We got into a routine of waking up at 4:30 so we could be starting our activity at sunrise. This particular day, we wanted to go to the Desert Museum, but it didn’t open until 8:30. So at 6:30 am, we started our hike up King’s Canyon. The parking lot is just across the road from the Desert Museum. We’re always amazed at how the saguaros and other bushes can grow on the cliffside.

There are several rock steps going up the canyon; some we climb up directly and others we avoid by scrambling up a trail on the side.

We got to the old dam area and the petroglyphs in half an hour. Every time we do this hike we take another photo of the ancient artwork. Perhaps we’ve shared this same view.

This photo was taken from just above the dam. Like other old dams in the area, the sediment has built up behind the dam to make a sandy flat surface.

We decided to walk up and through the picnic area and follow the Gould Mine Trail back to the trailhead. This Buckhorn Cholla bloom caught Doug’s eye.

Here’s a photo of part a different Buckhorn Cholla to help with scale. Buckhorn Chollas have skinny arms with joints that are reminiscent of a deer’s antlers. The flower is only about five centimetres (2 inches) in size.

Another hot day, we took a drive out Avra Valley Road to the Ironwood Forest National Monument to see a spectacular saguaro. This saguaro has been named “Shiva” and reportedly has over eighty arms. A friend told us about it and we found out more information at the Friends of Ironwood Forest website. ( ironwoodforest.org ) The huge cactus can be seen from the road. There’s a parking area on the south side of the road, just past the second cattle guard. A circle of sticks surrounds the saguaro to help prevent its root structure from being damaged.

Part two of March 2026 in Arizona will likely be posted after the middle of April. We want to see as many new species of birds before we head north. The blog can wait.

This post is about three new canyons that we explored and the rare birds we found there. They are all in Santa Cruz County: Chino Canyon, Sycamore Canyon (Pajarito Mountains) and Rock Corral Canyon. We’ve included three trips to different washes in Pima County as well.

If we had our jeep in Arizona, we could have driven all the way to Chino Canyon, but we chose to walk the rough road. In the photo below, Doug is approaching Elephant Head. The prominent rock outcrop is just in front of the county line, which marks the official start of the checklist. It was about a two kilometre walk from where we parked the truck. On February 6th, we were in the shade until we reached the canyon proper.

When we got to full sun, we stopped to take off some layers. We heard some voices ahead, but couldn’t tell what they were saying. Luckily, one of the young birders in the group heard us and came down the trail to tell us, “We’re on the bird!” We quickly joined them and had a good view of the Nutting’s Flycatcher we had come to see. Unfortunately, Doug’s camera was not cooperating and wouldn’t focus on the little bird. It flew away, and we relocated it, but this time it was backlit, so the photo below is the best one.

The Nutting’s Flycatcher was a “life bird” for us. The species is very rarely seen in Arizona but is found year-round in Mexico. It is very similar to an Ash-throated Flycatcher, but they make different sound. And luckily we could hear its call. About six other people saw it at the same time as us.

Most of the people left, but we continued up the canyon, hoping to see a Black-capped Gnatcatcher that had been reported earlier. We were listening for the subtle call of a gnatcatcher but the Bewick’s Wrens were distracting us with their scold call. We decided to wander up canyon a bit farther and try and find a good place for a snack before we turned around. That’s when we heard and then saw a pair of gnatcatchers working their way along the rocks, going down canyon. We tracked them and walked alongside until we lost them in a thick bush. Doug stayed at that bush for a little bit, while Wendy walked a little further down. She saw the pair quite close to the trail, but Doug wasn’t nearby! She fumbled with her microphone and was trying to record them, when Doug caught up. Luckily for us, the female Black-capped Gnatcatcher stuck around long enough for some photos. Doug also got other photos that showed its undertail clearly, which was important for identification.

Here’s a photo as we’re walking out. The outcrop looks a little more like an Elephant Head from this angle.

We went back again to Chino Canyon later in the month, and even though we came at about the same time of day, we didn’t have any shade. We didn’t see the Nutting’s Flycatcher and nor did anyone else that week. And it hasn’t been reported since. Perhaps the bird moved higher into the canyon as the weather got warmer.

We were happy though, because we heard a Gray Vireo. We recorded the song, so we had some evidence, but we didn’t ever see it. A Gray Vireo is considered rare, but it is not as rare as the flycatcher or the gnatcatcher. It likes rocky arid hillsides with scattered bushes.

We saw the best patch of Mexican Golden Poppies of the season up in Chino Canyon. The flowers that had started to bloom at lower elevations shrivelled because of the heat.

The flower patch was close to the same location that we saw the Black-capped Gnatcatchers earlier in the month. This time, we also watched a pair of gnatcatchers foraging on bushes along the rocky slope. Could they be the same ones? They might have been, but we didn’t get a good enough look. It made us realize how lucky we were to see the other one at close range. (The photo below is posed, taken after the birds flew out of sight.)

On February 9th, we ventured along scenic Ruby Road near Nogales until we reached the Sycamore Canyon trailhead. We walked south into the Pajarita Wilderness in the Coronado National Forest. We were at the upper end of the canyon that continues down to the Mexican border.

Sometimes the cliffs were quite close to the stream bed. The canyon has one of the few perennial streams in the area.

The pinnacles were magnificent in the morning light.

Because there was so much water in the stream, we had to find rocks to step on or narrow spots that we could hop across. Close to the place where this photo was taken, we met a birding friend who had just seen the warbler we had hoped to see. We hung around that spot for a bit, without luck, then continued downstream.

A little further along, we heard some birds chipping and caught some movement low in the bushes. With some gentle “pishing*” the birds came up and we saw they were the ones we were looking for: Rufous-capped Warblers! The male popped up on a some branches and began to sing. That’s when Doug got this photo. We followed them as moved along the hillside for another few minutes but didn’t get any better views.

* “pishing” is making a “pish, pish, pish, pish” sound by forcing air past clenched teeth with puckered lips. The sound mimics a scold call or alarm call which makes some birds curious. Sometimes they will move into more visible spots. It works best on small inquisitive birds like chickadees, titmice and warblers.

Here’s a view of the area that we first saw the two warblers, taken on our way back.

We walked a little farther along until the canyon was blocked by a steep outcrop. We had our lunch beside this small pool.

The next photos were taken on our way out, as we headed north, back to the parking lot. Here’s a narrow section.

Wendy stood almost in the middle of the stream to get this photo.

This one was taken a few minutes later. The agave stalk is huge!

Here’s a screen shot of a map to give you an idea of how close we were to the Mexican border. There is an unpaved road to the trailhead, but it doesn’t show on this map. It’s 8 km (5 mi) from the road to the border. We turned around at about 2.5 km (1.5 mi) from the trailhead.

After visiting Chino and Sycamore Canyon, we keen to explore new canyons. We read eBird reports and talked to other birders. When we saw a report of a Five-striped Sparrow at Rock Corral Canyon we knew a bit about the place and went the next morning. A rough road goes up the canyon, but just like at Chino Canyon, we parked before a steep downhill section. The photo below was taken at our parking spot.

There was a lot of bird activity just at the corner below the first hill, and we had good views of this Red-naped Sapsucker.

Here’s the spot that the Five-Striped Sparrow had been reported. We waited here a short time without any bird activity, so we decided to explore the canyon.

Doug got ahead and took this photo of Wendy about a half kilometre up the canyon, looking back towards the truck.

This is where we turned around that day, almost a kilometre from where we parked. That day, we saw 28 species, but no Five-striped Sparrow.

About a week later, we went back again with a different strategy. We got to the parking spot earlier and walked directly to the pinned location, and waited there. We scanned the slopes, hoping for a sparrow to appear. We had stood in one spot for a while, when we heard other people coming. It felt like a good time to change positions. Wendy heard some faint chips coming from the underbrush that she didn’t recognize. She “pished” and a bird with a dark brown back flew across the path. She called Doug over and he was able to get some photos. We alerted the other birders and everyone got to see it. Here’s Doug’s best Five-striped Sparrow photo. The photo shows three of the five stripes on its face.

According to “The Sibley Guide to Birds,” Five-striped Sparrows are “rare and local; found at only a few sites in Arizona where dense brushy vegetation covers steep slopes above permanent streams,” and goes on to say, “Secretive and difficult to see in dense brush except when male is singing.” We had only ever seen one before in our life, so we were very happy.

We also visited three washes in February. The first one remains unnamed because it was near to where we saw this Ferruginous Pygmy Owl. Ferruginous Pygmy Owls are sensitive species and any report is hidden on eBird. The little owl is only 17 cm (about 6.5″) high. It is sitting in an ocotillo bush almost hidden. For reference, the ocotillo branch that it is perched on is only about 2.5 cm (1″) wide. Luckily it was hooting, so we could figure out its general area.

The owl is in the middle of the red circle in the lower centre of the photo below. It was about 150 metres up the rocky slope from the wash.

Perhaps you can make out the distinctive saguaro with two short arms on the right side that is right behind the owl, in the photo below. We walked a little closer, but still stayed a long ways away, because we didn’t want to disturb the bird.

Before we saw the Gray Vireo at Chino Canyon, we looked for one in Dobie Wash. Last year, we saw that rare bird when we were in the middle of a five-hour loop hike. This year, we thought we would see if we could find it in the wash, without doing the rest of the hike. We parked in a pullout on Golden Gate Road that was close to the wash. Although we didn’t follow a trail, we weren’t worried about getting lost. Walking in the wash was pretty straightforward.

Dobie Wash, like most washes in the Southwest, are dry except for during heavy rains during monsoon season. We love the shapes of the dead ironwood trees.

We walked up to the old windmill that we discovered last year. It’s a remnant of the work that was done by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. We saw or heard sixteen species of birds that day, but no Gray Vireo.

Another day, we searched again for a Gray Vireo at Wild Burro Wash in the Tortolita Mountains. We often walk along the wash when we’re hiking, but this time we wandered a bit more as we concentrated on the birds. We noticed this boulder with petroglyphs for the first time.

The petroglyphs are quite faint. If we had better light, we might have been able to discern figures throwing spears. Apparently these are pre-Hohokam and date as far back as 6000 BC.

Here’s a view of the flat wash. Usually when we visit this area, we climb up the trails on the ridges that are on both sides of the wash. It was another nice day with nice birds (28 species), but no Gray Vireo.

February was a pretty busy month for exploring and looking at birds. March is shaping up to be just as good.

And sometime soon, we will organize our photos and write-up about the first few weeks in January in Arizona.

After returning from Belize and Guatemala in January, we got back into birding in Arizona. We spent pretty much every day birding. We explored three beautiful canyons searching for rare birds and took so many photos there that we will dedicate Part 2 to the canyons. Part 1 will cover everything else.

In early February, we drove to Willcox for first light, in hopes of seeing sandhill cranes. (January 2025’s post has some beautiful photos in early morning light.) This year however, there wasn’t a crane to be seen at Lake Cochise. We could hear them but they were all way out in the fields. We saw them airborne, as they left their roosting spots and flew off to forage to unknown fields. It was disappointing, but birds are not always predictable. Here’s a view as they flew away from us.

So we drove an hour and a half south to Whitewater Draw, which is famous for the numbers of Sandhill Cranes that roost there each evening. We arrived at 9:15, which meant we had a couple of hours to look at the other birds before the cranes would come back from their morning excursion.

We usually hear Marsh Wrens more often than we see them, and since they rarely pose for photos, any photo is a win. This little guy looks like it just woke up.

Our Merlin app alerted us to the chip note of a Swamp Sparrow, so we tried to find it. It was foraging just below the trail in the shadows, but luckily for us, it spent some time out of the dense cover that the species prefers. Swamp sparrows are considered rare at almost every location that we bird, but they are not unusual at Whitewater Draw.

The Sandhill Cranes started trickling in around 11 o’clock. By noon, a fairly large group of them were resting at the shore close to the trail. At least another several thousand landed farther away and required binoculars or a scope to see them.

Here are a couple cranes in their gray winter plumage. When we see Sandhill Cranes in Canada in the summer, they appear reddish. This is because the cranes will stain their feathers at the beginning of the breeding season. They use their bills to apply small amounts of soil to individual feathers. Perhaps they colour themselves to help them be less conspicuous in periods when they are flightless. Or is it a form of cosmetic colouration? Whatever the reason, the cranes will be a different colour in different areas depending on the colour of the local mud. By the end of summer, the colour wears off and they go back to their normal gray.

Here’s one in flight. They look so awkward on land, but have an aerodynamic profile in the air.

On our way back to Tucson, we stopped in Green Valley and saw the rare Red-breasted Sapsucker on its favourite tree. Sapsuckers stay near their favourite trees because they’ve invested a lot of energy drilling sap wells. They visit the wells frequently throughout the day, enjoying the sap as well as any insect that might also be attracted to the sweet liquid.

In the winter, the closest place that Red-breasted Sapsuckers would normally be found is California. They don’t live near us when we’re home in the summer, so it was nice to see one here.

An American Woodcock showed up in Tubac, so we went to see it. In the winter, this species should be in the Southeast US from East Texas to the Atlantic Coast. It’s a unique looking bird, sometimes referred to as a “Timber Doodle.” It eats earthworms and catches them by probing the soil with its long bill. It moves by taking short forward steps and rocking its body while keeping its head perfectly steady. It’s so much fun to watch!

Everyone stayed on the trail to have a look and take photos, but the woodcock did not seem to even notice us. We had time to chat with other birders that had come to see the bird that morning. We heard the story of how the woodcock had been found.

Apparently, the woodcock had been in the area for several days, but it didn’t become known to the birding community until a video that was taken by a non-birder got to one of the “pros” that come to Tubac for Hawk Watch. This person was able to examine the metadata on the video and determine the location where it was recorded. A group went out one evening and located the bird foraging in the forest near the community centre garden. Luckily, the next morning, a determined birder relocated it. He got the word out and soon several people were watching it. That morning, it stayed within view for at least an hour and a half. Many people saw the woodcock in the next several days.

Another day, we took a day trip up to the Phoenix area to see some new birds and “First of Year” (FOY) birds. We went to Encanto Park, a large park in central Phoenix that was established in 1935. Below is a view of the clubhouse which now can be rented for private functions.

Luckily for us, the Rosy-faced Lovebirds that we had come to see were enjoying the palm trees right by the parking lot. They are a very small, colourful parrot with a relatively large head. This photo gives a good view of their pinkish face.

Here’s another lovebird photo. Rosy-faced Lovebirds are native to Africa, but were accepted on the official ABA bird list in 2013, because of the naturalized population of more than a thousand individuals in the Phoenix area. We have seen this species once before in Hawaii, but those birds were considered “escapees” and didn’t count on our official list. This photo gives a good view of their short blue tail.

Another bird flying around the palm trees caught our eye. We got closer and realized we were looking at a Lewis’s Woodpecker. Lewis’s Woodpeckers fly differently than most other woodpeckers, flying more like a crow. They will sally into the air to catch flying insects rather than drilling into the tree for larvae.

After seeing these two species we were ready to head to the next spot, but we needed the washroom first. Walking over, we realized that the park was a lot larger than we first thought. Here’s a view of the 3 hectare (7.5 acre) lagoon. The whole park is almost 90 hectares (222 acres) and includes sport facilities like tennis courts and softball fields as well as a golf course.

Next we drove to a spot in Queen Creek, where Monk Parakeets were nesting. Monk Parakeets are native to South America and are the most abundant naturalized parrot in the US. The population in Queen Creek is considered “Provisional” because the parrots have been breeding in the wild for several years but are not yet considered “Naturalized.” We can count this one as a new species on our life lists. We saw at least five parakeets, but this one on its nest was the best photo.

Since we were nearby, we visited the Riparian Preserve at the Gilbert Water Ranch. We only saw two American White Pelicans, when we often see a dozen or two. Perhaps they have started migrating north already.

This Black-necked Stilt appears to be looking at its own reflection. Stilts have the same colouration all year. We also saw American Avocets along with over thirty different species at the Water Ranch.

Another day, Doug birded by himself at La Posta Quemada on the east side of Tucson, because he would rather go birding than join Wendy at a quilt show.

The Tucson Quilt Guild’s annual quilt show, “Quilt Fiesta,” was held at the Pima County Fairgrounds. Here are some quilts that Wendy enjoyed.

The top quilt has cacti that were made with a collage quilting technique taught by Jane Haworth. Notice the pieced background which was quilted with a variety of free-motion motifs. This one won 2nd place in the “Art Quilts: Realistic” category and was made by Barbara Lambrecht.

The bottom quilt won an “Honorable Mention” ribbon. It’s an Alaska scene, titled Portage Lake in the Spring. It’s by Ginger Frame.

The next two quilts use fabrics from the Kafe Fasset Collective. The first one is by Doreen Diaz and quilted by Athena Taylor. Doreen modified the “Sparrows” pattern by Pen and Paper by adding sashing and a border.

“Kaffe Butterflies” won an Honorable Mention ribbon. Pat Morris machine pieced and quilted it on her domestic machine.

We only went on one hike that wasn’t focussed on birding, although we did manage to see or hear 19 species over the two hours. We took our binoculars which allowed us to have good views of a Peregrine Falcon and to distinguish the small White-throated Swifts flying overhead. We started on the “Scenic Trail” in Saguaro National Park and made a loop by hiking through Sanctuary Cove.

The trail went over a saddle and along a ridge, giving us a good view of Sombrero Peak (Safford officially), on the left and Panther Peak on the right.

Here are some images from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The bright pink penstemon is one of our favourite flowers.

This is a view of the cactus garden in mid-February.

This is a White-lined Sphinx, also known as a “hummingbird moth,” because of its behaviour and size (5-7 cm / 2-3″ wingspan.) It also enjoys the penstemon flowers at the desert museum. Although they prefer to forage at night, sometimes they fly during the day.

We saw a hummingbird on her nest one day at the desert museum. The next week, we saw a baby hummingbird’s head peeking out.

At Sweetwater Wetlands, we saw this Anna’s Hummingbird with her two babies. They were very close to fledging and they looked really squished in the tiny nest. Doug took the photo from a long ways away with his telephoto lens, and then cropped the image to obtain this photo. We went birding at Sweetwater three times in February, but this is the only photo we have included this time.

We birded four times at El Rio Preserve, and this was our favourite photo from those outings. Here’s a male Cinnamon Teal. Its long, dark spatula-shaped bill strains plant matter and insects from the water.

One cool day, we took a desert walk from our place. We can’t help taking photos of our favourite saguaro grove, so here’s another one. Panther Peak is in the background.

This day, we did the longer loop, following the trail to Panther Peak and then cutting down a more primitive trail to the wash. The route to Panther Peak goes up the draw behind Wendy in the photo below.

We took this photo as we were returning to our place. This is the view of our Redwood from the southeast corner of the property.

We had above average rainfall throughout February, which gave us some days with cloudy conditions. We think the best sunsets need clouds. Here are four “above average” sunsets. This one is from February 5.

Sunset February 14

Sunset February 20

Sunset February 21.

Part 2 will be about the three canyons we visited: Chino Canyon, Sycamore Canyon and Rock Corral Canyon and will be posted soon.

This is our final post of our trip to Belize and Guatemala. (Part 2 of Guatemala, but part 6 of the whole trip.) This post includes our visits to Tikal and Yaxha Maya sites. The Maya structures were incredible and we took so many photos, so this will be a longer than normal post.

We stopped at various spots along the way to Tikal National Park from Las Guacamayas. We saw this Sungrebe from the side of a bridge. The camera was packed away, so this cell phone photo documents another “life bird.” Luckily it swam right under the bridge. It is very poorly named because it isn’t a grebe and it would rather be in a slow-moving shady stream than out in the sun.

We also stopped to see a Northern Potoo that was roosting on the grounds of a luxurious boutique hotel on Lake Peten Itza. (Our guide knew the manager.) Another new bird for us.

We reached Jungle Lodge in Tikal National Park around noon. As you can see from the vegetation around the hotel sign, we were in the jungle. Our guide, Bene, is waiting to help us check in. The roof of the lobby / restaurant is constructed to look traditional but the building was built with modern construction techniques.

Our room wasn’t ready until three o’clock, so in the meantime, we had lunch in the open-air restaurant that is connected to the lobby.

We had time to examine the mural of Tikal, as it might have looked in ancient times.

And we wandered around the grounds and discovered the pool.

Finally our cabana was ready. Each little building had two units. We had an hour to rest before we headed out for our evening bird walk.

We birded around the visitor center, which was built in 1979

Here’s a Keel-billed Toucan that was high in the trees.

There were several Ocellated Turkeys around the parking lot. Hopefully its feet don’t hurt the car’s finish, but its raised height gives a better view of its beautiful feathers.

We watched a Gray Fox skirt around the parking lot. Gray Foxes climb trees with their semi-retractable claws. They are mostly nocturnal and are found throughout the US, Mexico and Central America.

We walked down the wide trail that used to be a dirt airstrip, that was constructed around 1950 to support the archeological investigations.

We continued down the trail, and a little bit past this sign. Bene told us about people who had gotten lost and died in the jungle, hence the signs.

We back-tracked to a couple of reservoirs. In the photo below, Doug and our guide, Bene, are posing in front of an ancient reservoir, which was dug out of the limestone and lined with clay for waterproofing. Scientists are currently studying the Maya reservoirs and the systems that were in place to store potable water. This understanding could be applied to modern constructed wetlands.

We waited by another reservoir for it to get dark. While we waited, we heard the whistled song of Thicket Tinamous. Wendy heard one whistle close to her, but hidden in the undergrowth. She whistled back and it responded and they had a short “conversation,” but the tinamou stayed hidden in the thicket. Doug turned up the volume of his hearing aids and heard them too. We never saw the large ground-dwelling bird.

As the sun set, we noticed some bird activity. Through our binoculars, we watched several Common Pauraques, as they hunted insects in the low-light. We were also able to hear a couple of Yukatan Poorwills.

The next day was our tour of Tikal, with some birding along the way. Near the entrance to Group G, we were lucky to discover a mixed flock that included some Ochre-crowned Greenlets, a new bird for us.

We accessed the inside courtyard by going through a narrow opening, visible in the photo below.

The opening led to a tunnel that turned a corner. The photo below was taken just before we exited.

This is inside the courtyard of Group G, aka The Palace of Grooves. Bene tried to call in a bird with the speaker on his phone, but no bird responded. It felt like a special place that we had all to ourselves.

We continued along a jungle path and saw this Pale-billed Woodpecker. The white “V” on its back distinguishes it from the more common Lineated Woodpecker. They look a little bit like the Pileated Woodpecker that live near our home in BC, but they are of a different genus.

Here’s another view of the Pale-billed Woodpecker.

This was our first view of Temple I.

Temple I was the first temple to be excavated. It’s also known as the Temple of the Great Jaguar because of a jaguar carving on one of its lintels. It was built around AD 700 by the descendent of Jasaw Chan K’awiil, and serves as the powerful ruler’s tomb, who probably planned the building long before his death. The temple has nine stepped levels and has a funerary shrine on the top.

In the photo below, our guide Bene, is explaining the history. Bene was proud of his Mayan roots, and his first language is one of the several Mayan languages. He is the typical height of people of his descent.

This is a photo of Temple I taken from the Great Plaza. Notice how the bottom steps are squared. The archeologists realized when they got down to this level that they had removed more material on the upper steps than they should have. The next photo shows the matching temple, that was excavated with lessons learned from this one.

This is a view of the Great Plaza. Temple II is a matching structure to Temple I and built by Jasaw Chan K’awiil in honour of his wife. The excavation of this temple preserved the front steps. Temple I is out of view on the left. The small roofs protect stelae.

This Black-headed Trogon was in the trees near the Great Plaza. This species has earned the award of “most photographed” of our whole trip, because of its bright colouring and its habit of sitting still for long periods of time.

This is one of the structures in the “Lost World,” a complex that contained some of the oldest structures in Tikal. Bene explained the astronomical significance of each structure; which one was lined up with a solstice or an equinox, but the explanation is too complex for this blog.

This was our first view of Temple IV, the tallest-known structure built by the Maya. We set up the scope here in hopes of seeing a Orange-breasted Falcon. We didn’t see it on our first pass, but we came back to this same spot to see the falcon that was perched near the top.

Temple IV had wooden steps built on one side, so we could access the platform below the final spire. Here is the view above the canopy, looking south towards Temple I and II on the left, and Temple III on the right. Temple III is only partially restored and is closed to the public.

We set up the ‘scope and scoured the tree tops for falcons. We found a couple, but they were Bat Falcons, not the rare Orange-breasted Falcon we were hoping for. And then we heard a falcon calling right near us! And a falcon flew by us and out of sight. Another guide, who knew we were looking for it, saw the bird land on the tower above us. We moved to the staircase and could see the Orange-breasted Falcon perched on the side of the temple. We were blocking the stairway so we couldn’t stay long.

So we went back down to the spot we had checked out before. This is a photo of the top of Temple IV that Doug took with his 400 mm lens. The falcon is circled near the top.

Here’s what the falcon looked like through the scope. One of the other guides, Erdozaín, was an expert at taking cell phone photos through a ‘scope and was able to get this shot with Doug’s phone.

Orange-breasted Falcons are considered “Near Threatened” because of their need for a specialized habitat of towering cliffs surrounded by mature tropical forests. The species treats the temple tower as a cliff and breeds in Tikal. Orange-breasted Falcons are skilled hunters, preying on swifts, swallows, parakeets and bats in flight. They dive at high speed, but can’t land on the ground because they need a drop in order to take off.

We invited other tourists to look through our ‘scope, and soon a small crowd was gathered. At least fifty people saw the falcon through the ‘scope. There was a short rain shower while we there, but we stayed dry under the tree.

After the excitement, we headed for lunch. Bene took us on a “short cut” down a jungle path. We saw a cool butterfly. It’s an owl butterfly known as forest giant owl (Caligo eurilochus). It’s the largest species of butterfly in the Americas and has up to a 20 cm (8″) wingspan. Owl butterflies are named for the huge owl-like eyespots on the underside of their wings, that can confuse predators.

The trail brought us to a clearing and a restaurant, seemingly in the middle of the jungle.

Here’s the interior of the open-air restaurant. The restaurant did a good business, especially with large tour groups. Our lunch was delicious.

We had a relaxed afternoon at Jungle Lodge, and had a dip in the pool, which cooled our core and allowed us to be more comfortable throughout the night.

In the morning, a new driver picked us up at our hotel in Tikal, and we drove east towards the Belize border, with a quick stop at El Remate lakeshore to look for birds.

The Maya site of Yaxha was up a rough road off the highway. Unlike Tikal, Yaxha was situated near a lake. Here’s one of the welcoming signs at the park that is at the lake level. Yaxha was occupied from BC 400 to 1450 AD.

Our driver drove us up to the main site that was at a higher elevation. It was nearing noon when we started birding, so the birds were relatively quiet and we didn’t get any photos. We walked around the site and took more photos of ruins, but have only included a few here.

While the temples at Yaxha were interesting, they didn’t have the grandeur of Tikal. But we almost had the whole place to ourselves. This is near the North Acropolis.

We didn’t argue when Bene said, “Sit down, I want to teach you something.” He got out his white board and marker and told us about the Mayan numbering system. It was base 20, and used only 3 characters (a dot = 1, a bar = 5 and a shell = 0). Numbers were stacked vertically, rather than written horizontally.

On the board below, Bene has written the numbers from 1 to 10 and is starting to do 11. After nineteen, numbers were written vertically in powers of twenty. He quizzed us on larger numbers. It was an interesting exercise, like a brain teaser.

Here are some stelae. The one on the left has a “monkey face” carved in it.

We reached the open-air restaurant for our final lunch in Guatemala, about 3:00. It was in a small community on the highway just outside of Yaxha and didn’t look like much from the street, but served excellent food.

It rained for the rest of the day. We made it through the border into Belize without difficulty and met our new driver. He delivered us to our hotel in Belize City by about 7 that night.

The plan was to fly out the next morning, but when we got up, we had a message that our flight was cancelled due to the bad weather in Dallas / Ft. Worth. We were scheduled on a flight the next day and were able to book another night in the same hotel room.

The pool was just outside our hotel room door, but it was a cool day, so we didn’t swim or even lounge by the pool. We took short walks around the hotel, napped, and Wendy worked on her journal.

It was an uneventful trip home to our place near Tucson.

It’s taken awhile to get all the blogs in our January 2026 in Belize / Guatemala series posted, but while we are doing all the work that goes into the blog, we are remembering and reliving our experiences. We saw so many birds and so many ruins and ate so much good food. It was an amazing trip, probably our best ever.

Our main guides (Hugo and Bene) were personable, had good English and were strong birders. We also had several days with two guides; in Las Guacamayas, Lamanai, and the boat trip in Crooked Tree. Wendy especially liked being able to learn to differentiate the bird calls and songs with help from the guides.

We booked our customized trip through Birdwatching Belize which is associated with Birding Expeditions Guatemala. They arranged all our accommodations, guides and drivers. Highly recommended. http://www.birdwatchingbelize.com

Here are some of our statistics:

• Nights in Belize: 10
• Nights in Guatemala: 4
• Maya sites visited: 5

Birding Statistics:

• eBird Checklists in Belize: 40
  • Species: 197
• eBird Checklists in Guatemala: 18
  • Species: 180
• Life birds
  • Wendy: 49
  • Doug: 47

This is Part 1 of our trip to Guatemala, but actually Part 5 of the whole trip (Belize and Guatemala). It will cover our visit to Las Guacamayas Biological Station and Jungle Lodge.

A driver met us at Black Rock Lodge and drove us through San Ignacio to the border of Guatemala which was about a half hour away. We paid an exit tax to leave Belize, got our passports stamped and then walked across the border. Our new guide and driver somehow maneuvered their way into the busy section between the two border control buildings. It was great to be met with “Wendy? I’m your guide Bene. We’ll take your bags,” in the middle of all the confusion. We worked our way across the street and Bene helped us get in the proper line to get our passports checked. A long line of tourists were having their passports stamped as they were exiting Guatemala.

Once we were through with the formalities, we quickly loaded into a 4-wheel drive truck that was parked in a rough parking area. The next challenge was getting back into the line of traffic between the trucks. Within a few minutes we made our first “technical stop” (as our guide liked to call it) to cover the luggage in the back of the pickup with a tarp in preparation for the rough road ahead and use a washroom. The first couple of hours of our five hour drive to Las Guacamayas Biological Station were on paved roads, but potholes dominated so it was bumpier than the gravel roads that came next.

This was the last flush toilet along our route in a small village of San Andres. According to the commemorative plaque, the water system was constructed in June of 2024. Our guide paid 2 Quetzals (about 25 cents) at “Comercial Edith” for Wendy to use the facilities. (Two days later, on our way out, we saw a truck being loaded with bags and bottles of fresh water here.) We still had almost two more hours in our journey to the biological station.

We reached the village of Paso Caballos about 2 o’clock. There was a short rough road that led to the river bank. Here Wendy is getting into the boat that will take us on our last part of our journey.

It was a calm fifteen minute boat ride down the slow moving San Pedro River. Our assistant guide, sitting in the front on the photo below, was known as “Beto.” He was multi-talented, working as a birding guide, driver, and boat captain for us.

We arrived at the Biological Station of Las Guacamayas and Jungle Lodge about two o’clock. The biological station is in Laguna Del Tigre (Jaguar Lagoon), the largest national park in Guatemala and part of the Maya Biosphere Reserve.

This is the boardwalk to our room.

The room was very tastefully furnished and had a mini-split air conditioner. The air conditioner was operational when the generator was on, which was usually in the evening. We never needed the bug curtains.

We had the “Jaguar” room, with jaguar accents on the chair and bathroom mirror.

After a late lunch and a short rest, we headed out to bird around the grounds and up a trail to the limestone cliff above the station. At the top, there was a lookout platform that allowed us to be at the same level as the canopy. The tree that Wendy and our guide, Bene are looking at had several warblers in it, although they were still hard to photograph. We saw an American Redstart, Magnolia Warblers, and a Black-throated Green Warbler. The mixed flock also included White-browed and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.

Here’s the view to the east from the lookout.

We stayed until sunset. There was smoke in the air from some burning that (we hope) was outside of the park (probably clearing jungle for a field.)

We returned to the lodge just as it was fully dark, and our dinner was ready. At 8:30 pm, we went for a night boat ride. The guides would shine lights into the jungle along the shoreline. If “eye shine” was detected, the captain would stop the boat and maneuver it so we could see the bird. We mostly saw Little Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets. The “night birds” included a Common Pauraque, a Mottled Owl and a rare Spot-tailed Nightjar.

We had a good view of the resident crocodile from the dock. They call him “Bobby” and we think he is a Morelet’s Crocodile. They don’t feed him, but he will respond and come when the water is slapped with a paddle, if he’s in the area. He was about 3 metres long (10 feet), which is about as big as this species gets.

The next morning, we headed down to the dock again.

This time, the boat took us west, to the beginning of the trail to El Perú, an archeological site for an ancient Maya city. Our goal, however was to bird along the 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) of road to the Ranger station.

The trail / road had muddy sections. Here Beto (the assistant guide) is looking at a jaguar print in the mud. The road is used by the rangers to ferry their supplies to their camp, as well as by soldiers who are stationed farther up the road closer to the Mexican border. We could mostly walk around the worst sections.

We saw or heard over fifty species on our walk. The new ones for us were: Yellow-billed Cacique, Stub-tailed Spadebill, Tropical Royal Flycatcher and Northern Barred Woodcreeper.

Here’s another couple of photos of a Black-headed Trogon (previously seen in Lamanai – Part 3 blog post). Doug likes the subtle colouring of this trogon’s back best.

We were really lucky to get good views of this Rufous-tailed Jacamar. This handsome bird looks like a giant hummingbird. Jacamars eat flying insects, especially butterflies, dragonflies and wasps. After a jacamar has caught an insect, it beats it several times against a branch. That action stuns it and removes wings to make it easier to swallow.

Here’s a Least Flycatcher. We saw several on the trip. Least flycatchers, as you might guess from their name are the smallest of the Empidonax (empid) family. Because their primary feathers on their wing are short, it makes their thin tail seem longer. They foraged close to the ground, which made them easier to photograph.

Here’s a view of the ranger station/camp. It was fairly basic. The rangers had to bring in all their supplies, although they had a small garden. They cooked over wood fires, and collected rain water. However, there were solar panels behind the main building, perhaps to allow enough electricity for communication.

Part of the ranger’s job was to protect the Scarlet Macaw nesting sites. Here is an artificial nest box, high up in a tree. This area is a vital nesting ground for Scarlet Macaws, and includes a large number of the kind of trees that they prefer.

We got back to the biological station in time for lunch. This lunch was a whole tilapia each, served with french fries, lemon and lemonade.

We went out in the boat again that afternoon along the San Pedro River. We saw thirty species, including a better view of the Yellow-billed Cacique, a “life bird” from this morning.

We had another good view of the sunset, then continued birding in the darkness and heard both the Great Tinamou and the Thicket Tinamou.

Our visit to Las Guacamayas Biological Station and Lodge was memorable. A small team of people kept everything running smoothly. The food was authentic and tasty. The birding opportunities were varied, from the feeders and trail near the lodge and the longer jungle trail reached by boat, to the river excursions, both in daylight and darkness. We saw 138 species around the lodge, as well as the stops along the road that were in the Laguna Del Tigre National Park. Included in that total were eight “lifers.”

Our next, and final post will be about our visit to the Maya sites of Tikal and Yaxha, both national parks in Guatemala.

Our final blog post about Belize will be about our visit to the Green Hills Butterfly Ranch, Black Rock Lodge and Caracol Maya site.

From the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, we drove out to the Northern Highway, heading south. Luckily our driver has good eyes and noticed a large bird flying nearby. We stopped the car and walked across the road to scan the field. Soon, the huge bird was flying in our view. Wendy was so surprised when she saw it before the others, she couldn’t say “Jabiru,” just “large white bird.” Luckily everyone had a chance to see it. It was gone too quickly for a photo, but it was unmistackable.

Here’s a poster of a Jabiru from our dining room at Bird’s Eye Lodge. They are huge, massive-billed storks that range in size from 90 – 130 cm (37 – 52″). Sometimes, if the water is low, there are several Jabirus in the shallow water near the lodge, but not this year. We were worried that we might not get a chance to see one. It was another “life bird” for the trip.

After the excitement, we continued south, then bypassed Belize City and joined the Western Highway at Hattiville. By mid-morning we were in Belmopan, the capital of Belize. We stopped at the Art Box, a cafe and gift shop, with unique decor. Here’s Doug posing by their mural.

We continued west, soon reaching the Green Hill Butterfly Ranch. We weren’t there to see butterflies, however. They also had extensive feeders for hummingbirds and we got the best views of hummingbirds of the whole trip.

This one is a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. They were quite common and we saw them at every place we stayed. They would feed on flowers as well as visit feeders.

We only saw a Scaly-breasted Hummingbird at the Butterfly Ranch. This rather large, dullish green hummingbird has a mottled breast that is not obviously scaly.

We saw five more species of hummingbirds at the Butterfly Ranch, but their names didn’t end in “hummingbird.” We saw a “mango”, two species of “hermits,” some “jacobins,” an “emerald,” and some “sabrewings.” All the different names for all the species make it difficult to look them up by searching “hummingbird” unless you look them up by family (Trochilidae).

This Green-Breasted Mango belongs to the Anthracothorax genus, commonly called “mangos.” Mangos are medium-sized hummingbirds that have stout bodies, slightly curved bills and broad, metallic tails.

“Hermit” hummingbirds have less vibrant, more camouflaged plumage and most of them have long-decurved bills. This one is a Long-billed Hermit.

“Sabrewings” get their name from the shape of the male’s outer wing feathers which are flattened and curved resembling a sabre. This one is a Violet Sabrewing.

These are White-necked Jacobins. They are very agile and are also very territorial. Wherever we see them, they push their way to the feeder. The male (with the blue head) has a white patch on the back of his neck which is not visible in the photos below. The female is a brilliant green with an interesting patterned neck. We saw them at four locations on our trip.

The only hummingbird at this location that we hadn’t seen before was the White-bellied Emerald. (After this sighting, we saw the species four different times.) Both sexes of this small and rather plain hummingbird look “female-plumaged.”

After the Butterfly Ranch, we stopped for lunch at “D Family Restaurant.” Unfortunately the weather was cool, so we didn’t eat on the upper deck.

We drove up an eleven kilometre (7 mile) dirt road reaching the secluded Black Rock Lodge shortly after 1 o’clock, just as it started to rain.

Here’s the view looking down from the restaurant, towards the Macal River. In more pleasant weather, people float down the river in tubes, and swim in the outdoor pool.

Here’s a view of half of our room. It was one of 20 cabins on the property. The toilet paper decoration in this room was unique, so Doug had to take a photo.

Around 4 o’clock the rain had let up enough for us to contemplate a walk. We walked along a road that headed upstream to the tubing area. It looked down on the lodge’s farm. The lodge is totally off-grid and relies on solar and hydro-power.

Wendy put on several layers of clothing to enjoy “Happy Hour” at the restaurant, since it was open to the outdoors. Belikin stout was our favourite beer of the trip, and available throughout Belize.

The next morning before it was light, we stopped at the staff parking lot to see a Spectacled Owl. The lodge provided us with a packed breakfast.

We drove the winding newly-paved road through the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve and stopped at the Guacamallo Bridge over the Macal River. From this vantage point, we saw a pair of distant Scarlet Macaws. They were even with the bend in the river. seen in the photo below. We got the ‘scope on them, but they were still very, very small. At the moment Wendy was looking at them through the scope, they took off from their perch and flew directly towards us, staying in “scope view” for a good distance. Soon they flew right over us. These were the only Scarlet Macaws that we saw on the trip, although we heard them in one other location. They are a “sensitive” species and will be hidden to the public from our eBird checklist. Scarlet Macaws are threatened by poaching for the illegal pet market.

There were several other birds that were much closer, however. We got a much better view of a Blue Bunting. The other little birds included the ever-present Morelet’s Seedeaters and Melodious Blackbirds, a Green-backed Sparrow and a couple of Blue-Black Grosbeaks.

Bigger birds included common Brown Jays and spectacular Montezuma Oropendolas. The Montezuma Oropendola (photo below) has a very memorable song that sounds like water being poured from a bottle, which we heard often throughout the trip, but this was our best view of its ornate face. Oropendolas nest in colonies of large pendulous nests, which gives the species their name.

We stopped a few minutes up the hill at the Chiquibul Forest Reserve Ranger Station. All the forest reserves have manned gates to restrict access and keep records of comings and goings. We didn’t come to go into the reserve. Our guide worked at the station sometimes when the guiding was slow, so he knew that we would be able to use the washroom there.

As a bonus, we saw two “life birds,” a White Hawk on a far hillside and an Acadian Flycatcher.

Doug took long distant “doc shots” of the White Hawk on the hillside from the ranger station, but luckily, just around the corner, a White Hawk was perched close to the road, so he could got a better picture.

We drove about another half hour on the newly paved road and reached the Caracol Maya site. Caracol was once home to as many as 150 000 people and was continuously occupied from at least 600 BC to almost AD 1100. It is believed that there are over 35 000 buildings on the site although only some of them have been excavated.

Near the visitor centre is a covered ramada that houses original artifacts. Here’s our fox mascot (travelswithafox.blog) on a Maya stone head.

The bottom section of this stela shows a person kneeling in front of a king. The bottom part of the king’s scepter is also visible.

This was our first view of the B Plaza and the highest structure, “Caana,” also known as “Sky Palace.” It’s hard to grasp the scale because the top is barely in view from here.

On the left is one of the first structures we walked to, at the entrance to the B Plaza. It’s somewhat pyramidal in shape with “wings.” The photo on the right shows the decorative detail.

This same “pyramid” structure is behind Wendy as she starts the climb up the highest structure “Caana.” At this point in the climb. she is even with the height of the smaller structure and is on her second flight of stone steps.

There was a narrow flat area with some walls for rooms, then the steps began again. Here Doug is resting before talking the next section. The steps were far enough apart to be a comfortable seat, but were a long stretch for a step.

Here’s the view looking down from those same steps Doug had been sitting on. The rooms are visible on the level below.

We reached a plaza level, then climbed another set of stairs and finally reached the top of the more than 40 metre (140 foot) pyramid. This is the view out over the jungle.

This is the view from the top looking down into the courtyard below. The smaller “pyramid” structure is behind us in the photo below.

We forgot to take a photo of the plaza area on the way up. The stairs where the photo of Wendy climbing was taken are out of view below the plaza area. It was easiest to walk diagonally downwards down these steep steps. Once we were at the plaza level, we watched others climb the temples on the right or left.

Our guide carried the scope all the way to the top where we saw some very distant parrots. Here Hugo is at a lower level and hoping to see a Barred Forest-Falcon, a bird that we only heard.

We continued our tour through the trails to other sections of the site. Here’s a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk that was perched on the edge of the forest. Broad-winged Hawks winter in Central America and spend their summers in the eastern part of the US and Canada. They are a bit smaller than a Red-tailed Hawk.

If you look closely to the left of the tree that Doug is standing beside, you might be able to see the hawk perched on a horizontal branch. Doug walked up to the tree, blocking the hawk’s view of him, so he could get closer for a photo.

Here are some other birds that we saw at Caracol. This is a Black-cheeked Woodpecker. Its big black mask, and white patch behind its eye are distinctive. This was the only one that we saw on the whole trip.

This is a Collared Aracari, a kind of toucan; front view and back view. Notice the serrated pattern on its big bill. They mostly eat fruit, but also consume insects, eggs and small animals.

These are two views of the Central Acropolis. Excavations are still continuing at Caracol and once it has been fully excavated it may be larger than nearby Tikal in Guatemala.

We finished our day in Caracol with a picnic lunch near the visitor centre. It took us about two hours to get back to Black Rock Lodge. We said good-bye to Hugo, because the rest of our trip would be in Guatemala where we would meet our new guide.

We saw 197 species of birds in Belize, including several life birds. We visited three districts in Belize: Belize, Orange Walk and Cayo. We also visited three Maya sites: La Milpa, Lamanai and Caracol.

Part 4 and 5 of the trip will be posted soon.

This post will be about the Lamanai Maya Site, and our visit to Crooked Tree, including a birding expedition by boat.

We left La Milpa Field Station and back-tracked to the town of San Felipe, and turned right to head southeast towards the Lamanai Archaeological Reserve. Along the way, we stopped when we saw interesting birds. Here is the well-named Roadside Hawk. This hawk was quite common along the roadsides, on power poles, wires and posts out in fields. This streaky individual is a juvenile. Its broad banded tail distinguishes it from other juvenile hawk species.

We also saw several Groove-billed Anis on this day and over sixty throughout the trip. At first glance, they reminded us of Great-tailed Grackles with their long floppy tails, but their strange-looking heads make them very unique. This species of cuckoo is often found in groups, awkwardly crashing around.

Here is the entrance to the Lamanai Maya site if you arrive by car. Most visitors arrive by boat, since the site is along the New River Lagoon. It is a popular tour for cruise ships, so we were happy that there wasn’t a ship in port the day we visited.

This is a small version of a typical Maya home that would have been constructed outside the central section. The pole walls would have been daubed or coated with clay, then whitewashed with lime.

Lamanai is Belize’s longest-occupied Maya site. Archeologists have found signs of continuous occupation from 1500 BC until AD 1700. This one is known as the Mask Temple. It is the smallest of the three excavated pre-Columbian temples.

This massive structure is known as the High Temple. Its 33 metres (108 feet) high overlooks the canopy and could have been used as a lookout and a celestial observatory. If you look closely you can see the railing near the top. There is a staircase around the back that visitors can climb if they choose. We stayed on the ground and continued our search for birds in the mid-day heat.

Beside one of the temples, perched high in a tree was a Double-toothed Kite. The two tooth-like notches on its upper beak (double tooth) can still be seen in this “zoomed in” photo. It uses its teeth for dismembering its insect or lizard prey.

Nearby to the kite was a Slaty-tailed Trogon. Several species of trogons have red bellies, but the Slaty-tailed doesn’t have a white strip on its belly and has an entirely dark gray undertail. This one is a male because he has an orange eye-ring and orange bill.

After the bird excitement, we climbed to a higher level of the Stela 8 Temple.

Our local guide, who was an expert on the archeology as well as being a bird guide, explained the Stela to us, on a replica stela. Wendy bought a t-shirt with the stela design, which is easier to see the details. Many stelae that we saw had an image of a king with a headdress, facing left and holding a decorated staff. The image is surrounded by hieroglyphic text.

Our first view of the Jaguar Temple was awe-inspiring.

The Jaguar Temple is a stepped pyramid and while the exposed structure is shorter than the High Temple, a significant amount of the temple is still underground. The back has been overtaken by the jungle.

This is one of the jaguar masks made of carved stone that are on each side of the structure. The spaces then made niches to leave offerings to the Jaguar God.

On our way back to the entrance on trails through the jungle, Wendy was looking more closely at a mahogany tree and noticed a a bird climbing the trunk. She alerted the guides and we all had good looks at a Ruddy Woodcreeper, a new bird for us.

A few minutes later, we came across a “mixed flock.” There were so many birds, is was hard to know which one to focus on. The “sentinel” of the flock was a Black-throated Shrike-Tanager, a bird we had never seen before. A Shrike-Tanager will give alarm calls when a hawk or other predator is around. When our guides heard its call, they knew the flock would be near. The “life-birds” that were part of that flock were: Worm-eating Warbler, Green-backed Sparrow and Blue Bunting. Having two birding guides was really helpful!

Close to the exit, we had a good view of a Black-headed Trogon. (Another life bird) This medium-sized trogon has a complete blue-gray eye-ring; with females having a yellow belly and males an orange one. Like the Slaty-tailed trogon that we saw earlier in the day, these trogons dig their nests in arboreal termite nests.

We had a few hours of driving to get to our next hotel. The Birds Eye View Lodge was on the shores of the Western Lagoon in the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. Here’s a view of our air-conditioned room and the deck immediately outside our door.

This is a view down to the boats from the deck outside our room. It was nice to see a Canadian flag, that was raised for us as well as another couple of Canadians in another group.

We birded in the grounds of the hotel a number of times. Here’s a male Orchard Oriole.

Nearby in the same tree, was this Yellow-throated Warbler. He’s looking a little dishevelled because he has just taken a bath.

We saw many Little Blue Herons throughout the trip, but this one was probably the closest. It was in the shallow water near the boats. A juvenile Little Blue Heron is all white, which makes us look carefully in order to not confuse it with a Snowy Egret. A Little Blue Heron would never be confused with a Great Blue Heron, but now you know why the Great Blue can’t just be called a Blue Heron.

There were several Limpkins along the shore of the lagoon. They loved feeding on snails, which is almost all they eat.

This is a Northern Jacana which was walking along the bank of the lagoon, which allows a view of its huge feet. Their feet displace their weight so they can walk along lily pads and other floating vegetation. On our boat trip the next day, we saw over 120 of them.

This Ringed Kingfisher perched close to shore. It’s the largest kingfisher in the Americas. This one is a male because his breast is entirely red, while the female has a blue-gray band bordered in white.

The next morning before breakfast, we took a boat tour. Here’s Doug as we wait in the early morning light. Some other groups piled twelve people into their boat, while we had a boat for ourselves, and our guide. The captain was also a birding guide, so it made for a very successful trip.

Here are a couple of Snail Kites, an adult male on the left and a juvenile on the right. Their bill is adapted for opening snails, which they feed on exclusively.

This is a Black-collared Hawk. Its black collar is tucked under his chin. It perches near water and swoops down to snatch fish or frogs. It was a new bird for us.

This is a Great Egret which we see often in SW Arizona. They were also very plentiful on this trip, and we recorded over 20 of them on eleven checklists.

This awkwardly cute bird is a Boat-billed Heron. This species spends the daytime roosting in trees and comes out at night to feed along the edges of lakes and rivers.

We saw this female Rose-throated Becard along the edge of the lagoon, which was quite wonderful, because we’ve only seen them high in the treetops before. As is common in many birds, it’s the male colouring that gives the species its name.

We’re thinking this is a Tropical Kingbird. Our guides wouldn’t say for sure unless they heard the bird vocalizing because there was a chance it could be a Couch’s Kingbird. The two species look almost identical and their ranges overlap from Texas to Belize. However, every bird that vocalized was a Tropical Kingbird, so our probability it quite high.

This is a Yucatan Woodpecker, that was a long way up in a tree. This woodpecker is endemic to the area and looks like a smaller version of a Golden-fronted Woodpecker which we have seen before in Texas. Luckily it has quite a different call. This one was a “life bird” for us. The other “life birds” on the boat trip were Black Catbird, Ruddy Crake and Gray-throated Chat.

Our captain steered the boat out of the lagoon through shallow water, until we reached a slightly deeper slow-moving river. Here is a view that looks like we are heading for land. We were confident that he knew the channel.

Here’s a view of the main lodge building. There is another building out of view on the left. Our room was above the restaurant on the right.

Later on the same day of the boat trip, we went to the farmland near to the lodge and saw a Yucatan Flycatcher and a flock of Yucatan Jays, both species that only live in this area and were new birds to us.

Here we are with our guide, Hugo. He spoke good English and also his native Spanish, but his most admiring quality was his love and knowledge of birds. He made sure we had a good look at every new species. Hugo also drove us, so he had some long days of concentration.

This post (January 2026 in Belize – Part 3) covered two days of our ten day birding tour. We have six more days to record: two more in Belize and then four in Guatemala.

This post will be about the our next few days in Belize and includes photos from the La Milpa Field Station and the La Milpa Maya archeological site, along with some birds we saw.

This photo of the English style mailbox in Belize City should have been included in the previous post. One of the reasons we chose to visit Belize is because the official language is English. Belize was formerly a crown colony known as British Honduras. Internal self-government was granted in 1964, with the renaming to Belize in 1973. Belize achieved full independence in 1981. It was pleasant to be able to talk in English with the hotel staff.

It took most of the day to drive from Belize City to La Milpa Field Station in the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area. We drove north up the Philip Goldson Highway to Orange Walk Town, then west and southwest to San Filipe where we turned and followed the road that hugged the Mexican border at one point. We birded the rice fields close to the Mennonite Communities near Blue Creek Village. Near the rice fields we had a good view of a Laughing Falcon and a quick view of a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, both new birds for us.

We arrived at La Milpa Field Station in the mid-afternoon. Here’s a view of our cabana. The cabanas were set up like duplexes, with a wrap around porch. They were modern versions of the traditional hut, and had screen windows, but the roof was made of thatch only.

In the photo below, Wendy is walking towards the restaurant. The open section on the left was for outdoor dining, and it was attached to the main building.

Here’s a photo of the restaurant interior, and a good view of our dinner. Fresh-squeezed juice was served at every meal, and could be orange, watermelon, papaya, or various combinations. Everyone was served the same dinner, and they accommodated my need for no garlic. (A woman in the other group that was there at the same time had a special meal for her diet.)

There were coatimundis roaming the grounds. Coatimundis are related to racoons and use their snouts to sniff out food on the forest floor. When they climb trees, their semi-prehensile tail helps keep them balance.

Ocellated Turkeys were also everywhere around the cabins. We had hoped to see this beautiful bird and it turned out it wasn’t hard at all. The species is considered rare, but they were plentiful in this protected area. They are threatened by habitat loss from logging and agriculture and hunting pressure.

This is male Great Curassow, that roamed the areas of the field station on the edge the forest. This species is also rare and found usually in protected parks or very remote areas.

We birded around the grounds a number of times, and added Olive-throated Parakeet, Yellow-winged Tanager and Northern Schiffornis to our life list of bird species seen.

Most of the birds were high up in the canopy or low in the thick underbrush, but this Lesser Greenlet was cooperative at the water dish.

This is a male Yellow-throated Euphonia. (There was a photo of a greenish female in the previous post.) They feed on fruit in forests and also visit feeders. The small species (5 – 11cm / 2 – 4.5″) is common throughout Belize.

We saw many Summer Tanagers throughout our trip, but this one at La Milpa Field Station was the first. We saw it several times in the few days we were there. Its distinctive “pituk” call drew our attention.

This White-whiskered Puffbird was a bit of a surprise, because they usually stay in the humid forest. Our guide’s cabin was right on the edge of the clearing for the field station and he saw it from his porch as we were getting ready to leave. He came to find us and luckily he was able to relocate it so we got a good view. Puffbirds will perch for a long time and are difficult to see unless they move as they feed.

Just up a rough road from the Field Station, is the trail to the La Milpa Archeological Site. La Milpa was the third largest Maya site and almost 50 000 people lived there at its height between AD 400 and 830. Most of the site is not excavated, and is visited mostly by birders nowadays.

The mounds are man-made structures that are being taken over by the jungle. We saw or heard sixteen species in this area, including an Ivory-billed Woodcreeper, Chestnut-colored Woodpecker, and Black-cowled Oriole (new birds for us). We saw a couple of Slaty-tailed Trogons as well.

There is a fallen stela in front of this temple. Some of the markings were barely visible. Seeing this Maya site was a good way to start are trip since the other four sites had more restoration.

People have climbed up this temple with the aid of a climbing rope, which is just barely visible in the photo below.

In the photo below, our guide, Hugo is explaining the trench that is visible on the left. He told us that looters dug through the centre of this tomb in the 1970s, and he hopes that missed treasures that were buried on a different axis.

We spent two nights at the La Milpa Field Station. The next blog post, January in Belize – Part 3 will be about our trip to Crooked Tree including a stop at the Lamanai Maya Site.

We travelled to Belize and Guatemala on the last two weeks of January as a celebration of our fiftieth wedding anniversary last August. This post is about the first two days that we had on our own in Belize City, before our birding tour began. It includes more photos of meals than usual, so you might not want to read it on an empty stomach.

Doug enjoyed his meal on the flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Belize City. Here’s his view as the plane approached the airport in Belize.

We stayed at the Ft. George Hotel. Our room was on the fifth floor on the far left (curtains open) in the photo below.

Here’s the view from our hotel room window. We could birdwatch from the window, and saw Royal Terns, Laughing Gulls and a Reddish Egret along with numerous Brown Pelicans.

This is a photo of an aerial view poster of the section of Belize City where we stayed. The tower of the Fort George Hotel is on the right, The lighthouse in the middle and the Belize sign along the shore on the left. Just past the water taxis, on the shoreline with the red roof, is Martha’s Cafe which is featured later in this post.

We were lucky to find a time when the Belize sign was uncrowded. The letters are about 2 metres (6 feet) high.

When we were planning for the trip, Doug decided that he really wanted to have a good look at a Morelet’s Seedeater. We had previously seen them along the Rio Grande in Texas, but we had brief and distant views. He was very excited when the seedeaters were foraging just below the sea wall. He took the photo of the little bird with his cell phone. Throughout the trip, we saw about forty of this species and they were included in eleven checklists, so they were a pretty common bird, but it was a good start to the trip.

We had one “special” dinner to celebrate our 50th (again!) on our first day in Belize at the fancy restaurant at the Fort George Hotel. Doug enjoyed a snapper fillet with truffle mashed potatoes and Wendy had pepper crusted Ahi tuna. For breakfast, we ate in the glass ceilinged section of the same restaurant (The Tree House.)

That afternoon, we walked to Martha’s Cafe, just past the Belize sign. We saw a Cinnamon Hummingbird on the way, and it was the only time we saw that species on the trip, so the iPhone photo will have to do.

This Green Iguana hung out on a wharf near to shore. It was over a metre (40″) long.

At 4:30 in the afternoon, we had the choice of tables at Martha’s Cafe. We enjoyed the local Belikin beer on that night and on several occasions throughout our trip. It was standard practise to drink from the refillable bottle, which was cleaned then presented with a napkin cover.

We finished our dinner just as the sun was setting, so we had time to walk back to our hotel before it got completely dark.

We enjoyed our dinner so much we chose to go back to Martha’s Cafe for breakfast. We ordered a typical Belizean breakfast that included scrambled eggs with vegetables mixed in, refried black beans, fruit (cantalope, watermelon, papaya, or mango), and Johnny cakes (like a baking powder biscuit). We didn’t really realize that we would be eating something similar for the rest of the trip. Luckily, we enjoyed it and all the variations we were served.

We ate on the porch of Martha’s Cafe. Here’s what the interior looks like.

Since we had arrived a day early for our birding tour, we arranged to go to the Belize Zoo on our extra day. Here is Wendy with our guide, Cairo at the entrance. The Belize Zoo was founded in 1983 by Sharon Matola who was left with some wild animals that that she had been caring for that were part of a natural history documentary. She decided to start a zoo. It has become a wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and education faculty. It was about a forty-five minute drive from our hotel.

The signs are quirky and most of them explain why the animal is at the zoo, while others focus on how important it is to protect wildlife. All the animals in the zoo have been rescued, orphaned, injured or abandoned and are native to Belize.

Here’s a spider monkey. We saw many of this species throughout our trip, but these were the closest. Spider monkeys move through the forest by swinging, while howler monkeys climb.

The jaguar is the iconic mammal in Belize, but they are very difficult to see in the wild. This old cat is blind in one eye and didn’t seem to mind the people passing on the path in front of him.

We may never see a Harpy Eagle in the wild, but they had two at the zoo. It is a massive bird of prey and lives in mature forest in specific areas of Central and South America.

The zoo was also a great place to see wild birds. Since the trails criss-crossed throughout the jungle habitat there was more opportunity to be closer to a bird. Below is a Great Kiskadee, which we saw or heard over a dozen times in our time in Belize and Guatemala, but this was the best photo that Doug obtained of the species. Its “kis-ka-dee” call is loud and distinctive.

Another bird that we saw frequently throughout the trip was the Gray Catbird. Gray Catbirds spend the summer in many parts of the US and Canada (including around our community in British Columbia). They don’t sing when they’re in their winter home, but they do make a cat-like sound: “MeeUrr.” They like to hide in thick undergrowth so this view at the zoo was one of our best of the trip.

We saw over forty Brown Jays throughout our tour. They have a raucous call, “kleer, Kleer, kleer” and are often in groups. These wild Brown Jays at the zoo seemed to be used to being around people.

This is a female Yellow-throated Euphonia, a tiny tropical finch. There was a male nearby, and our guide was surprised that they were the same species, because the male’s plumage is so bold with a dark blue top and bright yellow underside.

If you look really closely, you can see a tiny bit of pink on this male Rose-throated Becard. This species is one that we have seen in Arizona and in Texas, but they are usually high up in the canopy, so seeing this one so close was a treat. The rainforest birds of this species are dark slaty gray and may not show a pink throat patch, making them look appreciatively different from the ones we have seen in Arizona.

We saw many warblers throughout the trip that spend their winters in the tropics. American Redstarts seemed to be everywhere, and we saw or heard over fifteen individuals in the two weeks. This male at the zoo was probably the most cooperative however. The American Redstart is not actually red, but it’s named after a similar European species that has a redder tail.

Black-and-White Warblers are rare in Arizona and never get to our place in BC, so we were excited to see this one at the zoo. This species also was quite common in the other locations that we birded, although we never got bored of watching its “trunk-creeping” behaviour.

Our guide, who was not a birder, was really good at finding birds and he pointed out this one to us. It was the first Hooded Warbler that we had ever seen. We saw and heard them as many times as the Black-and-White over the length of the trip, but this view might have been one of the best. Hooded Warblers like to forage in the undergrowth and lower foliage; flitting around, making a photo difficult.

We also saw and heard a Spot-breasted Wren, another life bird. It was really near the trail and we saw it through our binoculars, but sadly, no photo. We heard their distinctive call many times during the rest of the trip, but we never got as good a look as the one in the zoo. So if you are a birder with some free time in Belize City, the zoo is a great place. Actually anyone who appreciates wildlife would find it interesting.

This blog (January in Belize: Part 1) recounts our first two days in Belize. We expect there will be three more for Belize and two or three for Guatemala, to be posted soon.