http://www2.xlibris.com/books/webimages/wd/47589/
by Elbert and Bubba
2006
Two point five
BIRD WATCHING WITH BUBBA
Two Point Five
“You can observe a lot by just watching”
Yogi Berra
"A humorous gonzo style of bird watchers guide to
SAN PEDRO SUN
“ Probably the only bird watching guide in the world that includes a recipe! Very informative and delicious”
THE
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
BUBBA
PREFACE
I am by most peoples' fantasies one of the luckiest men on the planet. I’ve built myself a little beach house on a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of
There is a river without a bridge between my end of the island and the village with little more than a beach path for six miles to reach my Cocal. Bubba and I come and go by boat along the reef. It's a fine boat, 23 feet of fiberglass with a good engine. In a way it is my car. I keep it at my dock on the
One of the nicer aspects of my home is that it's all paid for, no mortgage, no bills and no telephone and, like that old hippie dream, the land provides me with food and water when pizza and beer are in short supply.
I have become a Belizean citizen and tour guide, taking tourist from the village SCUBA diving on the barrier reef, fishing and bird watching in the jungle. It's a nice way to make a living. I have as good a time as they do...you think I’m lucky also, don’t you?
Bubba and I set out to write this book about birds almost 10 years ago. I was a school teacher in the
I’ve made this book as a collection the stories we published in the local newspaper. The stories, 120 total, are printed here as they were published in our ‘bird of the week’ column for the SAN PEDRO SUN.
The names of the locations are real, and right where the book says they are. It's not a guidebook but if you wish to read it as such, I used all the bars and bartenders' correct names so you won’t get lost. We tried to make all the bird information as accurate as possible, but that's not at all what ‘BIRD WATCHING WITH BUBBA’ is about, as you will see.
Contents
Preface
1. Bubba 51. Grackle
2. Ambergris caye 52. Mayan Oriole
3. San Pedro 53. Gray Silky Flycatcher
4. Cleo 54. Cormorant
5. The Jabiru Stork 55. Kingfisher
6. Kiskadee 56. Grayheaded Kite
7. Birdwatchers Guide 57. Osprey
for the complete idiot 58. Chachalaca
8. Bubbas Birdwatching 59. Discourse with Birds
Philosophy 60. Royal Tern
9. Shorebirds 61. Magnolia warbler
10. Barstool Birdwatching 62. Rufous Tailed Hummingbird
11. Limpkin 63. American Great Egret
12. Mangrove Swallow 64. Little Blue Heron
13. Subspecies 65. BIRDS OF
14. Bumblebee Hummer 66. La Laguna Del Pajaros
15. Lovely Rita 67. Barstool Birdwatching ,Maskall
16. The Great Blue Heron 68. The Blackcrowned Tityra
17. Birdmanship 69. The whistling Duck
18. Squirrel Cuckoo 70. Woodcreepers
19. Black Eagle 71. Birdlistening
20. Savanna Vulture 72. Leaping Lizards
21. Ambergris Owl 73. Faith and Science
22. Black Catbird 74. The Blackheaded Gull
23. Bubba meets Birdzilla 75. Bubba’s helpful ‘ Birdwatching Guide Techniques’
24. Littoral Forest 76. The King Vulture
25. Emotions 77. Courtship and Mating according to Bubba
26. Migration 78. The Blackheaded Stilt
27. Reverend Bill 79. Scarlet Macaw
28. Laughing Gull 80. Chan Chich
29. White Ibis 81. Forked-tailed Flycatchers
30. Boobies 82. The Snake Bird
31. Big White Bird 83. Barstool Birdwatching-Chan Chich
32. Northern Jacana 84. Bubba’s Death
33. White Winged Dove 85. Lesser Yellowheaded (savanna) Vulture
34. Outrage to Action 86. The Halfmoon Rookery
35. Rufus Necked Woodrail 87. The Bubba Report
36. Yellow crowned night Heron 88. ‘Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated’
37. Woody Woodpecker 89. Sightings log.
38. Keel Billed Toucan 90. Groved Billed Ani (missing)
39. Roseate Spoonbill
40. Nightjars
41. Tiger Heron
42.
43. Song
44. Aztec Parakeet
45. Migration 2
46. Snipe
47. Death of a Hero
48. Frigatebird
49. Woodpeckers
50. Chachalaca
Bubba
There was no time. It was dark. I felt little. I wasn’t afraid, tired or hungry. There was no anxiety. It seemed that I was alone but at the same time I felt that I was a part of something other than myself, something larger. Then suddenly it ended and began again at once with pain. I was lost, cold, hungry, scared and crying when she found me. She licked my body clean with her tongue, slapped my face with it then nudged me under her leg against her warm belly, where I found my first joy.
I remember then thinking of life as warm and good, my mother's teat was plump, and all I wanted was to suck and sleep.
Time was vague but I suppose it was two weeks ago I opened my eyes and discovered myself in a row of black comrades enjoying the same ecstasy. Time flowed forward in an indistinguishable mixture of day and night until at some point I noticed my mother, the clan of sucklings and myself were all laid out on paper with odd black markings.
It started with boredom! I studied the small symbols beneath us and in time understood and read what seemed to be accounts of human behavior.
Each day I awoke to a fresh floor of newsprint from a publication called "The Commercial Appeal." I read about terrorist bombings, elections, crime and stock exchanges but my favorite has become a random collection of complex idioms known as 'Comics'. Comics seem to revolve around the art of not taking life too seriously. I was reading one Sunday afternoon on this favorite page of mine a story about two men walking down a road that I can only imagine represented life. One was expressing concern about a dilemma of his. It seems that his brother thought he was a chicken. The second man replied that this would easily be resolved by taking his brother to a doctor. "No, you don't understand," said the first man, "my family needs the eggs!".
Upon reading this, a sudden profound consciousness seemed to strike me. I exist for a reason. Someone must extend themselves in life to provide these eggs. This surely must be my destiny.
With an elated feeling I roamed the yard until I found a shady spot under a tree. I lay to rest with a curious yellow bird looking down at me from its perch. And as I lay contemplating my new found destiny and watching a flea crawl through the fine fur of my round belly, I noticed something odd. Two large black gourd-like protrusions between my legs I'm sure they weren't there yesterday! I was compelled to return to my siblings for a comparison study. Abruptly tumbling each revealed that I alone had the affliction.
I remembered something I had read in Ann Lander's column. One of her readers made the comment that a man's brains were between his legs. I must be a man and these undoubtedly are my brains. My life was beginning to gel. I was the first of the lot to open my eyes and the first to walk; now I've got brains! Life seems to be a collection of wonderful discoveries.
I returned to the shade of my tree and its little bird to absorb the day and nap and dream. Life has so much to offer to a man like me.
I awoke to a commotion in the yard. Two humans, a man and a woman were lifting my sisters over their heads one at a time and peering underneath. The yard was a scramble of screaming and crying puppies. Before I could run to the safety of my mother's house, the female grabbed the flesh behind my neck and flipped me over to examine my bottomside. "Babe, look, this one has them." Her eyes were hidden behind a large pair of gauche designer sunglasses but she seemed to be staring at my new brains. "Isn't he cute."
The male put his hand under my belly and raised me over his head looking directly at my brains, then into my eyes and said, "Mary Ellen are you sure, because once we make this decision it...." She cut him short by saying, "I'm sure, and this is the best one."
He unfolded a newspaper he had held under his arm, spread it out in a cardboard box, plopped me down on top of it and closed the lid. I slid, tumbled and rolled in the semi darkness of the box. I could see through a slit in the box that we were approaching a black Mercedes. There was jolt as the door slammed, the engine started and we began to move.
I was face down and after an hour or so, in the dim light of the box I began to read a very curious ad in the newspaper I rested on. Circled in blue ink was the confirmation of my 
fear.
· PUPS-5 solid black,
· 7wks, mother reg.
· Golden retriever,
· father reg. choc. Lab, $25 ea.
· 458-9242
I hadn't been kidnapped at all, but rather sold into slavery for my brains. Everything was so wonderful yesterday, and now my life is in the toilet.
AMBERGRIS CAYE
Perfumeries of
As the whale consumed its limit of indigestible shrimp, krill, grit, octopus beaks and sour Sargasso polyps, the objectionable indigestible build-up was disposed of as vomitus bile, regurgitated into the warm gulf of its winter home.
In 1775
News spread in the Old World of an island in the
As its brief popularity faded, Ambergris was left hanging like a teardrop from the tip of the
For 200 years Ambergris' population grew slowly, a place where who you were or what you were didn't matter; wild fowl roamed the island; coconuts fell from the trees; and fish were pulled from the ocean enough to provide an existence for those who could not or did not want to go else where.
A hideout in the world where pirates and misfits could be themselves without worry of law and order, an island paradise!
In the 1960's drug dealers discovered its unprotected boarder with
Meanwhile, paradise was entering its maturity, as all paradises do. Tourists were discovering its carefree fishing village. It was unavoidable. Ambergris would soon be filled with pasty white bodies clad in tacky floral print asking inane questions and photographing the mundane.
In the 80's real estate became the popular scam, and Ambergris was learning about a new kind of pirate.
Poor Ambergris, from roly-poly whale puke and renegade buccaneers to Central American drug dealers and, now, unscrupulous scoundrels were selling bits of her to tourists. When Elbert and I arrived, the coconut industry had died and the fishermen's cooperative was not providing like it had in the past. Even Jimmy Buffett had come and gone. It was the birth of tourism that lured Elbert.
SCUBA diving in the
The rest of the world was unwilling to accept me for what I was. I had been promised that on this island I would never wear a leash. I would never be fenced and my new life would include what many like myself would die for - freedom of expression. He had agreed that for the first time my unique abilities wouldn't be kept a secret. Together we were going to write a bird book.
After landing at Belize International, Elbert released me from my cage in the cargo hold. Customs was still ahead of us and on the other side another flight to the island. Both Elbert and I expected trouble. The agent looked at me, my documents and then announced to Elbert that he would have to quarantine me for 30 days. My heart sank. Elbert shook his hand, smiled and said, "No problem, I'll bring him back tomorrow.’’
No problem? I thought, "What does he mean 'no problem'?"
I was puzzled for a moment and then noticed the lingering handshake. As we walked outside to the tarmac, Elbert disconnected my leash and discretely tossed it in a passing luggage cart. He winked and said, "Welcome to
Waiting for us on the field was a classic Piper super cub. Its yellow paint was faded with oxidation and from the teddy bear emblem on its tail I suspect it's the original paint. Beside the PA18 stood our pilot. His big white teeth and smile lit his deeply tanned face. He wore mirrored aviator sunglasses and a white epauletted short sleeve shirt. His forearms were decorated with the tattoos of a Catholic fisherman. He shook hands with Elbert and introduced himself as
I leveled off at 3000 feet and dipped the wing to get a good look at my Promised Land.
All I wanted was to get to the island and end this chapter of my old life. I pushed the stick forward until the altimeter read 100 and leveled off at 50 feet above the water surprising a flock of cormorants that were flapping wildly and literally running atop the surface of the water in an effort to take off. They appeared to be double-crested cormorant, the Phalacrocorax auritus from the order of Pelecaniformes, large aquatic birds highly adapted for swimming. A very ancient order dating back 20 million years.
As I glanced at
At the San Pedro airfield while Elbert was recovering form the flight and collecting our baggage, I got my first chance to meet the people of Ambergris.
SAN PEDRO
Exploring town and finding a cool spot to rest was my priority, so I wandered ahead without Elbert. All the streets were sand and everyone I encountered, children, adults, shopkeepers and bartenders alike were barefoot and dressed in a simple fashionless style adorned only with gold teeth and tattoo. A sign outside a tavern read, "No shoes, no shirt, no problema." Contented faces of a widely varied descent smiled, waved or nodded at passing strangers and fellow Ambergriseans. They spoke an odd form of Spanish mixed with Mayan among themselves and broken English to outsiders. In the entire town no building was over two stories. An ancient Roman Catholic Church’s bell tower that rose above everything marked the town’s center.
The trade winds cooled
I walked in, crossed the lobby, passed the bar and stuck my head out the beachside exit to a verandah overlooking the reef.
It was furnished in brightly colored adirondack style furniture and surrounded in red Hibiscus, busy with visiting Cinnamon Hummingbirds. It and the beach beyond were shaded by towering coconut palms. The whole unbelievably serene setting was graced with the low and distant roar of the reef beyond...heaven!
Suddenly from the lobby a disturbing gruff voice boomed, "Is that your dog?"
I turned to discover Elbert behind me and confronting him was a large scowling woman.
"He's my dog, Elbert said, "or I'm his person. However you want to look at it."
She bellowed, "There are no dogs allowed in this Hotel," pointing a stiff arm with crooked finger at the door to the verandah she yelled, "Afuera!"
"He doesn't understand Spanish," Elbert said calmly. "Bubba would you wait outside while I have a drink at the bar?"
I quickly exited and plopped down on the verandah. With no adieu, the woman turned and stomped away. From behind the bar a short, stocky Spanish man said, "That's Celi, she owns the Hotel, lives upstairs. What would you like to drink?"
Elbert settled in the stool and asked, "Is she always like that?"
He chuckled, "Only when she's awake!"
"I'll have a
After mixing the drink his eyes cut to the door and he asked, "What's your dog’s name?" I glanced over to see Bubba's head sticking inside. His mouth open, with his drooping tongue supporting a long slobber sickle.
"Bubba," I responded, "and mine's Elbert. What's yours?"
"
He poured the beer into a large stainless steel bowl, and I sat it outside. Bubba was gazing at the frigates soaring overhead. Before lapping up the beer he looked up at me and smiled. I could tell he was not going to mind the verandah at all.
I returned to the bar and asked
As the afternoon progressed
Reciting as he washed bar glasses in the sink he asked, "How long are you here for?"
"I'm going to stay. I'm not really a tourist. I plan to build on some land I've just bought on the island."
"What kind of work do you do?"
"I'm a vocational teacher but I plan to teach SCUBA diving down here."
"Want to go diving? I'll introduce you to my cousin Tito."
"
"Well let's see. Tito, Nano, Marko, Turiano..." He began to count on his fingers and mumble to himself eventually coming up with a figure of ten, all with names ending in "o."
"Sure let's set something up!"
"What else would you like to do? I know everybody."
"Well, I like to write, and Bubba likes to do bird watching."
"Your dog is a birdwatcher?"
"Sure, he's a bird dog. Loves the sport."
Continuing with his repertoire of questions he asked, "What do you write?"
"Witticisms, but nothing lately! I was hoping the local newspaper might humor me with my own column."
"A column about what?"
" I don't know yet but I'm sure it will come to me."
"I'll introduce you to Bruce and Victoria and the San Pedro Sun. They will print anything. Don't worry I'll fix you up! Want another drink?"
"Yes and could Bubba have another bowl of beer?"
"You're going to get me in trouble!"
"
"
"UA-OH, you are going to need a boat. My cousin Turiano can find you one quick!"
The following weeks at the Hotel, Bubba and I got to know San Pedro. Diving , fishing, exploring, drinking with
One could say San Pedro is a dream. Someone could say San Pedro was as if it were set in another time. Someone else could say San Pedro is as if it was in another world and they would all be saying the same thing.
There is salt and sand, towering coconut trees, fishing boats pulled unto the beach, large piles of empty conch shells, tall stacks of lobster traps and bleached wooden houses.
San Pedro is a Roman Catholic fishing village and early every morning, except Sunday, the men went out fishing. The mayor was a fisherman so he went out. The town councilors were fishermen so they went out; the justice of the peace was a fisherman. It gave the town a peaceful air during the day, nothing important or official could happen. All shops and businesses closed for lunch and most for the remainder of the day. Afternoons were for sitting in a shady spot. During the morning if you needed meat you went to see Hipalito the butcher. If you wanted vegetables you went to see Mario at the vegetable stand. Fish were at the co-op and bread was at the bakers. If you had a problem you went to visit Constable Orio at the police station. San Pedro was a poem and in some way it all seemed to surround Celi's Holiday Hotel.
The tourists stayed at her hotel, ate at her restaurant and drank in her bar. The locals and expatriated gringos of the village seem to be drawn to its lobby. Some waiting to see what would come to town next, others just drinking to forget life before San Pedro.
The bar opened at dawn and didn't close until the last wandering vagrant dollar had been spent or retired for the night. Not that Celi was avaricious, she wasn't, but if one wanted to spend money she was accommodating. Celi's position in the community surprised her, as much as she could be surprised. Over the course of years everyone in the village that drank had owed her money. She never pressed her clients, but when the bill became too large, Celi cut off credit. Rather than patronize another bar, the client usually paid or tried to. Her wealth may have been entirely in unpaid bar tabs, but she lived well and had the respect of the village. In some sense she was San Pedros benevolent Queen.
I kept looking for some sign that this wasn’t paradise, but it eluded me.
CLEO
There wasn't a man in San Pedro that hadn't looked on Cleo with thoughts of what her form had to offer.
If she held motionless and didn't speak, a simple smile could cause an unwitting man to swear his soul to this beauty, but with the slightest hint of voice or movement a great enigma arose. Cleo was born on the northern river in a village called Bomba deep in the jungle where she developed a wealth of practical knowledge for such an upbringing, but few thoughts where given to anything else. Any man complimenting her on her appearance was quickly told, "Shadup!" Cleo found it much more comfortable eating with her fingers and wiping food from her face was a waste until after the meal.
She was a business woman and made herself busy with the boat captains willing to bring from her village exotic fruits and fresh meat to sell to San Pedranos. Deer Crocodile, gibnut, papaya, banana and cashew where in demand on the island and Cleo had the connections.
She worked in the
Cleo's shiny black hair was full and always woven in elaborate braids. Her teeth were white and straight, hidden beneath full and naturally rosy lips. Her skin was smooth, creamy brown and flawless. Her feminine figure was proportioned like a centerfold, her back lightly arched, her legs slender, but her feet!
Her feet were the product of a barefoot life, large, thick, spread out and twice sized for the support one might need while lumbering through the jungle. They had developed outside normal restraints into their fullest potential.
She walked like a 300 pound man shifting from one hip to the other in an elephantine manner, planting each foot flat and solid as she moved across the lobby positioning herself behind the bar. The gift shop business was slow and Cleo was learning the bartender trade by filling in for
"Cleo, may I have a rum and coke? And could Bubba get another beer? Where's
She studied the mirrored wall of bottles and asked in an inappropriate, loud tone, "What's in a rum and coke?"
"You don't drink do you Cleo?"
"Shadup! You want a drink or not? Which one is it?"
"It's that one.....there. The one that says Dark Caribbean Rum."
She grabbed the bottle, removed its cap and planted her feet before the pouring station holding a glass of ice. Studying the bottles label she asked, "How much does he put in it?"
Watching from where he lay in the door way Bubba put a paw over one eye. Some of the regulars at the bar, Reverend Bill, Scary Sherry, Lovely Rita and Tequila Steve watched silently from the other end.
I pointed to the shot glass and said, "
Cleo poured the rum slowly and she viewed the red fill line from two angles with the concern of a freshman chemistry student involved in their first experiment. Then dumped it into my glass and filled it with coke to the rim.
"Four dollars!" she said.
Reluctantly I asked, "May I have a lime?"
She shifted her feet to angle herself towards
Tequila Steve became unsettled. He shifted his weight on the barstool and looked up over the paperback book that seemed to always cover his face,
“May I get another tequila over here?”
The rum and coke episode had taken 15 minutes and Steve drinks three shots an hour. His sudden restlessness seemed to be concern that Cleo might not supply his demand timely. Cleo stepped back to the mirrored shelf to replace the rum bottle, looking down the bar to his request she said, “hold your horses!”
Reverend Bill who had not been seen without a drink in his hand since the end of the Vietnam War began to pay close attention.
Lovely Rita who likes lime with her rum and soda, but does not wear protective eye wear, also perked up. Scary Sherry maintained a fearful silence.
I thanked Cleo and said, “Cleo you look very beautiful in that dress.”
“Shadup!”
“Cleo, do they have Jabiru Storks in Bomba? It’s a woodstork indigenous to that area.”
“Don’t talk to me!” She then turned her feet in the direction of the trio at the end of the bar and stepped up in front of Lovely Rita, “What do you want?”
Lovely Rita flinched at the abrupt attention, “Rua…Rua…Rum and soda.”
Thinking ahead Lovely Rita decided not to ask for the lime. Cleo returned to the mixing station before me and began filling a glass with ice.
Forced to face me I took advantage of this posture and asked, “Could you show me a Jabiru. The San Pedro Sun is going to let me write a weekly column about birds and I wanted the Jabiru to be the first.”
“I’m working, don’t you get it? Leave me alone!”
I held up a blue Belizean $100 bill and said, “I’m willing to pay you.”
She grabbed for the bill but I dodged it from her grasp. She looked me in the eye and said, “ I’m going to show you a Jabiru, take your money and your going to be sorry if you don’t leave me alone!”
She returned to her tense patrons at the other end and I raised an eyebrow at Bubba who seemed to give me a look of approval. Bubba’s in charge of our bird watching budget and I took his look as this being a worthwhile venture.
With her next return to the mixing station I said, “They prefer to live in
“OK! Gringo, give me the blue note and I promise I’ll show you a Jabiru!, OK?”
I held out the bill again; she snatched it. With her right hand she began to fold it in thirds. With her left she pulled out the neck line of her dress.
She held the folded bill in front of my face showing me to my surprise an illustration of a Jabiru on the note, then quickly stuffed it in her bra.
“Stupid Gringo,” she said as she waddled Reverend Bill’s drink to the other end of the bar. Bubba gave me a disgusted look and sighed. That was the last time we did business
with Cleo.
JABIRU
In the world of aves there is an order known as Ciconiiformes and within that order there are seven families. One of these families known by the name ‘ciconiidae’ has two branches that live in
Like the Manatee and Howler Monkey, the Jabiru is another rare and valued resident of
The Jabiru is the largest flying bird in the
Some friends have pointed out that a likeness of the Jabiru can be found printed on the Belizean 100 dollar bill. After a few failed attempts and false starts, Bubba and I set out to find a Jabiru nest on our own.
We had heard rumors of nesting Jabiru with chick along the New River Lagoon in Lamanai.
Early Spanish frontiersmen accessed this area of
The whole order of Ciconiiformes are fish eating birds with long legs for wading in shallow waters and this river seemed rich with all that savannas and marsh land could provide. The Jabiru is not limited to fish. They enjoy amphibians, reptiles, snakes and small mammals. Bubba pointed out that the Jabiru’s featherless neck was an indication that it ate carrion as well. Birds like buzzards for instance, that also have featherless heads and necks, will take a meal from a large dead animal. Collecting rotting flesh on feathers can cause infection and disease. Having slick skin is much safer for such activity.
Finding a Jabiru nest is easy, if there is one to be found. It will be atop the tallest tree on the highest ridge overlooking the savanna not far from the water. We also could have just been incredibly lucky.
As we got closer to the nest I was rudely reminded of something I had read about how the parents feed their chicks. The Jabiru has a well-developed throat pouch or ‘crop’ as it is sometimes called. As the Jabiru eats its daily variety of mice, lizard or fish, the food collects at the base of the throat. Upon arriving at the nest the hunting parent regurgitates its catch into the nest to feed the chicks and attending parent. The smell around the base of the tree with the nest should be sufficient reason to have most admire the Jabiru from afar.
Lamanai, for the Birds
Lamanai is a Maya word meaning “submerged crocodile”, but also the name of the third largest, and possibly the most interesting archeological site in
The journey to Lamanai is as interesting as Lamanai itself. Tour operators on Ambergris Caye sell this day trip as an eco-adventure and for the aware “birder” it may be the most productive of rare and unusual sightings
The trip leaves the dock in San Pedro for the New River Lagoon at approximately 7:30 a.m. and passes through a number of diverse avian habitats along the way. The boat first crosses through mangrove channels at the southern tip of Ambergris Cays offering opportunities for sighting Belted Kingfishers, Great White Herons, Little Blue Herons, Great Blue Herons, Roseate Spoonbills, Black-Necked Stilts, as well as the common occurrence of Brown Pelicans, Frigates, Cormorants, Ospreys, Plovers, Pipers and Terns.
The boat then exits the mangrove on Ambergris’ west side and crosses the southern end of the Bahia de Chetumal. Early Spanish frontiersmen accessed Lamanai via the
Our crossing to the shortcut takes approximately 45 minutes and ends entering the
This leg of the trip ends on the firm earth and dark soil at the edge of the swamp in the
We boarded a different boat on the
The journey ends at the base of the bluff and the edge of the rainforest on the New River Lagoon at Lamanai. Our group was introduced to a very will informed Belizean Archeological Tour Guide who led us through a field museum first and then on a jungle walk – up, down and around several Maya temples set under the rainforest canopy. He identified flora and fauna of the forest along the way, stopping at a tree of Howler Monkeys and pointing out the need to not stand directly under them. He also gave notice to the Wood Creepers, Yellow-headed Parrots, a Groove-billed Ani, a Keel-billed Toucan and a Slaty-tailed Trogon. We had a wonderful lunch on a picnic table under the shade of a giant Bullet tree at the edge of the river before returning.
Yes, definitely. Lamanai, for the birds.
SANPEDRO SUN BELIZE CENTRAL AMERICA VOL.
BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
THE KISKADEE
In the order of Passeriformes is the Pitangus sulphuratus.
Large for a flycatcher, the kiskadee has a bright yellow belly, rufous tail and yellow crown with white streaks running from its bill above the eye to the back of its head.
I don't think I would be able to write a weekly bird column if it was up to me to chose the bird.
I was having my morning coffee on the new deck with Bubba, and a male kiskadee landed on a bending coconut frond above Bubba's food and water bowls. It made a sound that I could only imagine is a communiqué to the others that Bubba has left some dog food bits in his bowl and fresh water. It's a sharp, high-pitched cry that probably carries a long distance. My book spells it "eeeeek".
After doing his doing his duty to inform the others, he sprung to the dog food bowl of kernels and grasped one in his bill.
He seemed perplexed by its hardness and his inability to crunch it.
A female landed on the same bent frond but seemed content to watch the male struggle with his dilemma.
He beat the kernel on the wood deck with a quick, flipping right and left movement of its head that reminded me of the kingfisher's technique for killing its sardine. When this didn't work he held it to the deck with his left foot and pecked it twice sharply.
Frustrated, he then flew off with the unaffected kernel in his bill.
The female cocked her head to have a quick look at me and then one at Bubba sleeping.
Her approach was with much more caution than the male. She was a much duller color than the male and surly must be less obvious to a predator while sitting on the nest.. Loss of the male would be less of a consequence to procreation of the species, so he seems to be the colorful bold ‘scout’.
She, after a long analytical pause, fluttered down to perch on the bowl's rim, picked up a kernel, hopped to the water bowl and dunked it under the water. When the water softened it to her particular palate, she stretched her neck and threw it back!
I wonder if she will be kind enough to relay this discovery to the male?
SANPEDRO SUN BELIZE CENTRAL AMERICA VOL.
The American Redstart
The American Redstart is a New World Wood Warbler found in
This week The American Redstart chose itself as bird of the week by being seen in all the right places around San Pedro. Just back in town from a summer vacation in the Rocky Mountains near the Canadian border the American Redstart will be here and all of the
Your going to notice this bird, as it is bold and fast allowing them to comfortably forage in close proximity to humans. Its favorite spots are one of the many outdoor Bars or restaurants of San Pedro. Sugary drinks attract flies and Warblers are for the most part insectivorous. This bird is darty as it hops onto the bar tops and tables. They sometimes display a wing-spreading maneuver to flush insects up to be quickly nabbed. Oddly the American Redstart is not red but
I asked Bubba what he could tell me new and different about the Wood Warblers. He said,” One of the most distinctive characteristics of the warbler is the variety of sounds they make. Vocalizations of Songbirds like the American Redstart are divided into songs and calls, depending primarily on their message. They are being studied with our new technologies and discoveries of what, why and when uncover interesting facts about the use of song as language. Much like an Italian Opera, each song has a distinct purpose with little dialog between.”
Among the Wood Warblers usually only the male sings. The American Redstart has a different song depending on the stage of the breeding cycle, time of day and occasion. The songs have function and Wood Warblers share a common song system that has two distinct groups or categories.
The first groupings, sometimes called the accented-ending are sung during the day, are simple and sung near females. These songs seem to serve primarily in mate attraction.
Males that lose their mates will rapidly increase the number of first category songs they sing.
The second type of song is referred to as unaccented-ending or second category song.
These songs are typically delivered rapidly at Dawn, are male-to-male interactions and usually more complex.
The messages are defined as;
First Category
- The ‘I don’t have a mate and I’m looking for a mate’, song, sung by the male.
- ‘Contact Calls’ usually passed back and forth during the day between males and females inside the territory. Little ‘Chirp Notes’.
- ‘The Female to Female conflict’. These songs are thought to strengthen the pair bond. (Did I mention Wood Warblers are monogamous?)
Second category
1. ‘This is my territory’ sung by the male (usually sung at dawn)
2. ‘I have a mate in this territory’ sung by the male to another male.
3. ‘The dispute of territory’ sung pro and con.
4. Then an undefined message sung to the female within the male’s territory after mating.
Even during the mating season when birds sing, the songs do not communicate all of a birds concerns. Aggression, alarm, danger, and food location are other kinds of information some birds convey by the short unmusical notes labeled ‘calls’, often heard throughout the year. Calls can be understood by other species and have a common bond.
Birdwatching is for the millions of people who enjoy watching and identifying birds and for those who would like to go beyond recognition skills to the hows and whys of bird biology and behavior ‘Birdlistening’ is another fascinating sport.
I needed to allow Bubba to publicly express himself as promised so we agreed the two of us would co-author my weekly column for the Sun. The newspaper must have printed this under an assumption that I was writing using a dual personality pen name!
Bubba believes that educating the masses is the best place to start his campaign for bird awareness, so for his first article he wrote..........
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How To Change The World
In Three Easy Steps
By Bubba
It is said that when a human stands on the rim of the
I’ve heard them say, ’we just seem so damn tiny.’
Likewise, the challenge that afflicts Ambergris Caye can seem overwhelming in scope and scale. When problems are as big as overfishing, Pollution and coastal overdevelopment, it’s easy to think that there’s no way one person can do anything to bring about positive change. But just as the trek to the
Awareness, Legislation and Enforcement are the blue print for positive change. My big rock to chip at is Awareness!
We understand there is no easy way to reverse the tide of environmental degradation, but we also understand that given a simple choice between eco-friendly and environmentally damaging practices, the vast majority will choose to do what’s best for the
Ambergris Caye in its remote and forgotten corner has been exempt in the past from the consequences the rest of the world has been paying for its mismanagement of development and the environment but that’s about to change with paradise discovered.
What, you may ask, has this to do with Birds? The Birds environment and the environment we live in, are the same environment. Efforts for either are parallel. Standing on a soapbox and shaking your finger to the sky in this age will get you ignored but entertain and you message will be remembered Pointing out the beauty and creating awareness of its care and maintainace to the masses who read the newspaper may be just one birddogs effort, but with every person I successfully effect to smile, the situation improves incrementally,
And suddenly we don’t seem so tiny anymore.
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“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
A Birdwatchers Guide
for the Complete Idiot
By Bubba
The recent extraordinary growth in popularity of Birdwatching as a hobby and the wave of interest in exploring, protecting and learning about the environment seem to be symptoms of a single desire: to become part of the natural world. I would like this involvement and participation in Birdwatching to be un-intimidating and easy, so with Elbert’s help I have put together a few thoughts and helpful hints that might gently introduce the novice or even the complete idiot to the Avian world.
We will begin by clarifying what a Birdwatcher is….already it gets confusing! There are a few terms we should define first.
ORNITHOLOGIST- It simply means a person who studies birds, a term usually reserved to describe those serious scientific types that have some sort of degree in the subject and thus a rightful claim to moral superiority.
BIRDWATCHER - Well, I hope you can get this one without much explanation, just a person who watches birds. Beginning or experienced, usually they own some binoculars, a field guide, know where to find a Roadside hawk, and keep a list of sightings. Today the connotation of birdwatcher is not hip and although it’s an accurate and descriptive title, there are just too many to constitute an elite.
BIRDER - As you may have already guessed, the hip, elite and seriously involved in identifying and collecting listings. Example: If you are a “birder” you don’t go birdwatching, you go “birding” to adventurous locations.
TWITCHER - This list wouldn’t be complete without listing the “Twitcher”. Bill Oddie, in his famous “Little Black Bird Book” defines it as, “Someone who is obsessed with ‘Ticks’ (British for “mark it off your list”), races around the country chasing rare birds, uses all the correct terms and marks off the list as he goes.”
Now that you know the players, let’s take a look at EQUIPMENT and CLOTHING. You will need: binoculars, an old hat, a field guide to bird identification, a rain poncho, insect repellent, a notebook and pen, a water bottle, a camera and film and sun screen.
Think you’re ready? Not quite...what are we looking at? You think that’s a trick question, don’t you? Birders are identifying birds! This seems to be the largest most important subject—what is it?
Identifying a bird correctly isn’t easy. It’s best to start by putting it in an order, which brings us to “Taxonomy”. Taxonomy is simply categorizing the bird in related groups. It’s done with Latin names. The groups start with the largest group to the smallest individual. This is how it goes: Kingdom - whether it’s a plant or an animal; Class - in this case, Avian (things that have feathers); Order - there are 34 orders that make up the big groups, for example, Herons, Hummingbirds, Owls, etc.; Family - medium-size groups within the big groups; Genus - a small group of closely related species; Species - the smallest division. It’s best to think of species as a population; Subspecies - simply stated—a race!
Birders seem to only be concerned with the last three. You would record, for example, Caracara c. cachinnans (the Laughing falcon). Don’t worry, it’s all there in the field guide.
Ah yes, the field guide, a book of color pictures, names all in order and you’d think that would make it easy. There is your bird sitting on the telephone wire patiently waiting while you look it up, correctly identify it and record it in your notebook. You have the binoculars focused in on it, but it just doesn’t look like the illustration. Your problem could be another favorite topic of a true Birdwatcher, Molting and Plumage. When it doesn’t look like the photo in the field guide, it can usually be blamed on the fact that birds change feathers for the occasion. Feathers are different patterns and colors at different stages of their lives for a variety of reasons. “Immature” is one of the most common reasons you may not find it easily identifiable. For example, the little Blue Heron is white for its first year until it goes into its breeding season. Molting is the process by which birds change their plumage. Old feathers simply don’t fly a bird as well as new feathers, neither do they attract the opposite sex. So migration and breeding are the two major reasons to molt. Plumage is used to describe what one might call your wardrobe “summer plumage, winter plumage, breeding plumage,” all different looks of the same species.
Now before you go out into the world thinking you’re keen on birds, let’s arm ourselves with a vocabulary and take a look at some terms you’ll need to use. Birders use words you won’t find in spell check. “Ish” is used to describe something that’s not quite what it is, for example, blue-ish, red-ish, dark-ish. This gives you a lot of latitude to cover a mistaken ID. Eyeshine is the color reaction to a bird’s eyes when they have a light shined on them at night, for example, blue eyeshine or green eyeshine. Topknot, as you might guess, is the strange thing on the top of the bird’s head. Understory is the place where you might find a jungle bird, in the “Understory” of the trees. Rufus is a color, sort of red-ish rusty-brown and surprisingly most birds have something you could describe as rufus. Use it a lot.
So, what have we learned? Even you can be a Birdwatcher. You’re not an ornithologist; don’t twitch, be prepared, keep a list of birds you identify, and don’t ever take yourself too seriously.
Enjoy!
I was concerned for Bubbas obsession with birdwatching in that compulsive behavior usually isn’t healthy and his phrase’ search for birding truth’ concerned me.
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“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Bubba Birdwatching Philosophy
By Bubba
For Elbert birdwatching is another way to relate to life. He says it's a different, more graceful path that makes living enjoyable and its problems easier to solve.
I find my entertainment by not limiting by observations to birds alone but including birdwatchers. Elbert calls it Bubba style. Watching birdwatchers has revealed more to me about human behavior than birding techniques. I've resolved the greatest discovery of the human will be that a human being can alter its life by altering its attitude. Elbert said, "One of the cardinal rules of 'Bubba Birdwatching' should be that judging others takes a great deal of energy and, without exception, pulls you away from where you want to be." I think he doesn't understand. Being a birddog is probably an advantage for me. In my search for 'Birding Truth' I have discovered many opinions-and if they don't fall in line with my belief I try not to dismiss it or if I find fault in it I try to see a positive side. For
example, 'The Aggressive Compulsive Lister', I admire them for how seriously they can take themselves. In my adventures I've run into quite a few with this birding malady, a personality that seems to polarize 'Bubba Birdwatching'. They go about recording details, listing and counting as if they were in a birdwatching emergency. In some ways this strategy epitomizes the essential message of 'Bubba style'. It is as if someone prescribed to them birdwatching as an anti-anxiety medicine and their medication is out of adjustment.
The human trait of being in a hurry to relax has always confused me. The aggressive compulsive birder wants to see that bird now! So they can get onto the next one and the next, then hurry back to the lodge to write them down on the 'life list'. Elbert said, "almost every opinion has some merit, especially if we are looking for merit, rather than looking for errors, and I should try to help them with their birding enjoyment by showing them value in 'Bubba Birdwatching'."
There are three excellent reasons for becoming a Bubba Birder. First, when you are aggressive you put yourself and everyone around you in an uncomfortable birding mood. Second, birding aggressively is extremely stressful. Your blood pressure goes up, your grip on the binoculars tightens, your eyes are strained and your thoughts are spinning out of control. Finally, you end up wasting time in getting to where you want to be emotionally.
Bubba Birdwatching is done to relax. When I ask birders, what does it mean to relax? Most will answer in a way that suggests that relaxing is something you plan to do later - you will do it on vacation, in a hammock, when you retire or when you get through birdwatching. The obvious implication is the rest of your time should be spent nervous, agitated, rushed and frenzied. This is not the 'Bubba way'. It's useful to think of relaxation as a quality of heart that you can access anytime rather than something reserved for a later time. it's helpful to remember that relaxed people can still be birdwatching super achievers. When I'm feeling uptight, for example, I don't even try to write. But when I feel relaxed, my writing flows quickly and easily.
Being a Bubba Birder involves training yourself to respond differently to the dramas of birdwatching. It comes in part from reminding yourself over and over again that you have a choice in how you respond. For instance, upon seeing a new and unusual bird one can run crashing through the jungle trying to focus the binoculars, looking for a pencil, and looking it up in Peterson's all at the same time or be a true Bubba and simply whisper, "Wow, did you see that?" ......this plateau is achievable. You can learn to relate to your thinking as well as your circumstances in a new birding awareness. With practice, making these choices will translate into your becoming a true Bubba Birder.
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“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Shorebirds
from the order of Charadriiformes
Early each morning I walk down to the beach , and all along the shoreline troops of small shorebirds scurry along the water's edge, looking for food. The shorebirds, by which is meant the sandpiper and plovers, are tough to identify. They run along the shoreline the length and breadth of Ambergris. Most shorebirds are small, like a sparrow or medium-sized like a robin, with slender bills for probing in the mud or sand and slender legs for wading. Don't be discouraged if you can't positively identify them. Just try to answer, is it a sandpiper or plover. Hundreds of different patterns on these birds make it almost impossible. We probably have six species of plovers and possibly twenty or more sandpipers running up and down the beaches of our island. Plovers are generally smaller than sandpipers with shorter, thicker bills and have a behavior of run and stop, run and stop from looking for food in the wave action on the beach. They eat crustaceans and small marine life as they go. Sandpipers have longer, slimmer bills and behave more independently than the flocking plovers. They are generally taller and are in a different family called Scolopacidae.
Plovers are in a family known as Charadriidae.
My little friends I see on the dock each morning, to the best of my ability, are Ruddy Turnstones. They sleep in flocks and lay eggs right atop the sand in the low grasses on the beach crest's slope. Bubba likes to run up the dock and make them all fly away. I suppose he’s studying their flight. As they fly away their sharp voices say, "kek, kek, kek, kek, kek," and they display a striking upper and lower wing pattern. I should put Bubba in charge of showing me how birds fly away!
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“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Barstool Bird Watching
I first discovered bird watching from a barstool, and ever so often, I find myself back on that stool gazing over the
I explained how bird watching for some isn't a planned event and that birds are always around us. We merely have to stop time and look!
He looked at me strange and asked if I would like another beer.
I could tell he didn't fully understand bird watching, so I enticed him into a round of "barstool bird watching" with a challenge, "I can identify more birds than you without leaving my stool!"
I knew from watching
Luckily, "Tequila Steve" had left us with some binoculars, and the afternoon was young.
I explained how each specie only counted for one sighting, and the score was
After a few other declarations of the rules,
We talked a while about the rules stating "species". He opened me another beer, and I conceded his score of "little doves".
Before I could swivel around in the bar stool to face the shoreline again,
As fast as I could rattle them off, I took the lead with "Royal Tern, Brown Pelican, White Pelican and Neo-tropical Commorant."
The game's momentum was interrupted by
The ceviche was ready!
He handed me a cup, and at the same time held up a fresh, cold beer. I reached out with both hands and took hold of the two. "Thanks,
After a few bites I began to sweat the pepper with a flush to my face. I explained, "The game never really ends; you just pause awhile and time restarts itself."
Just one more point and it would be a tie. I asked
Walking to my boat, I noticed the moon and tide had exposed the turtle grass beds beside the dock, and hunting in the middle of the bed was a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. I opened my mouth to yell to
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“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Mangrove Swallow
The “Golondrina Manglera” is Tachycineta a. albilinea, of the Hurundinidae genus from the order of Passeriformes, known to its friends as the mangrove swallow.
You don’t have to look hard for this week’s bird, it’s Ariel displays of swoop, sweep, soar, dive, bank and dip are going on island-wide.
Swallows are small to medium-size songbirds with long, pointed wings; long, forked tails’ short, wide bills; and inconspicuous legs and feet. Their plumage is brown, gray and iridescent metallic blue-green. Martins are simply large swallows, by another name.
Swallows are most often found in or near
Their bills have a wide gape for scooping insects from the air, thus the aerobatics. Swallows employ a feeding strategy, foraging far and wide in search of ephemeral (living one day only, as in insects) food sources.
The only known breeding colony in
Outside of the breeding season, the presence of swallows may change dramatically. Mangrove swallows can be found where the airborne bugs are, usually coastal lagoon or in association with mangroves, and only at certain times, such as a Termite swarm.
Swallows do most everything while flying. I’ve been watching them drink and bathe in the many swimming pools at hotels around the island. They simply fly over the water and dip their bill to drink in passing or splash into the water momentarily to bathe.
Bubba said, the mangrove swallows at times roost in hundreds and it’s speculated that during these times information is shared concerning food sources. ‘Opportunistic foraging habits’ are how Bubba describes it. Like Ambergris’ annual September rainfall creating a flying bug fest, they are probably discussing another area that produces airborne insects in masses during select weather conditions they may then visit as a group.
Swallows present an interesting paradox for conservationists. Human activity has increased the numbers of barns Swallows, cliff swallows, cave swallows, and tree swallows by inadvertently creating nesting sites. However, development has simultaneously and dramatically shrunk some of the mangrove swallows’ native habitat, notably the mangroves. Researchers have no idea what effect deforestation, and agriculture have on swallows, although obliviously they reduce the number of nest sites and prey.
Bubba said, and I’m sure he was quoting some old ornithologist, “Birds are not just something to be marked off of a list by a birder.”
I was having a conversation with a Scientist from Harvard named Margaret. We where joking about my cliché image a Scientist, always in a white lab coat, with flasks of bubbling colored liquids and mice in little cages.
I asked her seriously, why little mice? And she said,” They are born, live and die in a short period of time and it allows me to see the effect of what I’ve done.”
It should be a ‘heads up’ when the swallow fails to return to San Pedro. Birds are indicators of the health of our island, a sort of ‘ecological litmus paper’. Because of their furious pace of living they reflect changes in the environment, the environment we all share.
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“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Bubba on Subspecies
While passing a quiet afternoon in my hammock with Bubba fishing from the dock, the low roar of the reef was all the sound to be heard. I thought I would entertain myself by asking him something about the birds. Just to start a conversation, I asked, “Why do you spend so much time studying the birds?” He responded with “It helps me understand humans!”
“Maybe I should restate my question. Why do people study birds?”
He replied, “It helps them understand themselves.”
“Well I guess I can see how behaviors can be similar and parallels can be drawn but all that classification stuff seems unrelated.
“No, you’re wrong! All that classification ‘stuff’ as you call it has more value in understanding ourselves than behavior parallels. I’ll give you a profound example. From what I’ve learned from taxonomy I have an understanding of what’s happening in Kosovo between the Serbs and Albanians, and how that could never happen to us in
“I’m going to call you to task on that one Bubba; that’s a little farfetched for me to believe!”
“I’ll show you, let me first explain taxonomy how classification began. The word is derived from Greek, taxis(‘arrangement’) and nomos(‘law’). A Swedish taxonomist, Carolus Linnaeus, invented a system of classifying living things into divisions. The first division was plant or animal; he called it the Kingdom. Then there was a class dividing creatures such as reptiles and mammals from birds. Then came orders separating, heron from sparrows, and finally genus and species. The species was to be the smallest division; example: Buho Cornudo, Heliconia bihai, Homo Sapiens, etc. A subdivision of species was called race. He defined race as an isolated breeding population of a species that developed distinction or traits. A good example would be the Great Blue Heron and the Great White Heron. Peterson described the Great White Heron as the white race of the Great Blue.
Linnaeus published his theories and created a standard of divisions under which for centuries the world lived and believed. The demise of his theories validly came with assumptions he made about race. He declared that humanity fell into just four races and described characteristics of each that are considered humorous in today’s societies, or most of today’s societies I should say.
Our conversation seemed to be going just one way and getting a little dry so I asked, “How does a race get started in a species?”
“Ironically the most classic explanation uses birds as an example. The theory goes like this. There is a swamp where a species of birds live, eating crustaceans from the bottom of the water. Something causes the water to get a little deeper and those birds with a little shorter legs are forced to move elsewhere to survive. This effectively removes them from the gene pool leaving only those long legged birds, reinforcing even longer legs. In time the water rises again, strengthening the long legged gene even further, eventually resulting in a distinctly different bird of the same species.”
“Bubba, are you saying this is true with humans also?”
“Brother Elbert, I’m saying it’s as obvious to me as the nose on your face! Have you ever wondered why it’s so long and skinny? Your ancestors more than likely evolved in a cold dry climate where having a long skinny nose moistened and warmed the air before you breathed it in giving you a health advantage over a broader shorter one used in moist warm climates.”
“What about skin color?”
“That’s easy. It’s simply a protective reaction from harsh sun or no reaction from little sun.”
Bubba pulled in his line and replaced the sardine something had stolen from the hook.
“OK Bubba, that all sounds very logical but I haven’t forgotten you said you could explain the war in Europe and how
“Well, let’s go back to those short legged birds that had to move from the swamp. Let’s say for the sake of example, the new shallower swamp they moved to contained shrimp. As you know birds that eat a lot of shrimp retain the shrimp’s pink color in their feathers. Imagine then, that some act of nature causes the two swamps to become one big swamp mixing the two, now very distinctly different flocks of the same species in a common feeding ground. One with extra long legs and gray, the other short with pink feathers. They might not recognize one another as the same species and fight to defend their feeding ground, mistakenly from their own kind.”
“Bubba you do amaze me! But what about
“Well, in
Suddenly Bubba’s fishing pole bent violently with a strike. After a short fight he reeled a large fish onto the dock.
“What’s that Bubba?”
He replied, “Epinephelus, Mycteroperca of the superclass Pisces, in the family of Sea Bass, commonly known as a Black Grouper.”
I said, “Bubba, your taking this classification stuff all too serious, let’s clean him and eat!”
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Bumblebee Hummingbird
Trochiladae
In the world of Avian there is an order known as a podiformes is a family called Trochiladae. They are the most aerial of all birds. This is to say they continue rapid flight throughout life, they eat, drink , collect nesting material and even copulate in the air. Taxonomy is going through some revision due to modern technology and Bubba said the Himmingbirds will soon be in their own order but for now the BBhummers are Selasphorus Heloisa of Trochilidae in the order of Apodiformes. He ask to try and not get hung up in taxonomy because the times they are a changing!
BBHummer is new to
It’s always chance asking Bubba this kind of question. He said , “100 years ago
Migration is definite in Northern Hummingbird species but those of the tropics have seasonal movements related to the abundance and distribution of flowers.
The Cuban Trogon is its national bird because of its red, white and blue colors, like the flag. Nesting habits of the BBHummer are little to unknown but certain assumptions can be made. All hummingbirds lay two whitish eggs as far as it is known and typically the male plays no part in nesting. Nests are often found hanging under banana leaves or coconut fronds. They are small cups of finely woven plant fiber and sometimes contain spider silk collected by the female to bond the nest to the leaf.
The Ambergris sightings have all had one common first reaction. They thought it was an insect, possibly the Rhinoceros Beetle.
The BBHummer is colored similar to most hummingbirds, greenish cinnamon with rufous tail and violet blue highlights, however, iridescent colors are referred to as ‘glittering’ in the accounts and, as they are produced by refracted light rather than pigmentation often appear blackish unless seen in the ‘right light’.
This fact with its small size, 2 1/2 inches would make it easily mistaken for an insect. Bubba had a helpful hint in field identification....find out what kind of flower it likes and watch for something buzzing that has the ability to hover and fly backwards.
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BIRD BRAINS By Bubba
Expressions such as ‘Birdbrain’, ‘Booby’ and ‘Dumb as a Dodo’ imply that birds are not intelligent. I’ve had similar problems with my name.
Some Avian behaviors appear to support the impression of stupid. Species that evolved on remote islands with no significant predators, such as
The existence of these stereotypic behaviors should not obscure the highly refined and adaptive behaviors that birds exhibit in other situations.
An array of Avian behaviors, awe inspiring to observe in nature, make one wonder how intelligent birds must be to perform them.
Humans are tool making and tool using specialists. However, the common assumption that only humans have the intelligence to create and use tools is false. Birds also make tools or use selected objects as tools to obtain a goal. For example,
The Belizean Brown Jay has been seen catching insects using miniature tools they constructed from thin pieces of wood, thorns or cactus spines.
Several species of Belizean Woodpeckers select a twig straiten it by breaking of tiny pieces hold the twig in its beak, poke it into cracks and scrape it around crannies until an insect is flushed out. It then quickly tucks the twig away and devours the insect.
The Green Heron, fishing in Ambergris’s lagoons uses its own feathers like a fly fisherman to lure fish into its grasp. Using tools is just a small indicator of intelligence. Creativeness and design are more advanced indicators.
The male Silk Bowerbird colorfully paints the walls of his bower after he finds some kind of fibrous material that can be used as a brush and a color producing substance, such as berries or charcoal that can be used as paint. After applying a color he steps back and looks at his work much like an artist pausing to evaluate his canvas.
Prenatal care awareness is displayed by
In building their homes, birds can manifest the skills of a tailor, mason, carpenter or other human craftsman. Birds also have capabilities that are superior to those of humans. Using information found in the environment, migrating and homing birds can determine precise direction and passage of time (the “avian compass” and the “avian clock”). They can use natural information to ‘read’ barometric pressure, wind patterns, the earth’s magnetism, polarized light patterns, subtle odors, movements of the sun, patterns and movements of the stars, infrasound and subtle landmarks. They use these natural cues to find their way much better.
The avian world is much older than ours. They live gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained. They are not our brethren or our underlings; they are another nation, caught with us in the net of life, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of earth. Does that sound cuckoo to you?
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Great Blue Heron
Ardea herodias
In the world of Aves there is an order called Ciconiiformes (long legged fishing birds) and within that order there is a family known as Areidae (herons). The Great Blue Heron is a member of that family and by far the most majestic of its 58 members.
Ambergris is home of many and is considered part of the breeding area for the non-residents.
The Great Blue has yellow eyes, a yellow to orange bill and pale yellow legs. Its upper parts are gray. It sometimes appears to have dark shoulders. Its name ‘Great Blue Heron’ must come from its slaty gray color but in truth is not blue at all.
The juvenile of Ambergris have an entirely white plumage and can be distinguished from the other white Ardeidae by its bill, eye and leg color.
The masterful fishing bird hunts mainly by standing and waiting, or stealthy stalking. Ambergris has many non-migratory residents but populations from the
Adult Herons stand 40 to 50 inches tall and are often mistaken for Cranes. A sure way to tell the difference is to see it fly. A heron flies with an S-shape bend in its neck, and a crane flies with its neck extended.
Sanding motionless most of the time, this very patient fisherman will on occasion lift its wings not to fly but to cast a dark reflection on the surface of the water that allows it to spot prey below.
I was assuming that the broken Soya Shells strewn on the sand flats between the beach crest and lagoon were the work of raccoons. (Soya is a local name for a variety of Hermit Crabs that chose shells from large swamp snails). One evening I observed a tall long legged bird standing in the moonlight put its foot down on an unsuspecting Soya. It thrust its pointed bill down to crack open the shell and removed a nice bite of meat, then threw its head skyward and swallowed. Not being able to resist any longer Bubba turned on the flashlight. With a start it took off saying, ‘Quok - Quok - Quok’ as it slowly flapped its wings and disappeared into the shadows of the lagoon.
That same evening back at the cabaña, I read most Ardeidae have a rough guttural voice and give their vocal sounds in a row, simultaneous with the down beat of its wings. I haven’t been able to get deep enough into the lagoon’s mangrove to see the nests but from my book’s photographs they seem to be crude stick platforms on the crest of the mangrove. Maybe after the mosquito festival I’ll look again.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Birdmanship
Because I like to watch birds and write about the in the newspaper, the impression is given to many that I'm a 'Birder'. This is simply not true.
The sport of birdwatching has many sides and I seem to be involved with only one. This assumption, along with Bubba's and my new notoriety has placed us in many awkward positions with Birders. The increase in confrontations with these well meaning souls has caused me to seek help from a book by Stephen Potter titled The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating! If you're a troubled birdwatcher like myself and not a 'Birder', I would like to pass along some survival techniques for problems that might arise as you pass through the Birdworld.
When approached in a social setting you're likely to be introduced as an authority on birds and inevitably your questioner will say, "Oh how interesting. I've been seeing these little brown birds that hop around on the beach, can you tell me what they are?" The best defense is to stun them with a comment and retreat abruptly. For example, rapidly answer, "No! But it's interesting that you would ask me about that particular bird. I've seen references to it in early Dutch literature." Then smile, quickly turn your back and move away before questions can be asked about Dutch literature. It works every time!
When meeting Birders in the field you can avoid their wasting your prime Birdwatching time by attacking first. One of the most vulnerable spots is their equipment. Insulting remarks about a Birder's Banana Republic clothing or Eddie Bowers hat will only serve to irritate them. Go straight for the binoculars. "Nice little toy you've got there; but can you see with them?" Then pick your moment carefully, flick your ancient pair to your eves and say, "Gosh that juvenile fooled me for a second; I thought it was a female, oh sorry, didn't you get yours up in time?" Caught at a disadvantage you can finish them off with a helpful suggestion that the weight of those glasses is holding them back, then studiously proceed down the trail unmolested.
The final arena of confrontation is the most difficult. God forbid you ever get involved in a Birder's committee meeting. Your greatest test will be taking part in an ornithological discussion. I don't normally smoke a pipe but on these occasions find it very useful. The excused silence as you light up and puff with the literal smoke screen to follow is a great tool. Wait until the speaker makes any assertion not backed by a mass of evidence, cough, and say with equal emphasis on each monosyllable: "Do ,we, know, that ?"
If you are called to speak on any subject, immediately acknowledge your indebtedness for the help of your most likely critic and keep your subject simple, never come to any conclusions.
If the food was good say, "Perhaps by this time next month, if everything goes well, we'll have some more data to help us." This remark is good for two or three dinners at least.
Like I said in the beginning, birdwatching has many sides to it and Birders are only one....thank God!
I'll try to get back on track with next week's 'Bird of the Week', the Squirrel Cuckoo; not a Birder but an unfortunately named Ambergris bird.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Squirrel Cuckoo
Piaya cayana
The order is Cuculiforme, the family is Cuculidae, the genus is Coccyzus and the species, Piaya cayana. I hope that's right! Taxonomy isn't my best subject, and Bubba isn't one to ask about taxonomy either. He thinks that I'm a subspecies of a hybrid family in the kingdom that hasn't learned to use two of its four legs yet.
Ambergris is home for three species of cuckoo; the Squirrel Cuckoo, the Mangrove Cuckoo and some parts of the year, the Yellowbilled Cuckoo. The Ambergris Squirrel Cuckoo looks like most cuckoos - elongated body with moderately long neck and tail. The cuckoos around the Basil Jones area of Bacalar Chico have red eyes, light green bills, the upper parts of the tail and body are a rich rufous color, but the tail's underside is dark. The underside of its tail feathers are white on the ends but from a distance, appear to be four or five white horizontal bands. its belly is gray and its throat is cinnamon.
The roadrunners are a family member of the cuckoo, and the majority of cuckoos live close to the ground.
Cuckoos have special purpose feet called "zygodactyl" (two toes pointing forward and two pointing back). zygodactyl feet are also found in woodpeckers and seem to be helpful moving around trees rapidly. A very hard bird to get a good look at! I found an odd discrepancy in its nesting information and have not seen its nest yet, so I can't tell who's correct. Birds of Costa Rica by Skutch, Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America by Howell and Webb, and Mexican Birds by Peterson and Chalif all suggest that Squirrel Cuckoos make a nest and describe it in detail but Reader's Digest's Birds say they are parasitic. Parasitism is a strange practice where the parent lays its eggs in a nest of another species and allows the other species to hatch, care for and feed the nestlings.
Reader's Digest says that all the Cuculinae members (Ambergris cuckoo's family) are thought to be parasitic and confined to the American tropics. I believe Reader's Digest! It also said the two chalk white eggs of the cuckoo are laid at a late stage of development when the embryo inside the egg has already formed.
Reader's Digest has a great amount of fascinating details on parasitism. I was amazed at the deviousness the cuckoo parent uses to get the host to accept the eggs and nestlings.
I asked Bubba about the vernacular name, Squirrel Cuckoo, and he said, "Probably its in reference to their agility running through trees and bush like a squirrel. 'Cuckoo' is, of course, the sound they make when exiting a Swiss wall clock." I think Bubba is half right, but the noise is more likely for the defense of its mating territory; females defend separate territories within the males' territory. In other words, the polygamist mate will stake claim to a large grove and within the grove, several females will have claim to their separate spaces to which he visits. "Cuc-loo" is how a European cuckoo says, "This is my territory!" The Ambergris Squirrel cuckoo says, "Ch'kaow!"
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Black Eagle?
Hawks, kites and eagles all fall into a category known as Accipitridae, a family of 217 species. They all seem to have a few things in common; strong feet with hooked claws, strong flyers and are large birds of prey.
The Black Eagle around the Cocal where I live seems to defy identification.
I first noticed one in 1992 when two vacationing birders with scopes called me over to have a look at what they called a `black eagle' perched in a gumbo limbo tree.
They failed to find it in the field guide, so decided it must be a Common Black Hawk.
The field guides I have say the solitary eagle (Black Eagle) is rare and found in the mountains, but it seems to fit the description well.
It's black with raptor claws and a sharp hooked bill. This month I got a close look when he landed atop my beach palapa to eat a crab he picked up on the beach.
I got comfortable in the beach chair with my binoculars and watched a large black bird with the same eagle profile I've been looking at on the green money all my life.
It had a deep yellow color at the base of its hooked bill that was black on the end. It had thick, swept back, black feathers half way down its deep yellow legs and feet. It looked around cautiously with amber eyes and as he flew away, he displayed a single, distinctive, white bar fanned across his tail.
What confuses me is eagles like to nest on cliffs or tall tree tops and we don't have that on the island.
The field guide said, "Habitat: Forested mt. slopes, pines." Fishing eagles are very territorial and defend it violently from high perches and nest. It's very unlikely that he lives at any altitude like all the books describe because the cocal is fronted by the Caribbean Sea and backed with a 3 mile wide bay then 20 miles of savanna before he could even get as high as 600' above sea level.
If it wasn't for the distinct single tail bar, I would say it's a Common Black Hawk. The Black Hawk has several and the whole tail is tipped in white. The Common Black Hawk doesn't have the square shape to its head and forehead the eagle has.
Birds of Costa Rica by Stiles and Skutch gave me my best clue. It says the Solitary Eagle has dark iris and the Common Black Hawk has brown, but then it concedes that there may be a separate species called the Mangrove Black Hawk (Buteo gallus subtilis) that may live on the
I'm willing to call it the `Mangrove Black Hawk'. I'll keep watching for a better i.d.
Stiles and Skutch say, "We encourage further study of this problem!"
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Savanna Vulture
The guides on the mainland point to circling vultures and say to the tourist, "Turkey Vulture," and in fact the red, featherless, head and neck make me feel that's correct, but the Ambergris guides need to take a closer look at another vulture.
It has some red on its head but most of the color is yellow with blue. It is the Savanna Vulture and can be seen gliding low over the island's back savanna, rocking its wings as it goes.
Vultures can be seen on the mainland by driving down almost any highway that has traffic producing road kill foods. We have no roads or traffic on the north end of Ambergris and vultures have to be more resourceful to eat.
Sometimes it becomes necessary to kill instead of waiting to find animals already dead, and this characteristic moves them from the behavior of a vulture' to the behavior of 'raptor' like its cousin the Black Hawk.
One hundred and fifty million years ago Jurassic lithographic limestone deposits preserved imprints of feathers on a reptile, " a carnivorous dinosaur bird". Our friend, the Savanna Vulture, has earned the name 'raptor'. It displays physical and speculated behavioral characteristics of its prehistoric ancestor.
Vultures use their keen sense of smell to locate the carrion but also have eyesight like a hawk and can see small things on the ground while gliding at high altitudes.
Vultures lack the vocal elements that allow most birds to sing and are reduced to grunting, guess when..when it's eating! Its featherless head and neck are designed for inserting into carcasses for a bite. A wonder no one likes them! When it's mad and fighting over food it hisses like a snake. I'm glad it's not bigger than I am.
In the island's dry season the small lagoons in the savanna start to dry up and as they do, fish are trapped in distressfully shallow waters. This attracts the Savanna Vulture, and it kills these doomed fish for food. When the rains come and fill the lagoons, not being a true fisherman, this unique, innovative vulture will catch lizards and snakes to survive.
Most vultures have a physical make-up that causes them not to desire living food and must wait until something dies. This might explain "rapacious behavior", long periods of no food waiting for something to die causes greedy, voracious, rude, desperate actions and fighting over food after it finally dies.
I'm speculating that at some time in the Savanna Vulture's development, it must have thought, "Why don't I just kill something!"
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Ambergris Owl
When! I was in school my teacher told me this story about a young reporter who was sent out by the editor to cover as important trial at the courthouse. Upon returning to the newspaper office he was asked by the editor for his article. The young reporter said that the court had not been held that day because the judge had fallen on the courthouse steps and broken his leg. So there was no article. The wise old editor looked over this spectacles and replied, "You're fired."
I think what brought this story to mind is I've failed to identify the bird of the week this week!
Since a major part of the island is still undeveloped and covered with trees and brush, it isn't surprising to find exotic, rarely seen birds in this treasure trove of nature.
Owls can be identified by their voice, Who-hohohoho-who in the night lets me know this owl. I read about him and see evidence of who and what he is doing.
The deduction of published possibilities tells me it's a "screech owl". whether it's spotted, whiskered, horned or neo-tropical, I won't know until I find where he sleeps in the day or spotlight him at night.
I live in a large, white, sandy clearing in the middle of the savanna's high bush, between the beach and lagoon. At night, except when the moon lights it, there is black night with stars only. From a perch that must be overlooking the clearing, this owl sits and says "Who-whowhowhowho--who". I imagine he's looking for that foolish mouse or snake that might step into the light of its hunting ground.
Hunting is better or worse during different cycles of the tide and moon, so during some dark times of the month he must be hungrier than others. During the early evening when magic light happens he will fly out to get what he can before the moonless night falls and he can't hunt.
Owls belong to the order of Strigiformes and are nocturnal predators with forward-directed eyes set in a facial disk of radiating feathers. These disks function like parabolic reflectors to direct sound waves to the ear for location of the sound source, and the owl uses this to hunt by sound as well as sight. So my friend is not wholly dependent on the light to hunt. I suspect he is a member of the Strigidae family, but I can't prove it yet. I only know him by his voice. Each owl seems to have a pattern of hoots, whos or boos that are separated by pauses like the dots and dashes of Morris Code and can be used not only to identify it but will even tell you what mood it's in and what it's doing.
My first record of this owl is in my bird journal recorded as: Owl-screech,11/24/92,after 5:30, 6:30. Morris Code sound ID, "Who-whowhowhowho-Who", 1-1234-1 (. - - - - . )
I imagine also that during the day he must sleep in the cool, shady depths of the high grove near the lagoon in a hollow-out tree. Screech owls don't build, so it must owe its shelter to the work of some woodpecker or find a rotting coconut trunk.
I give you this synopsis: we have owls on Ambergris but I sure don't know what kind!
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Black Catbird
Pajaro Gato Negro
by Bubba
In the order of Passiformes is a unique family exclusively of the new world called "Mimidae". The Mimidae consist of the Mockingbird, Thrashers and Catbirds. This week's bird of the week is known as Dumetellas galbrirostris or the Black Catbird.
The Catbird looks like a small grackle. It has the same blue-black plumage, but grackles have yellow eyes and walk with powerful legs and big feet. Catbirds have amber eyes, hop on skinny legs and have classic passiforme feet.
They are known to exist only in a small part of Central America that includes northern
The black Catbirds depend on the thick brush and hedge at sea level to provide them with a diet of seeds, berries and wild fruits. The uniqueness of the family is that many of its members such as the Catbird have the ability to mimic sounds it hears. A friend and I recently had an encounter with one. I don't normally associate with alley cats for the obvious reason, but Ray is an exception; he keeps to himself, speaks when spoken to doesn't smell bad, that sort of thing.
Yesterday afternoon while visiting with him I noticed he seemed nervous about a blackbird perching in the seagrape tree. He was pacing and couldn't keep his eyes off the tree. Unusual for a guy like Ray, but he seemed to be afraid of a bird! Even inside the house he stared out the window.
We walked outside for a drink from his bowl. The Catbird flew down, quickly perched on the porch rail above him, aimed his red eye at Ray and made a startling 'meow' sound. This completely undid Ray who bolted for protection under the steps. The Catbird seemed pleased with himself and enjoyed water from the bowl undisturbed before flying away.
Catbirds can be extremely tame, however, territorial aggression, at times, may take the form of physical attacks on invaders such as dogs, cats and even humans. Mimicry can be a form of intimidation. In Ray's case the Catbird has his number and just decided to spook him, however, I wouldn't doubt part of Ray's fear is from a previous peck on the head.
the Catbird's vocal repertoire is extremely varied and I would not attempt to describe it here, but it's capable of warbling song, clicks, clucks, buzzes, and of course meows!
I read its nests are a bulky cup of twigs and grass. It produces 2 greenish blue eggs yearly. Nesting is done in dense bush and small trees.
Replacing its loss of habitat with shrubs and berry producing brush in the landscapes of human developments will help this unusual species survive.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
BUBBA MEETS BIRDZILLA
AND THE CINNAMON HUMMINGBIRD
Unlike the title might imply this isn’t an article about a clash of titans. www.Birdzilla.com is a new and wonderful discovery of Bubba’s. A monster web site for birders that obviously want to promote the sport of birdwatching and is providing free information services for birders. It has a place for searches, sightings, announcements, discoveries and more.
What won my affection was its accounts of backyard birdwatching, not barstool, I said “backyard”. I learned birdwatching from my mother while washing dishes and looking out her kitchen window. She would say, “Look! a cardinal” or “a spring robin”, even a sparrow got attention.
It became contagious; however, I washed a lot of dishes before I discovered her joy. Forty years later I find myself a birdwatching tour guide taking birders up jungle rivers to show them birds they will not see in their backyard. A little point of irony is that some of my best sightings are still out the window washing my dishes.
Yesterday, in my boxers with soapy hands and no binoculars, I got a close look at a rarity, a perching Cinnamon Hummingbird in the coconut tree only a few feet away. It seems to use my hibiscus as a territory, returning to its supervisory perch outside my window to wait for intruders.
Birdzilla puts them in order of Apodiformes; there are two families, the swifts and hummingbirds. The hummingbird's family name is Trochilidea, and it has 365 or more members. Depending on whose book you're reading, the figure goes from 330 to 365. I suspected some of my books were just old and more species have been discovered since 1937. My 1979 edition of Reader's Digest Birds seem to be the most complete, and agrees with Birdzilla, 365.
Through Birdzilla links I found that hummingbirds are in general the smallest and fastest birds on the planet. The largest being the Giant Patagona gigas at eight inches, and smallest the Bumble Bee Hummingbird of Cuba at 2.5 centimeters (about the size of a bumble bee).
It's true that hummingbirds are attracted by red nectar flowers and get a lot of their tremendous energy from its sweet, sugary juice, but their diet's protein comes from eating insects.
My cabaña is circled with red blossomed hibiscus but it’s still just luck that I’m getting this rare, close look at a Cinnamon perching. I've avoided writing about hummingbirds because it's so difficult to identify one. They almost never quit moving long enough to see and are so fast, all you see is a blur. Trying to identify it while it’s hovering is your best hope; I saw a long slender orange to red bill, with a black tip. Most of its body was an iridescent green, its entire body seemed only about three inches long, and its throat and under-parts were, of course, cinnamon. Its eyes were black. This was the first time I had seen hummingbird wings not moving. They looked surprisingly normal for things that can move that fast. I guess I expected to see wings like an insect, but they were feathered and had a gray color. The feet were too small for me to even describe. Those flying around the hibiscus seem to fight. The fight always seems to be the same; one will be hovering and darting from flower to flower. My guy charges at it and chases it off into the distance. Afterwards, it returns to its perch outside the kitchen window where it waits for the next intruder.
Several weeks ago I was chopping coconut fronds with my machete from a bushy tree close to the back of my house, when I saw on the underside of a frond I was about to cut, an intricately woven nest firmly attached. Not knowing what kind of bird could make such a sturdy hanging nest and because it was so unique, I went straight away to the book shelf in the house. It looked like a hanging basket, but glued, as it was woven to the palm. I read they lay usually two leathery, buff eggs and Birdzilla.com said hummingbirds steal spider web and use it for the bonding material.
I'm sure Ambergris has more than one kind of hummingbird, but they're so damn hard to identify while moving. The Cinnamon outside my window seems to be a lucky find but even greater is Birdzilla.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
THE
OF AMBERGRIS
Bubba got out his Latin dictionary for this weeks title, ‘Littoral Forest’ are by definition coastal forest, not mangrove or cocal but a special ecosystem and unique habitat for birds such as Rufous Necked Woodrail, White Crowned Pigeon, Boobies, and Black Cat Bird.
The Littoral forest habitat covers the smallest area of any in
Of all the habitats in
The second problem is in ‘enforcement’, funds for officers and boats to patrol such areas always seem to be insufficient to protect it from those who would abuse. The demand for post for docks, sticks for fish traps, and palmetto for cabanas has created a slightly new slant on illegal logging. Bubba came up with a profound thought on the subject he said, “In the absence of government we must govern ourselves”. I think what he is trying to say is we ourselves must make sure we are not guilty of misuse of these habitats, help by respecting these areas and report their abuses. I have a thought of my own about it, If it isn’t shown that we care by our actions our country will run us instead of we run our country.
People wishing to write letters should contact either or both of these offices:
The
The Department of Environment
Chief Environmental Officer
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
The Ambergris Owl "Buho Grande”
This is the first time I've written about the same bird twice, but this pajaro has got my interest at peak. Last week I said I thought this was a screech owl, and almost in a mystical coincidence as I sat on my veranda, two evenings before the full moon of last week the hooting began. The noise is "who-whowhowhowho-who" or "who-whowhowho". From the call happening at the same time from different directions I think there were two.
One landed on a bending coco frond that silhouetted it in the moonlight about 25 feet in front of the veranda where I was sitting.
It took me a few minutes to determine it wasn't a hawk because of its hunting posture. It just didn't fit the sitting and sleeping posture in photographs and illustrations that the bird ID book depicts it doing. Powerful legs with feathers. It stood with its tail in an upward angle and I was apparently behind it as it looked out on the moonlit clearing in front of us.
After I looked and looked I decided to chance a hoot myself to get its reaction. To my surprise it turned to look at me from 180º without moving anything but its neck, then it threw up two very large ears that seem to point at me with accuracy.
The ears were pointed and longer than the height of its head. I could see the light color of its parabolic disks that contained his eyes. Nothing else moved! It reminded me of Linda Blair's neck trick in the Exorcist.
This creature was a hungry, hunting animal that was looking for a small mammal. When I read that it eats opossums, I realized in the absence of opossum on the island my little missing puppy could have been a nice meal. I wonder if they could be trained to eat cats?
I'm leaning toward it being a Great Horned Owl, aka "Buho Grande" ! Even though the books say things like, "rare and doubtful in this area", What do they know; it was there and hooting its song to me!
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Bubba on Bird Emotions
Not being a scientific writer, I enjoy some freedoms of opinion and at times cross over into fiction and fantasy. Usually, it's easy to tell the difference. I would like to seriously propose to birdwatchers that birds have a full array of emotions!
In his book The expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin even dared to imagine a dog's conscious life. He was correct in that I have dreams, anger, love, jealousy, relief, curiosity, compassion and disappointment to a degree of intensity that is paralleled to humans.
I lead an intense emotional life and believe I am no different than the birds in this respect.
The Booby chick is born with jealousy to a degree that it kills its siblings, leaving only one chick per nest that gets all the food and attention. Ornithologists classifying bird mating have defined a number of systems in which it would be in a bird's genetic interest not to allow its partner to mate with others. They speak in terms of "monopolizing", "defending", or "guarding" mates, not in terms of love and jealousy, but jealous behavior enforced with an exclusivity in mating which can certainly have genetic effects.
Birds seem to get angry; they certainly do commit aggressive acts against each other, fight for turf, and hurt and kill one another.
The bird books will say "brutal" or "savage" but the word anger does not appear.
Hate is most obviously displayed in parrots. Haven't you heard parrot owners make comments like, "He hates all men," or "It hates children," "redheads", or "dogs"?
It remains unknown whether these kinds of eccentric dislikes are found in the wild, but perhaps these parrots simply enjoy having enemies. This may promote flock solidarity, prevent interbreeding between species, strengthen the pair bond, or have some other valuable function.
Most psychological theorists have tried to list emotions that are universal. The lists range in number from 154 to 3. Theorists do not agree on which emotions are basic ones. I found it interesting that love never fails to appear on the list.
For Elbert to describe the birds of Ambergris Caye without including their emotions would be a disservice.
To understand birds, it's essential to understand how they feel. Knowing the emotions of birds is easy as knowing your own emotions; what would they feel can be answered with, what would you feel?
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE Migration
‘Birds don’t fly South for the Winter’
It’s September, and from now until late April Bubba and I will be enjoying an unusual variety of migratory Avifauna visiting Ambergris Caye and its Bacalar Chico Reserve. The northern part of the planet has begun to lean away from the sun. Invisible plotable lines of temperature gradients called ‘isotherms’ move further south on the weather maps and all life on earth pays them heed.
The Bacalar Chico Reserve on the north end of Ambergris is a 60 square mile terrestrial reserve and serves as a refuge for migratory birds. About 225 species of long distance migrants occur in
Bubba believes Birds use specific migratory paths that consist of rivers, lakes, and various other food sources like a dotted line of rest stops. These paths are called flyways. The Atlantic flyway leads migratory birds from as far north as Greenland down
The Mississippi flyway leads birds from Alaska and middle Canada down the Mississippi River Valley to the Gulf of Mexico where it divides, leading some to Cuba and some to the Yucatan.
It is the Central and Pacific flyways that lead the majority of migratory birds to Ambergris Caye. The bottleneck effect of the flyways narrowing at the base of the Yucatan cause a concentration of migratory Avifauna looking for shelter, food, and water. The Bacalar Chico Reserve seems to be a logical place to stop for this, and creates a birdwatching spot second to none.
I said to my resident expert, “Birds in the North use this cooling as a signal to begin their annual migration southward. Bubba gave me a look that made me feel I had said something wrong. With a little bit of an annoyed tone he said, “birds don’t fly south for the winter, Canadians do. The birds fly North for the summer and I bet you think that’s the same thing!”
“Yes, and the way I look at it that’s called ‘the same difference.”
Bubba sighed and said,” If you look at this properly, you’ll discover something you didn’t know about migration. Birds we see in
The American continent was very different during this frozen era. Most living things where compacted into areas near the equator.
The ancestors of neotropical migrants originated in Amazonia (an area believed to be 15 million years old, known today as
San Pedro tour operators are now offering day trips into the Bacalar Chico area September also marks the beginning of the slow season for tourism this might be just the time to explore the
Reverend Bill The Boat Captain
Reverend Bill, the boat captain, was not a reverend and his name was not Bill; also, he was not really a boat captain. Reverend Bill had colored himself with stories of adventures in the
He was Reverend Bill, the boat captain, because what he once was had become unimaginable to him. It was not known whether Bill was a good captain or not, for his days were spent on a stool at the Holiday Bar where he had thrown himself so violently into the sea he had very little time left for sailing of any kind.
For sport, Bill was an active member of the chicken drop. San Pedro did not have a symphony, a movie house or even a miniature golf course. San Pedro had the chicken drop. Every community needs a social event to gather together and satisfy its need to gossip, brag, argue and court. The chicken drop was this for San Pedro.
Every Wednesday night Celi would hire a band and conduct a large beach barbecue where fresh fish with beans and rice were sold cheap enough for everyone to afford.
In the middle of this grand event was a large checkered floor surrounded by a low chicken wire fence. Each square was numbered. There were one hundred squares and one hundred chances to win.
Bill sold chances by allowing participants to reach into a large pickle jar and draw from 100 numbered poker chips. Each chip cost one
A procession lead by
The dazed chicken would dance around from number to number causing waves of cheering and hooting from the crowd screaming. “¡Caga Pollo Caga!” There seem to be only one rule governing the conduct of the gallery imposed by Celi: “Thou shall not throw beer bottles at the pollo!”
Eventually the chicken rewarded its audience with a small gift atop a lucky number, and the cycle began again with more beer, poker chips and a fresh chicken. By the end of the evening everyone was well fed, drunk, grandly entertained and socially exorcised.
One Wednesday evening Reverend Bill laid his eyes on a short Guatemalan Indian woman. Through his veil of rum he might not have noticed or cared about her large hooked and broken nose or the extent of rot in her teeth from years of chewing sugar cane.
It might not have mattered to him her rotundness and inability to speak or understand a word of English. Even so, he fell in love with this beautiful woman God had sent him in his time of need. Ignoring the chicken festivities, they sat at the bar as he told her of his whaling adventures in the
Tequila Steve, usually immune to activities around him, was peering over his paperback and was witnessing this miracle in the making. He started buying rounds of tequila in celebration of Bill’s new found love. Everyone was feeling very well.
During the course of the evening, unnoticed by the chicken drop enthusiasts, Bill and his new love walked arm and arm from the bar onto the pier where Bill was suddenly struck with one of his greater ideas. Tied to the dock before him was Tito’s small skiff and outboard.
He could borrow the boat, motor off shore just a little and have some private moments under the stars with his little angel. Without hesitation they hopped in the boat and he motored towards the reef.
San Pedrano men love and care for their boats and even though no one would ever dream of stealing from them, it was a common practice to take your gas tank and anchor home with you in the evening. A clean, tuned 30 horsepower Yamaha will run three or four minutes on just the little bit of fuel in its lines and filter housing.
Bill only noticed they were far enough off shore for the right amount of privacy required for the affair when the engine stopped. He did not investigate as to why. The heat of this magic moment was rising fast.
When the cool breeze began to blow Bill probably thought it was another present from God to cool him and his sweaty little maiden.
Ambergris became a different place when a northerner blew. It placed San Pedro in the lee silencing the roar of the reef. The giant Cypress Trees permanently bent by the relentless trade winds whistled as this cool air traveled through them from this unusual direction. A peaceful air covered the island that seemed to calm not just the sea but its people.
Early Thursday morning while
By midday Tito was at the police station lamenting his missing skiff in front of constable Orio’s desk. Shortly after, two and two began to add up for
The
It could have been the waves or possibly the pounding in his head that woke him. The rum had done its job of making him forget his past and sometimes even the present. He slowly opened his eyes. At first he did not remember anything of the evening or how he came to be adrift in this small boat with by far the ugliest woman he had laid eyes on. Little by little, like small flashes in his brain, his memory started coming back. He began to assess his predicament. Slowly with collective realizations the picture sharpened.
Suddenly sleeping beauty came alive with a very loud, “¿Quien demonios eres tu?, y ¿Que diablos hacemos aqui?”
This painful noise gave Reverend Bill’s headache fuel. He squinted with a wrinkled forehead and said, “Do you speak English? Habla English?”
As if speaking to the tiny vanishing island on the horizon she said, “Chingus su madre!! ¿Como llegamos aqui y mas aun quien eres tu? ¿Que es lo que esta pasando?”
Realizing his English would be falling on deaf ears Bills sighed with, “Oh my God your an ugly bitch!”
Unaffected by Bill’s obvious lack of understanding she looked at him with fire in her eyes and said, “ Dime idiota
Bill understood the look and tone but was trying to ignore the shouting and concentrate on the dilemma at hand.
There seemed to be no anchor, no oars, only a little rope and a fuel line to nowhere. The northern breeze had just pushed them out of sight of land and moving at a steady pace to the south east.
There is no hope of explaining a series of misfortunes like this to someone who does not speak your language. His black haired lover had become a beast in the light of day and his concern was only to blot out the painful noises she was making so he could think.
“¡Ademas de idiota eres una mula. La poca gasolina que tenemos no sera suficiente ni para llegar a visitar a tu madre!”
Making a zipper motion with his fingers across his lips Bill said, “Please shut up.”
With no decrease in volume she continued with, “Y fue…dime dime - Hijo de p***, qué hacemos ahora. Te tiras en el aqua y nos regresas o nos damos aqui come acabados!”
Bill’s hopes were sinking as they seemed to drift further and further to sea. His luck turned when she lunged to the side to vomit. The sounds of her heaving and regurgitation seemed far more pleasant than her screaming vile Spanish at him.
The sea sickness had weakened her and she raised few objections to giving up her skirt to the sail Bill was making. He fashioned a sea anchor from one of the seats and the stern line. He enjoyed a few sips of water from floating coconuts they gathered. The little chunks of coconut meat worked well as bait on the hand line he found in the bow. He fashioned a rudder from the remaining seat using a piece of bamboo they passed as a tiller. By night fall he had caught three small mackerels.
Bill now seemed in control of his little ship and unwilling crew. A swell of pride took him over. For the first time in a long while he was in touch with reality. This was in fact his only experience at sea and he would not only survive it but was in command.
Bill and his dehydrated green honey were picked up by a fishing smack on the Turneffe Atoll on his third day at sea and returned to San Pedro with Tito’s skiff in tow. Upon docking his first mate disappeared never to be seen or heard from again. Having no one around to dispute his heroics, The Captain Reverend Bill’s epic adventure grew and grew through the years as he told it proudly from atop his stool overlooking the
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE Laughing Gull
Order Charadriiformes, family Laridae is the Larus atricilla
The fisherman of San Pedro go out at dawn to check their traps and bring the catch back to the shoreline to clean and dress. The scraps fall into the water from cleaning tables erected at the water's edge. The terns and kites swoop down and gather a good meal, but even with this abundance, there are aerial dogfights between them over strings of fish meat, and the terns usually win.
Today a new bird showed up and put the terns to task. What brought it to my attention was the noise. The gull seemed to be laughing at the other birds as it stole their food. Even Bubba looked up as this bird made its cackling, laughing noise. The terns seem to be out-matched by the flying ability of this bird and lost parcels of food in mid-air from skillful, swift attacks.
At first glance it looks like a tern, but it has a black hooked bill instead of the bright orange wedge like the tern, and its wing tips seemed as if they had been dipped in black ink. It had white underparts with gray on top and a white border along the trailing edges of its upper wings.
I quickly looked up in my field guide this appropriately named gull.
It said, " Omnivorous scavengers, breeds in monogamous pairs and the male feeds his mate during courtship.'
All these birds around the dock look very healthy, eating the fisherman's scraps. They are a good example of a species that has gained from the presence of man, unlike many others that have suffered from his influence.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The White Ibis
The " Bird of the Week" has a way of picking itself, as did this bird of the week, for instance.
I was cruising through the lagoon river and a white bird flew over that seemed to be carrying a twig in its bill. I watched it, hoping it would reveal a nest in the mangrove hollow, when I noticed it wasn't carrying a twig at all; it was just the proud owner of the longest, most odd-shaped nose (bill), I've seen since Jimmy Durante. Another in the order of Ciconiiformes from the family of Threskiorenithidae is this 'white ibis'. Flying above, it can be distinguished from an egret by its outstretched neck and black wing tips that look like five black fingers on each wing, of course, if you're close enough, a long slender decurved bill. One bird book calls it sickle-shaped; it reminds me of a Hermit Hummingbird's bill, only big. The ibis uses it as a specialized tool for eating animals from the lagoon's shallow bottom.
I watched it walk for a few minutes. It steps forward a step and extends its neck forward with each step, cocks its head to point one eye downward, then quickly puts its special bill to work. I had hoped to hear the soft, grunting noise I read that they make while eating and hunting, but I disturbed it by getting to close, and it made its alarm noise instead, and flew off. It nests inside the mangrove tree for protection, not on top but in the middle. The mangrove grows like bars around its nests that prevent things like me from even getting close. I've only seen six white ibis on this island; three flying along the coast at Basil Jones, one in San Pedro lagoon, one at the Cost Del Maya lagoon.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE Boobies
In order of Pelicanformes ( large birds with webbed feet) is the family of Sulidae and in that family are two species of Booby that are this week's birds. Sharing the spotlight are Sula leucogaster (the Brown Booby) and 'Sula Sula' (the Red-Footed Booby).
My first exposure to a Booby Bird was when one landed on Tito's Dive Boat. We were quite a bit out from shore. Tito laughed and said, "He's tired!" It seemed unafraid and since the boat is only 20 feet long it provided us with a very close look at one another. The bird was primarily brown with a darker brown breast and big webbed feet that had a pale orange tint. I thought about Tito's comment about needing a rest and noticed how large this bird was, flying was probably a lot of work and this boat was the only place nearby to land. It seemed to look us over real good. It was probably thinking we were the oddest looking humans he had ever seen. Tito and I both had on SCUBA gear and this Booby cocked his head sideways to look us up and down with one eye and then the other. I'm sure he was wishing he had his field guide with him. I firmly believe the longer an animal's order has existed the more propensity it has for intelligence and Pelicaniformes have fossil evidence that dates as far back at 20 million years. However, stupidity is associated with this bird in that its name means clown, and if you've ever seen a tourist walk around in their swim fins then you can picture how a Booby walks. Its biggest mistake may be allowing a close approach by humans. An average Bobby weighs 5 pounds and tastes like chicken.
Boobies have waterproof plumage and special nostrils that close for diving under water after fish. The Brown Booby seems not to draw a line between diving for its own food or stealing someone else's meal.
Boobies nesting are unique and intriguing. They nest in colonies and have social interaction like most communities, fighting and stealing among one another. When density increases respect fails.
Halfmoon Caye off the coast of Belize is home for a large nesting colony of two species of Booby and one of Frigate that nest in high density.
From an observation tower on the caye's west end you can stand among the colony's nests and look out over the scrub tree tops to witness undisturbed colonial life of Boobies.
The young of the Brown Booby and also the White Booby have a very unusual reaction to one another. Two eggs are laid, but the first chick to hatch always kills its nest mate. Only allowing one chick to a nest is a rule. The chicks hatch almost naked and grow fluffy white in two or three weeks. They are large and comical in appearance much like what one would imagine
Territorial dancing and elaborate ceremonies prior to copulation make the tower on Half Moon a very entertaining spot for even the mildly interested birdwatcher. The trip to the caye is a 45 mile long boat ride from Ambergris Caye.
Some dive boat excursions to the caye's neighboring "Blue Hole" allow a short visit to the rookery. This is a world class Birdwatcher's destination!
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The Big White Bird!
By Bubba
In the order of Ciconiiformes (herons) there are six very similar birds that are all longlegged, white birds, and for the casual observer are all "big white birds". Being able to tell the difference in these six can be a challenge for the new birder.
Ambergris is blessed with almost every species of Ciconiiforme found in the
Big White Bird feet Bill legs
Great Egret Black Yellow Black
Snowy Egret
Cattle Egret Orange Yellow
(Young) Little Blue Heron Black Yellow w/black tip Greenish
Great Blue Heron (morph) Yellow Yellow Yellow
Reddish Egret(young) Black Pink w/black tip Grayish Blue
The chart can be used as a short cut to recognition. By applying it, you can gain a background that took most of the old birders several years to acquire. It has always amazed me how, when I identify a bird, I suddenly see it everywhere.
I hope this list helps Ambergriseans to become aware of the multitude of birds with which we live, or at any rate, avoid pointing with the comment, "Look! A Big White Bird.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE Northern Jacana
From the order of Charadriiformes in the family of Jacanidae is the species of Jancana Spinosa or Northern Jacana.
In the world eight species of Jancana are known to exist. They are a moor-hen like birds of marshes, lagoons and ponds of the tropics.
The word 'Jacanas' is an Amerindian name meaning 'lily-trotters'. They have developed special feet that give them the a unique ability of walking on lily pads and marsh grasses without sinking.
Its habit of throwing its wings high above its head exposing banana yellow underwings is probably the reason our Cuban neighbors on the
Its body is a purplish chestnut color, its bill yellow with a bright yellow frontal shield, its head and neck are contrasted in black.
We have been watching a female Jacana this week in the mangrove channels behind the island. When it flies it carries its large long feet dangling below as if they were limiting its flight. The highly specialized feet of the Jacana are unwebbed and its toes and toenails are extremely long. When it spreads its toes and feet apart the area covered is greater than its body's size, dispensing its weight over a large area giving it the ability to stand on floating lily pads and marsh grasses without sinking.
Of all the unusual aspects of this bird, its mating habits could be the most interesting. I had just gotten Bubba to understand that monogamy wasn't a tropical hardwood and his seemingly indiscriminate sex life was because he is polygamous being like the grackle, when he ran across the word 'polyandrous' used to describe the sexuality of the Northern Jacana.
It might take the rest of the week to explain this one, for now Bubba understands that one female Jacana defends a large territory that contains several males. Each male builds a separate nest of floating grasses within that territory and she lays two to four eggs for each of them to hatch and raise. The eggs are the most unusual I've ever seen. They have a high gloss water-proof finish and the brown with cream marbleized design would make Fabergé jealous.
Unlike the majority of the bird world, the female is larger and more robust than the male. Bubba still can't seem to grasp the polyandrous concept other than the men do all the work. I tried explaining that unlike most of the kingdom, she was on top but he still didn't get it!
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The White Winged Dove
In the order of columbiformes is the family of pigeons and doves called Columbidae with 285 members.
the names "pigeons" and "dove" are vernacular and interchangeable, however it was pointed out by one author that smaller Columbidae are usually referred to as dove and larger Columbidae are referred to as pigeons.
I was walking along the beach at the Sunbreeze Hotel after my lunch and a covey of pigeons sprung up from under the almond tree and flew across the courtyard. They flashed white fan bars on their tails and upper wings. It was a pleasant sight but what struck me the most was the noise of the wings. It was a pleasant sight but what struck me the most was the noise of the wings beating. It gave me a memory flash of being downtown in a city and disrupting pigeons in the park.
I read later the noise is from the wings beating together on the downstroke of a power surge to get airborne in a hurry.
The city park pigeons are a relative of the Old World Rock Dove. It lived on the cliffs by the Mediterranean Sea in
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
“From Outrage to Action”
Bubba got this unusual title for this week’s story from an old document in my mother’s attic. It told of an ornithologist who had taken a stroll through
In 1896 this account, and many like it, incited Mrs. Augustus Hemenway to collect a list of names from her “BOSTON BLUE BOOK.” The list of names was of the women most likely to wear feathers, plumes, and even whole birds on their heads.
Within a few weeks, circulars had been mailed asking
By 1899, this action on the part of Mrs. Hemenway had fueled alliances between concerned socialites, sportsmen and ornithologist who met and agreed, ”To discourage the buying and wearing, for ornamental purposes, of the feathers of any wild birds except ducks and game birds; and to otherwise further the protection of native birds”. Mrs. Hemenway’s letter-writing caused a movement that grew into an organization that has 7 million members and over the years has expanded their concerns to protection of eggs, nests and habitat, resulting in thousands of inland and coastal sanctuaries with strict laws to protect them.
Today in
The strength for this organization for 100 years has come from the same source, “Someone has to decide to take some action and write a few letters!”
I’m not sure Bubba truly understood the message or this story People , all afternoon he’s been designing ladies hats made entirely of cat fur.
Anyone wishing to write letters should contact either or both of these offices:
The
The Department of Environment,
Chief Environmental Officer,
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
Rufus Necked Woodrail
In the order of Gruiformes and the family of Rallidae is the species Aramides axillaris or the Rufous Necked Woodrail.
Bubba and I were strolling along a path through the mangrove on our way to visit the golden nymph of the river when this remarkable bird crossed our path. I was impressed with Bubba's restraint in not chasing it.
The rail stood about 10 inches tall and looked like a colorful marsh chicken. Its head and neck are rufous, with a white throat, yellowish green bill and red eyes. At the base of its neck is a light gray area. Its rump is black with an oddly turned up tail that wags when it trots.
The legs are red, long and bare feet that have three long toes forward and one rear toe that is raised and doesn't appear in its footprint.
Its walk seemed very similar to the domestic chicken, strutting its head forward with each step. It only scurried a short distance at the sight of us until it was protected by the thick mangrove, where it slowed, then stopped to look at us as well. I would like to hear its description of what we look like.
Most rails are flightless birds, as are most of its order, however, some have the ability to fly feebly for short hops to taller perches or from running, flapping, take-offs can glide short distances, usually with legs dangling.
In a predator free environment that some islands provide, flightlessness evolves quickly in most species.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE YELLOWCROWNED NIGHT HERON
The Yellow Crowned Night Heron in the order of Ciconiiformes is the Nyctanassa vidacea.
A very rare and elusive bird. To find this bird, like any bird, it's necessary to understand what its life is like. When and where it will be is predictable, but sometimes it's just luck. The sun going down and coming up sets a timetable of activity; high tide and low tide can provide for many a time to eat or a time to build nests. A full moon or no moon give opportunity to hunt or a window for sleeping. The newspaper prints tide tables as well as moon and sun schedules. This can be an important tool for the birdwatcher who wants to see a specific type of bird or a particular kind of activity.
The Yellow Crowned Night Heron is a difficult one to see. It's called a night heron because of its nocturnal habits. It likes a cool sleeping spot and nesting over still water. It seems to pick dark shade deep in the savanna woods at lagoon's edge or in a gallery of trees that stand in water.
It lays pale blue-green eggs in a platform of sticks with a depression in the center that's lined with leaves . . . not easy to visit as it seems to prefer branches that protrude over water. Watch for crocodiles!
This night heron has a truly unusual appearance. It looks a little like a Boat Billed Heron in that it's short and stocky for a heron with big eyes.
I was ready to do anything to see this heron and was preparing for the extreme. In Tennessee where I hail from, hunting deer, raccoon, possum or anything was illegal if you used a spotlight and hunted at night, but very productive!
The game warden worked another part of the forest than where I hunted because of the donut shop's proximity, so I got some experience.
I was just wondering where I left the battery cable to my spotlight for this obtrusive technique when a northerner hit the island, lots of gray, thick clouds and a cool wind blowing from the lagoon to the front beach shallows.
This condition must have given an opportunity for this unusual heron to hunt its favorite meal of crabs in the front of the island.
It was 6:30 a.m. in a gray mist of rain as I passed the old, rusty barge permanently beached at Tres Cocos. I poled in with my motor off and steadied my binoculars for a treat. Thank goodness I left Bubba at home today!
The bird's iris is a rich, reddish orange and its bill is thick and shaped like a spear point, not as wide and blunt as a Boat Billed, but unlike any other heron I had ever seen.
It has a yellow crown, of course, and it swept back to a point behind its black head. A patch of white on each side of its head seemed to flow from the eyes, lower front corner to the back of its head, I suppose to assist its vision over reflective water.
Its body color is a powder blue instead of the gray I had read about.
Each feather of its folded wings was lined in white. It must be in its breeding season because it had long, white occipital plumes protruding from its nape. Its legs were a yellowish green and was standing in water about 2 or 3 inches deep, snatching small coral blue crabs. It threw them down its throat in a typical heron manner. I've got a few more herons on my list that I hope to find on the island. I hope they are this beautiful and easy to
find.
The Yellow Crowned Night Heron
In the world of Aves from the family of Ardeidae is Nyctanassa violacea commonly known as The Yellow Crowned Night Heron.
It’s a resident breeder in
This stocky, black and gray nocturnal heron roosts camouflaged during the day in the salty mangroves and freshwater habitats of the mainland.
One of Bubbas many bird books says,’ at night they forage in the shallows. The males stand up to 24” tall and have a bold head pattern of black with white cheeks, red eyes and of course a yellow crown. The juvenile and female are brown with some thin white edges to the feathers.’
Another of his books says,’ Night Heron are crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) and are nocturnal feeders.’ but I’ve seen them forage in the daytime during the nesting season, probably to feed extra mouths, they are requester.
They are strictly carnivorous and prefer crabs. Their long legs and neck allow them to forage in aquatic habitats such as
Bubba said there numbers are increasing in
If you’re an incidental birder and not willing to walk your flashlight at night along the secluded moonlit beach or lagoons side in search of this rarity, overcast days seem to be a break in the nocturnal behavior. You may discover them stalking Soya in the savannas or in the shade or the littoral forest. Soya is a local name for a terrestrial crab the birds eat. Local fisherman value them as a prize fish bait. I would have to call it a hermit crab that commonly takes up residents in empty Apple Snail shells, or what ever shell is available. The Night Herons bill is especially adapted for removing such an escargot delight or any substitute tenant.
Most Birders who find rare birds are looking for rare birds. A rarity hunter will be prepared with an intimate knowledge of the bird, its habits, likes, and dislikes. Chances improve as rare species tend to occur in specific habitats and only at certain times.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE "Woody", the Lineated Woodpecker
Dryocopus lineatus from the order of Piciformes in the family of Picidaes
My generation thinks of large woodpeckers being like "Woody Woodpecker" a Warner Brothers buffoonish cartoon character that could peck wood at the carving speed of a chainsaw. Anything wooden was whittled down in TV seconds to nothing especially if it supported and authoritarian figure who then fell to a painful crash, causing Woody to give his famous laugh...Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha - Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Hollywood Woody was fashioned after a group of special woodpeckers within the
Picidae family referred to as crested. They are large and have flaming red heads. One species of this group lives on Ambergris.
Ambergris' male lineated woodpecker has a red moustache that adds to his dramatic and somewhat comical appearance. His large black body is contrasted with white bars thus the name 'lineatus'. (The female has a black moustache stripe.)
The courtship and selection of a prospective nest site involves a slow, rhythmic form of drumming or tapping. Red-headed woodpeckers engage in reverse mounting in which the female mounts the male before he mounts her. Both sexes excavate the nest cavity, usually on Ambergris it's a dead coconut tree.
Woodpeckers cling to the trees by means of strong claws, with second and third toes directed forward, the fourth out to the side and first or smallest toe below. This configuration is called zygodactyl feet. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of a woodpecker is the long protrusible (able to stick out) tongue. This is supported by hyoid bones so long that they extend around the back of the skull. The hyoid are attached to muscles that enable Woody to dart his sticky
tongue in and out with great rapidity collecting a variety of small wood bring insects such as termites or ants. Just yesterday large amounts of Malathion were introduced to their diets by means of aerial spraying for mosquitoes. I'm curious as to the effect it will have on the island's population of insect eating birds.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE Keel Billed Toucan
Bubba has been excited about government giving him a tour guide license for birdwatching, and all week he’s been acting like the world’s greatest authority on birds. His excitement has influenced me to have this week’s “Bird of the Week” be the National Bird of Belize. The Right Honorable George Price adopted the Keel-Billed Toucan on September 21st, 1981 when
The Keel-Billed, as most toucans are gregarious, occurring in small flocks that roam together through the tree tops in search of a varied diet of fruit. Toucans are known to be frugivorous however, the Keel-Bill's diet includes insects, bird eggs and tree frogs. Flight for this bird is labored with bursts of flapping followed by a glide. The call of the toucan could hardly be called song but rather a croaking noise similar to a frog, my book describes it as RRRK - RRRK - RRRK....or RRUK - RRUK - RRUK..etc.,
try that aloud a few times....in private!
Toucans roost throughout the year in holes of trees, often old woodpecker holes. Each flock has number of dormitories in which several adults crowd with their tails folded over their backs to save space.
Clutches are of 2 or 4 white eggs which are incubated by both parents.
Bubba got himself a little hat with an embroidered toucan on the front that says 'Tour Guide' and has been hustling tourists as they get off the plane for excursions into the jungle.
He looks ridiculous but is getting a lot of attention.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE Roseate Spoonbill
(Ajaia ajaia) Espatula Rosada
From the family of the Threskiornithidae (ibises and spoonbills), a family of 33 species
I asked Bubba about the spoonbills genera and he explained, "There are three genera of spoonbill: the Platibis in
It's home for a few ibis, spoonbills and frigate birds, but has the most frequent visitation.
I took the boat through the river and cruised up the back to the northern point of the island. I had heard rumors from the rangers that the spoonbills were nesting there, and it's early spring in
Spoonbills are found worldwide in warm tropical regions and when swamps and marshes in which they breed, dry up, they may go thousands of miles in search of suitable habitat. The rains have filled the flats in the back of the island with some regularity and over a period of years it’s become a big food source.
I can only believe this must be the attraction for these birds to chose
Spoonbills find their food by touch more than sight; they walk in the shallows with their heads down and their long peculiar looking duck bill silting the bottom in search for clams or shrimp. Bubba said, "Morphologically, they are closely related to flamingoes who are also pink and have specialized bills used to eat crustaceans from the bottom of shallow waters. When mating, the male Roseate Spoonbill will offer presents of nesting material to the female in courtship; she builds the nest."
Looking into a nest should be done carefully and is almost never done without scaring the hell out of mama. Eggs are a wonderful diet for so many predators; she can only believe you're looking for lunch. Nothing should be touched and bending a branch for a view is done with care not to break the branch. One or the other of the parents is always watching the nest.
They fly using show powerful downbeats to lift the large body with a rhythm of flap, flap, flap, glide . . . flap, flap, flap, glide . . . A flock of five or six is a thrill to watch. I hope they like this place and stay.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE Nightjars
If you have become an Ambergrisian bird watcher and have been able to observe each week's bird, this will be a challenge! I had been seeing what I thought were large bats in post-sundown's magic light that gives you little more than silhouettes of fast flying figures with abrupt direction changes. I couldn't imagine any other creature it could be. Then Bubba pointed out to me the rapid
wing movement without gliding that all bats do, and how distinctly different the gliding, diving and swoops of this winged creature were. It was difficult to get a positive I.D. on it because it moves so quickly and only in dim light. I understand now why an early ornithologist shot the bird to get a closer look. One evening as it darted past my deck chair I got a glimpse of white upper wing bars and it
cried out, "Pur-w̩ eeer." I had been hearing this call for years but had never placed it with a specific bird Рvery loud and distinct in the night. Stiles spells it, "who-whick who whick wick-wich-wick
wip WHEEEEUR." I know it is hard to imagine this sound but it's the key to knowing this bird. Try, "Kwah-REE-O? or "cuyeer." Anyway I got my I.D. without having to shoot one. Peterson said, "It seldom flies by day and is a voice in the night." A 'Nightjar' but Peterson calls them 'goatsuckers' a strange nickname I can't explain and won't try. The family name is Caprimulgidae: Nightjars, a
family of about 67 species. The Nightjar we have on Ambergris is known as a pauraque. Their wings are long and they fly through the night with their mouths open scooping up insects. The bill is surrounded by bristles that probably assist in catching flying insects. Their eyes are big and good for night navigation. The small legs and feet seem to help the streamlined look in flight.
The pauraque sleeps and nests directly on the ground in dry leaves and has an unusual way of protecting its eggs and young. some books refer to it as 'the broken wing distraction. 'The broken wing distraction' is a ploy used by a few birds with little defenses to protect their young or nest. The parent will pretend to be wounded, in this case a broken wing. It will allow the predator to chase it on the ground dragging one wing staying just ahead of its grasp, then flying a short distance and suddenly falling and dragging the wing again as the predator gets close. The tactic is intended to frustrate the predator and lead them away from the nesting area, intelligence in a bird!
It is very hard to tell in the dark but the pauraque has a brown to rust pattern that camouflages it well as it sleeps in dry leaves on the open ground deep in the savanna.
Don't expect to see this one right away.
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The Tiger Heron
I was cruising the back lagoon in my little boat. The bird of the week was waiting for me somewhere! I slowed the boat down and went up one of those unexplored lagoon fingers that seem to just get you lost looking for a way to access a new lagoon.
It was low tide and fishing was good for wading birds. This Ciconiiforme stood fishing in a few inches of water near the edge of a mangrove as I rounded the corner into a small lagoon. I got comfortable in the boat and steadied my binoculars for a long, close look, Bubba was asleep.
It was a long-legged wading bird, shorter than a Great Heron, and its neck didn't have the characteristic "S" shape. I remember seeing it in my book as a Tiger Heron, but the colors where all wrong. It was the correct shape with its stout neck, and its bill was black on the end with a chisel point, but its throat was yellow and it had a gleaming chestnut nape and hind neck. The upper wings were blue, cyan gloss.
I remember reading about how bird colors change due to factors like environment, diet, sex and maturation.
Little Blue Herons are snow white for their first year of life and a mangrove cuckoo is pale brown when it is just a year old but rich yellow, cinnamon and has jet black markings when it has its first mating desires.
So why not a cyan blue Tiger Heron? I suspect this is a young bare-throated Tiger Heron, most likely a close cousin to the Bittern. One book refers to it as a "Tiger Bittern" definitely still in the Ardeidae family.
As I drifted closer in the boat, it got a little nervous and took a frozen posture of a Bittern camouflage by holding its neck up pretending to be a stump.
Bubba heard me whispering to myself about the Heron and woke up to the realization we were bird watching and had not yet seen it fly! "Quok, quok, quok," it said as it flapped off showing white and patterned under wings and sporting dark olive green feet and legs. Thanks Bubba.
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The
From the order of Passeriformes in the family of Corvidae is the Cissilopha yucatanica/ambergrisica?
A habitat is the natural area where a species of bird or other form of wildlife lives. Typical habitats for birds are areas such as: tropical forest, grasslands, savannas, mountains, rivers, lagoons and islands. The characteristics of these varied habitats provide food and shelter for birds.
New species of birds sometimes evolve from environments of different food supplies and isolated choices of mates under the same influences of environment in a limit gene pool!
The relationship of an island habitat to its continent and the history of the island's evolution markedly affect its bird life. When an island develops as Ambergris has (from plate shifts and sea-eroded connections with the adjacent continent), they inherit an amount of flora and fauna of the mainland and may retain a varying amount of it.
Extinction’s are a regular occurrence on islands such as this because of its rapid change in habitat after disconnection. ( Remember, we are talking about 15,000 years or more.) this change has created a different habitat and avifauna possibilities on the south half of this 22 mile long island that is typical to most barrier islands off the coast of Belize, but not in the area to the north known to most as Basil Jones where you can find flora and fauna from the mainland that do not occur on any other island in Belize.
The prerequisite for speciation (the process for development of new species) is that there should be two areas where a single species of bird can live separated by some form of physical barrier like the bay between the island and the mainland which cuts down movement between the two groups so that they evolve sufficient differences to become a separate species.
I'm saying the uniqueness of the habitat on the northern half of Ambergris is such that it has possibilities of giving rise to new and undiscovered species of birds, and certainly we shouldn't be surprised at sightings of birds that just shouldn't be on a barrier island.
Bubba and I were in the Holiday Hotel bar listening to
The Yucatan Jay lives all year in closely knit, extended families, jointly taking care of one another's young. The young are easily distinguished from the adult by their yellow bills with white head and underparts. The adults have black bills with black around the face and eyes and are a beautiful royal blue, the only blue jay said to be found in
What didn't jell with Dr. Smith's observations of the jays was the yellow iris and bill in mature birds with absolutely no white feathers. So the next morning, Bubba was in the mood and I had the gasoline. We went south to the river cut at San Pedro and then north up the back side of the island past the last bird caye to
I put my boat bow on the shore, walked just 100 feet into a grove where it seemed like the jays were just waiting for me. They must get the name from the noise they make. I got too close and an alarm of "Jayy! Jayy! jayy" went off around the grove. I think I saw four, if not three and one twice. Herman was right, blue jays with yellow bills that turn down on the end. No white feathers, and they were as large as a big robin. The black on their face around their eyes extended down the neck and became almost navy blue on the chest, but a larger one had a black bill and I suppose the others are just not fully mature.
All the bird books that I have shown a confusing variety of blue and black jays, some without white feathers and yellow bills. Not a jay that I know to be the Yucatan Jay but something I can't identify; maybe not the most unique bird, but it certainly is evidence of the uniqueness of this habitat.
Something rare and unusual on the north end of the island!
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Song
Everything around the cocal is singing. The cheerful noise incited me to ask Bubba which birds these were and why have they so suddenly started singing. It was almost a rhetorical question, but he explained, "It's the Passeriformes; the order contains sparrows, crows, flycatchers, some swallows and is the largest order in the Kingdom. Passeriformes have extraordinary vocal capabilities of the "syrinx" which enables them to utter very elaborate sounds. Song is a simple, efficient way for subdivision of territories among males and for sexual choice on the part of the females."
I need to remember, he always takes me very literally.
So! These singing Passeriformes around the cocal are singing courtship songs of spring.
I got busy and started reading about courtship and discovered that ritual courtship dances with elaborate displays of plumage or singing are characteristic of each species and are unique to that species, enabling the female to select a correct partner more easily; the more prolonged the courtship, the more likely that one or the other will recognize its mistake if it's courting with a member of another species.
This mastery of song by the Passeriformes is in part due to the fact that different species within the order look very similar and only the song will allow the female to know the difference. The more he sings, the more she's sure she's picked the right guy.
One of my pleasures of birdwatching is the insight it gives me into human behavior. So far I've discovered birds in courtship singing, dancing and displaying colorful plumage before having sex with one another, and now I understand more clearly the bizarre events in San Pedro on Saturday nights.
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Aztec Parakeet
Psittacidae Aratinga Astec
When Bubba was a puppy and I told him he was a "bird dog", he took this to mean something entirely different, thus the ornithological studies and his many published bird articles.
I found him last week staring into a "Field and Stream" magazine in a state of shock! He hasn't spoken since. I truly believe all this time he misunderstood.
This week he's not contributing and I'm having to do all the research myself. The editor is on my case about deadlines. So in a desperate act, I tried to work the magic by walking into the back bush with my binoculars alone.
I retreated with swarms of mosquitoes on my tail to the security of my veranda and sank in my adirondack chair where I solemnly decided to give up bird watching. Its just too much work and it's too easy to nap in the shade. As the shrieking squawks came to my ear I woke to a flock of Aztec parakeets passing to home for the evening.
Peterson identifies our bird of the week as: "Aratinga Astec", (olive-throated) parakeet.
On Ambergris flocks can be seen traveling late morning, to areas of ripe fruit trees and returning to roosts in afternoon.
The family of Psittacidae contains about 330 species classified into approximately 60 genra and six to eight subfamilies, which some zoologists consider should be regarded as a separate family. The name "parakeet" is a division of many opinions, and it is very possible parrots and parakeets are separate families.
All Psittaciformes have zygodactyl feet as do woodpeckers, but use them with more dexterity.
All Psittacidae like to eat fruit and nuts so they are said to be, "frugivorous".
They nest in holes in trees that they discovered, not made by themselves. Abandoned woodpecker holes in coconut trees seem to be preferred on Ambergris.
Identifying the Aztec parakeet may be difficult at first. Fast flying flocks passing between you and the late afternoon sun are almost impossible to identify by sight, but voice identification is useful.
As they fly, members of the flock make a raucous scream of "krrieh krrie krreach", randomly and without chorus. Some assumption can be made by knowing which species occur in your area, as rarely do two similar parrots occur in the same range or habitat.
Next week I'm going to tell Bubba his father was a retriever and that retrievers retrieve information about birds for their masters.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE MIGRATION
From now until late April, an unusual variety of migratory Avafana will be visiting the Bacalar Chico Reserve. Ambergris' new 60 square mile terrestrial reserve is serving as a refuge for migratory birds from the north. About 225 species of long distance migrants occur in
I asked Bubba why birds migrate hoping to break his silence from his discovery of being a birddog and it worked! Bubba explained, "By late September and early October the northern part of the planet has begun to lean away from the sun. Measurable, plottable lines of temperature gradients called 'isotherms' move further and further south on the weather maps and all life pays them heed. Birds in the north use this cooling as a signal to begin their annual migration southward. At the same time thousands of miles to the south of Ambergris, far beyond the equator, that part of the planet reciprocally leans closer to the sun causing the Avafana on that hemisphere to migrate in the other direction."
Last year in November, I noticed a large number of new birds I would never expect to see on this island and I guess that would explain it.
Bubba really didn't seem to be in a mood to talk, but I interrupted his study again by asking why the north of our island, in particular, was so popular with migrating birds He gave a long sign and said, "Birds use specific migratory paths that consist of rivers, lakes and various other food sources like a dotted line of rest stops. These paths are called flyways and this continent has four major flyways.
The Atlantic flyway leads migratory birds from as far north as Greenland down
The
It's the Central and Pacific flyways that lead the majority of migratory birds to
Ambergris. The bottle neck effect of the flyways narrowing at the base of the
Bubba seemed to be getting annoyed with my questions so I let him return to the
bookshelf where he likes to bury his head undisturbed, most of the time.
Birdwatching boat excursions to the park this season will have some extra attraction for me now that I understand where these birds are coming from and why. It will add to the fun. I might even take Grumpy.
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“Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us,”
Snipe
In the order of Charadriiformes is the Gallinago delicata or "Common Snipe".
Snipe hunting has been used as a device for college fraternity pranks and humorous stories for many decades. The hunts traditionally are carried out at night with freshmen wearing loin cloths, flushing a snipe from the brush for the entertainment of beer drinking seniors. It's not a surprise that a large part of the population believes the snipe is a fictitious bird. The common snipes on Ambergris are very real and visit during the winter months (October - April). It's considered a shorebird in the same family as plovers, rails and sandpipers.
Petersen's Guide calls it a 'casual visitor to the
Snipes lay their eggs on the ground under little tufts of grass near the shore. It hunts along the muddy banks of the lagoon using its long bill to forage in the mud for small insects and crustaceans. The feet are disproportionately large and rail-like to prevent it from sinking into its hunting ground. Bubba's research on the American snipes produced an interesting article from his now favorite Field and Stream Magazine:
Common Snipe
"Zig zagging, rapid flights are the trademark of the Common Snipe. A dove-sized member of the sandpiper family commonly found along lake shores and marshes across the states. This long-billed bird generally stays close to cover, while the similar looking but non-hunted 'dowitcher' prefers to feed in the open.
Hunters should look for the snipe's brown rump and orange tail in flight, and then utilize their quickest reflexes and smoothes swinging, open- choke shotgun.
Hunting season is October 15 to January 15
Bag limit: 8 daily, 16 in possession after 1st day."
No wonder they like to winter down here!
Bubba is insisting I take him hunting, he's having problems coming to terms with his newly discovered birddog genes. He plagues me with questions about genetic memory and his parent's bloodline. So I oiled my shotgun and agreed to take him on a snipe hunt to see how instinctive it might be for him. I canceled the hunt when he refused to wear the loincloth. He's not a good sport.
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Death of a Hero
"Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us”
I've asked Bubba many times why he insists we begin all the bird articles with this anonymous quote, but he would never answer.
Yesterday he got some sad news in a letter from the
Roger Tory Peterson used this line to start his first book, "A Field Guide to the Birds" in 1934.
Mr. Peterson was a modern day John James Audubon, who turned millions of Americans into bird watchers with his "easy to use" field guides.
Peterson combined artistic talent with a life long scientific interest in birds.
During his 60 year career, he wrote, illustrated and edited 15 books that sold millions of copies, and were translated into 12 languages.
Audubon Magazine called him, "The man who turned bird watching into a sport."
"A Field Guide to the Birds" was the single most revolutionary development in American birding.
Before him bird guides were burdened with confusing detail and written in terms most readers didn't understand or could not identify with, but Peterson's pocket-sized work focused on the essential features by which amateurs could swiftly identify a species.
His bold, precise drawings and printings stressed coloration, shapes of beaks, wings, feathers and tails.
His prose was equally clear and succinct: he summed up the male (gadfiner), for example, as "the only small yellow bird with black wings."
Peterson once said, "I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot and stuff them."
In the 1930's when he began his work, there were serious questions as to whether sufficient numbers of Americans cared or could be induced to learn about bird life. His editors only committed themselves t a first printing of 2,000 copies with reservations. It's now in its 5th revision with millions of copies in print.
Peterson has received every major award for ornithology, natural science, conservation, as well as numerous honorary degrees, medals and citations including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The list is longer than I have space for.
Peterson first visited
His experiences with the Neotropical Avifauna outside of Mexico influenced Peterson to expand his "Field Guide to Mexican Birds" to include Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador giving Belize its 1st major recognition as a bird watchers destination.
Peterson died on a Sunday after suffering a mild stroke. He was 87.
The complete quote is: "Birds can fly where they want to, when they want to, or so it seems to us, who are earthbound. They symbolize a degree of freedom that we would nearly give our souls to have."
Roger Tory Peterson
1909-1996
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The Magnificent Frigatebird
Fregata magnificens
The first bird most visitors to our island notice is the Frigatebird. As you settle on the veranda of your hotel in the afternoon gazing out at the reef you may notice soaring above the fisherman’s shoreline is a very large black sea bird with extremely long pointed wings and a deeply forked tail.
Bubba and I probably get asked by San Pedro’s tourist every week, ’what’s that large Teradactail looking bird up there?’ Small birds seem to go unnoticed by most nonbirders. The frigate is big! Wingspan runs more than 7 feet and soars high over the water never landing on its surface. Over the centuries of mans naming birds the Frigate has worldwide been referred to as ‘The Man-O-war Bird’.
Most ornithological groups have placed it in the order of Pelecaniformes. The males are black with an oblivious red Gular, the juveniles and female have a white head and neck. The description I like, having known this bird for some 15 years, is in David Siblys ‘Guide To Birds’, It says,” A distinctive aerial pirate”. What kind of personality would you imagine a bird would have if it ate only fish but could not swim? Born to steal.
Rodger Pasquier in his book, ‘An Introduction to Ornithology’ wrote,” Frigatebirds that lack waterproof feathers swoop to the surface of the water and pick up fish with out ever landing.” And ‘in theory ‘as they say Rodger is correct but if fishing was that easy wouldn’t we all just swoop down and pick up a bag full? What I’ve witnessed watching Ambergris’s Frigates is: Skilled fishing birds such as the Cormorant, Gull and Tern dive for the fish only to have the frigate swoop down and grab it from their mouths. The Cormorant can’t swallow its catch underwater and I’ve watched the Frigate circle above until it surfaces then quickly snatch a meal with little struggle on the part of the surprised Cormorant, however the Tern doesn’t give it up without a fight, The poor fish sometimes goes from the Terns mouth to the Frigates then retrieved by the Tern and back again to the Frigate with the Frigate ultimately being the prize winner.
Of the 5 species in the world Ambergris is densely populated with only the magnificent. Part of its success on the island is due to the many fishing boats cleaning their catch and sharing their scraps with the birds. From low altitude you can see the red gular area on the males neck. This can be inflated into two large balloons for display to the females. When courting the male, while sitting on the nest he has built for her, inflates the guglar bends his neck down and beats them rapidly with his beak like two drums causing an almost rattling noise. They nest atop the mangrove and in colonies sometimes in conjunction with the Boobies as on Half Moon Caye. The nest is a large platform of sticks constructed by the male but built from materials presented him by the female.
Frigates living in harmony with us on the island.
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Woodpeckers
Golden-fronted woodpeckers, Centurus Aurifrons (Stiles, 1972); Red-vented (
The family is called Picidae, and the world contains 210 species within that family of chisel-filled, tree-climbing birds with special feet for holding on to vertical tree trunks.
Ambergris, in the world of woodpeckers, could be considered heaven. Woodpeckers are masterful tree surgeons, testing the diseased trunks of coconuts trees with sharp raps of their bills digging out ants, termites or the larvae of woodboring beetles such as the rhinoceros beetle, and in case you haven't noticed the coco-nut trees are dying right and left because it is the beetle's favorite food.
The soft, carvable wood of the vaulting coconut trunks make easy home building for the island's many varieties of Picidae and the telltale holes can be seen in every cocal from Marco Gonzalez to Rocky Point.
The most obvious of the island's Picidaes is the
The red cap and black and white zebra striped coat they wear make them easy to spot even if they didn't make themselves apparent with the constant tapping.
If a woodpecker feels like it's found a good stand of rotting and infested trees that will provide the family with food and shelter for sometime, marking the territory is noisy!
Imagine you're a woodpecker and having a big tap is your sign of dominance and power. Nature will provide a god hollow log for you to drum on but finding an empty water tank or the side of a wood house can make you feel like the Energizer Bunny in high gear. Other woodpeckers will respect your claim in fear that this loud tap is from a much bigger bird.
The male and female woodpecker, unlike most birds, look very much alike in their brilliant red colors and share equally the work of nest building and caring for young.
Feeding the chicks is done by regurgitation. Nests are always holes in wood, carved out by this woodcrafter. Each hole is home for the whole family.
I would like to think the presence of so many woodpeckers on the island is a positive sign that something is being done about the rhinoceros beetles' devastation our island to our island's beautiful coconut trees, but I'm afraid the reverse is true; the beetles can be viewed as circling vultures feasting on the dying cocals.
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The Chachalaca
If you're one of the lucky people that live north enough on the island to escape the noise of airplanes and the city life of San Pedro, then you've probably heard the cackling of Chachalaca coming from the back bush.
The Chachalaca is a wild bush turkey. Rarely seen but often heard at sun up and sun down. Of the 39 species of Chachalaca in the world, 3 are found in
Although I've seen hundreds of meadowlarks, I've never seen one in the woods and I have never seen a woodthrush in a meadow, just as a fisherman lives near the sea and a lumberjack in a forest or a cab driver in the city so each bird has its niche. The Chachalaca lives in the protection of the savannah's back bush, walking on the ground and limbs under the thickets of sour sap and sea grape and coco plum on which it feeds, and nests in scrub usually in groups of 15 to 20.
Since bow and arrow hunting is a lost art and few locals have guns for hunting, the northern part of Ambergris is inhabited by hundreds, but only the most serious birdwatcher will ever see one, as they almost never leave the protection of thick bush. Instead hearing them is our pleasure. Each evening as a Chachalaca roosts it seems to let the other members of its group know who it is and where it is by making a loud 'cha - cha -LAW - ka' noise. As each member responds a rhythmical chorus seems to make the back bush come alive with a chicken-like Chachalaca cackling for several minutes. They will suddenly stop as if listening and another more distant group will begin and stop only to give air time to yet another group, heard faintly and even more in the distance. Then all quiet for the night. In the morning as the sun starts to light the sky the chorus begins again as a rooster might hail the dawn, making an alarm clock useless!
As the development of San Pedro calls for more clearing of bush in order to feed and roost the Chachalaca will be forced to move north on the island as will a number of birds and wildlife that need the savannah habitat.
Of the extreme variety of ideas proposed for the north end of the island, The Bacalar Chico Game Reserve sounds like a winner for an island trying to keep its tourist trade, and I'm sure if Chachalacas could vote it would already be one.
Courtship and Nesting
It is essential that male and female come together at some time for copulation, so that the eggs of the female will be fertile. Courtship is the who and when of this action. Nesting is an intricate part of courtship. Acceptance or rejection of a mate often depends on the quality of the nesting potential and the identification of the correct male by the female through his dance and song for her. This drama is as much of a novella as is ‘As The World Turns’. The male Rock Dove I see on the streets of downtown San Pedro strut dancing in a circle around the female with their chest out strutting high and jutting their head forward with every step as she pretends not to notice and goes about her foraging. The Male Yellow-Backed Mayan Oriole of Ambergris must feel a broken spirit when his prospective mate inspects the hanging basket nesting materials he toiled days collecting with expectations, only to have her cast them aside in rejection.
Bubba said,” these are called ’Reproductive Strategies’ and each species follows a fairly fixed plan which repeatedly tested by natural selection, has become the most efficient and successful manner of reproducing for that species in its environment”.
Bubba never has been a romantic.
90% of birds are monogamous and in most monogamous relationships it’s the female that makes the choice of with whom and where to mate and nest, usually on the basis of the males displays or the attractiveness of the territory he claims. Let’s not devalue the fact that his singing and dancing around in circles with his chest out is an important factor in her decision but let’s look at what his territory has to offer. Is there fresh water close by to drink and bath in for her. Is there a food supply, such as a berry producing bush, Blossoms attracting bees and fly’s, or termite nest, newly hatched chicks are demanding and ravenous. Does the territory offer shelter from the weather and security from predators? Trees usually supply this demand. Is there suitable building material for the nest? Plants such as Coconut trees and palmettos produce strong fibrous building material that is easily collected.
On Ambergris, as in the World today, the loss of nesting and foraging habitat is probably the single biggest threat to birds.
The amount of birds we see is according to the amount the environment around us can support.
As clearing for development moves northward on ambergris replacement of specific food producing vegetation through mindful landscaping. Ambergris’s Yucatan Woodpecker is fond of the wild papaya. The black catbird and Caribbean Malking bird enjoy the white berries of the Palmetto. Birdbaths or other water sources such as fountains, Reflection ponds or even swimming pools, will help sustain our avian friends and they will continue to provide us with entertainment.
Birdhouses have saved many populations where massive land clearing for human needs has destroyed habitat. (Properly referred to as Bird boxes’).
Bird box construction, design and placement are an art. Birds are very specific about what they will accept. Nests are varied widely and successful Bird boxes must fit the specific demands of a group and not all groups will entertain the idea of nesting in your idea of what they will chose.
Remember the criteria she had? Protection from the weather and predators near water and food.
Ambergris Caye has a large number of cavity nesters. Woodpeckers create holes that are used by cavity nesters that cannot create their own. The diameter of the hole determines who can or can’t get in. The size may vary according to whom you are trying to attract. I like 1.5 inches diameters. And so do most Cavity nesters.
Thickness of the walls should be a minimum of 3/8th of an inch thick. You may like UDP red or PUP blue but its not very likely she will. Colors have large meanings to birds and the natural brown or green of the environment mean camouflage from predators. Any paint at all or even treated lumber is probably going to get you thumbs down.
Placement is another important consideration. It should be high enough off the ground to deter most predators from climbing but low enough to not attract others who may like to swoop down on prey, a few branches overhead will usually prevent this.
The North East trade wind is blowing the majority of the time on Ambergris so the south West side would be a better choice to face the hole. Buy the way the little perch outside the hole is a cute idea a human had nothing at all useful or desired by the bird.
If I’ve inspired you and you install a Bird box, Birdbath or plant a berries producing shrub, be patient each year for about a month your box will be considered and may even be remembered from the previous years visit. Don’t expect results the first season.
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The Great-Tailed Grackle
On my first visit to Ambergris all around the little cabaña I rented was a very loud unusual noise of this raven-like bird. As first impressions go, I will forevermore associate this bird's cry with the island as closely as its rattling palms and roaring reef.
The Great-Tailed Grackle is found throughout the island in great numbers and is seemingly undisturbed by the presence of the town.
The grackle belongs to a family of birds known as Icteridae of which most of its 90 members are permanent residents of the tropics. Most species are black and superb songsters.
The male grackle is large and has a glossy purplish-black color that contrasts the bright yellow of its eyes' iris, giving its stare a more intelligent look than most birds.
The males loudest and most distinctive crow comes after a wind-up that ends with his neck stretched and bill pointing straight in the air. This is usually for a display to the female, in courting prance on the ground under the coconut trees.
The female looks almost like a different bird. She's much smaller with a dull dark brown body, sooty brown flanks and black wings. They always seem to accompany this polygamous male in twos or threes and lets the daring male venture forward first, staying in the safety of the background.
Part of this bird's success on the island must, in part, be due to the variety of things it will eat including; lizards, fish, eggs, grains, fruits, berries, and garbage from picnic. In short he'll eat anything!
However, a grackle doesn't seem to be a very successful builder on the island, but excellent elsewhere. Its nests can be seen blowing around in the sand under the palms. They are crude and course bowls of twigs. High winds seem to be the villain. Normally a grackle will cement its nest with mud and cow or house dung, possibly the sand soil and absence of literal house manure of this island is the source of its building problems.
Its eggs are blue with dark brown specks and blotches. Despite this problem with building materials its numbers are increasing.
My bird book says its voice is "a rapid clicking 'thick, thick, thick'; also a chattering and rattling calls: males have an exceedingly diverse repertoire of sharp, loud notes including a prolonged squeaky rising whistle, a stentorian, bugle-like tooting, metallic whistles suggesting a little tin horn, and various guttural or creaking notes."
Phonics for bird noises has always been difficult at best, and you won't hear me trying to imitate this one!
Reading attempts of ornithologist to describe bird noise has given me a lot of laughs. I've always felt describing them was like what a person sees in the shape of a cloud. It's different from person to person. For instance, Famous birder pioneer, Rodger Tory Peterson said the Great-Tailed Grackle is saying, "kid-kid-kik-kik" but he also thought certain birds would say things like, "to you to" or "only for you" and "it's mine - it's mine".
More of a vocal Rorschach test for Peterson than an imitation of bird noise, however I did know a bird that seemed to spend its time looking for a man named Bob White!
Let's listen to the grackle and maybe some brave soul will stick their neck out and tell us what he's saying.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The Mayan Oriole
From that tremendous order of Passeriformes, (birds that perch) is the "Icteridae" family. Most of the Icteridae are residents of the tropics and northern members migrate. Of the 90 species in the family, all are living on continents and islands of the
It is the yellow backed Mayan oriole or "Icterus chrysater" to its friends!
I first discovered a Mayan oriole when I heard a whistling early in the morning after dawn. I had been listening to the kiskadee and working on my ear for it, when I was taken by a whistle that made me first think, someone's playing a joke on me! This whistle is human, I thought, and one of my jocular friends is whistling outside my house. I went out on the deck expecting to see my friend Bowman Tun, a Mayan bushman and prankster, instead the whistling persisted and my binoculars finally zoomed in on a brilliant deep yellow bird in the coconut tree, making a noise much like a human whistle. The stark contrast of black wings, face and neck made the yellow seem even richer. The wings had two slender white bars visible when folded.
I went back to the house to my bookshelf thinking how astonishing it is when a bird of the week announces itself. I read: Cousin to the oropendoles I see at Chan Chich, a smart nest builder, lays 3 to 4 pale blue with white eggs in a finely woven pouch protected by being placed in a thorny bush. I imagine some of the thorny bush in the back savanna would be a likely place to look if you were adventurous and possess serious mosquito protection.
I also read it’s a fruit eater. I'm assuming the sapodilla tree dropping yellow fruit at my back deck is why he's whistling around my house. I think I'll plant another sapodilla. This oriole makes over 20 species of birds I've counted during the month this tree's fruit ripened and dropped.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The Gray Silky Flycatcher
Bubba was telling me about this new bird hanging around the back. He says, "In the largest of the 34 orders of the
I'm told sub-families can be thought of as a separate family. Anyway, that's how Bubba explains it!
This week's bird is Pitlogonys cinereus, known to its friends as the Gray Silky Flycatcher.
Someday DNA researchers will settle all these disputes about who's cousin to whom.
Sometimes species stray from their normal habitat in search for food and water. Discoveries are made and the species will find a comfortable habitat like Ambergris and stay.
The Gray Silky Flycatchers are probably here due to the sapodilla tree's fruit that seems to be perpetually ripe about four months a year.
This week I got to observe several but they seemed to be enjoying honey bees that are pollinating the coconut trees as well as the sapodilla.
The Gray Silky Flycatcher at first glance looks like a Caribbean Mockingbird but has a crest at the top of his head that looks like a tail, full hairdo swept back to a blunt point. Its tail is long and, when perching, ends in two rounded points trimmed in white. Its yellow flanks are not very noticeable at first until it starts moving its tail.
It's one of those birds that seem to use its tail as a signal flag to the other birds or just to express itself. I've been getting some long, regular looks at the two around my casita, and I'm convinced they have some ability to communicate with others in their species using a system of tail wagging.
It's early Spring and I'm looking for signs of nesting that would give me an indication they plan to stay. It's very possible when the sapodilla is finished giving fruit and the dry season begins, they could fly back to the mainland.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The Cormorant
You may find yourself looking out over the sea and discover what appears to be a miniature Loch Ness suddenly disappearing below the surface and reappear with a whipping eel in its beak, stretching its neck as it gobbles in the whole eel, shakes its head and swallows. The Cormorant, swimming under water for as long as four minutes looking for a quick meal of a small fish or surprised eel, is a special DUCK. There are 28 species of Cormorant in the world, Ambergris is home for hundreds of Neotropical Cormorant with a glossy black plumage and a very specialized hooked bill sometimes decorated in a colorful orange pattern. They have similar nesting areas as the Frigatebird, but are more in harmony with the Frigate than with the Booby, probably because they nest lower in the mangrove and closer to the waters level. Its eggs are a blue-green with a chalky white coating.
Asian fishermen have used the Cormorants for their unique fishing ability to catch marine delicacies by banding its throat to prevent swallowing and tying a line to its neck to reel it back into the boat where the bird would be forced to give up its prey.
Although they prefer the shallow waters turtle grass, I've seen while scuba diving at coral forest, all the fish suddenly swim away in fright as probably the oddest looking but best fisherman on the island would pass by as deep as 15 feet.
Flying seems difficult for this bird as their plumage is not fully waterproof and its body is clearly designed for swimming not flying. After a hard day's fishing the Cormorant can be seen standing spread-winged into the sun atop post at the end of the dock drying its wings for the flight home.
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The Kingfisher
In the order of Coraciiformes there is a family of Kingfishers called Alcedinidae and in this family is the bird of the week known as Megaceryle alcyon or the North American Belted Kingfisher - a fish-eating bird that dives from a perched position over water for sardines and other small fish.
With its short thick neck, large head and wacky, swept-back hairdo, this bird looks remarkably like fight promoter Don King!
I was on the veranda of the Green Parrot Bar when its proprietor Stuart Corns presented me with a telescope aimed at a blue and black bird with a vee shaped band on his white chest, poised atop the outriggers of a boat at his dock. I love long close looks like this when behavior can be observed, instead of just a quick I.D. It seemed frozen and focused on the water below it. We noticed two yellow spots on its head that for a while I thought were his eyes. I suspect these spots help his vision in the bright sun on the water much like a jungle warrior paints black below his eye to help see at night.
Ambergris must have a large population of Kingfishers. I see them almost everywhere I go, even when I am cruising the mangrove channels in the back.
I read that they nest in tunnels that are dug into banks along streams. I wonder what adaptations Ambergris Kingfishers have had to make with our sandy soil and mangrove lagoons.
I witnessed this Kingfisher finally dive for a sardine after a long studious pondering, and noticed on his landing on a less precarious perch atop the palapa, that the sardine was not speared on his bill - but captured between his mandibles. Then to my surprise, he literally beat the sardine to death on the post while still holding it in his bill. Finally after a short pause to see if it would still wiggle, he flipped it to a head-down position and swallowed the whole 4 inch sardine.
In my research of the Kingfishers, I ran across something new to me, a 'sub-family' called Daceloninac that are Kingfishers of the forest, not the coast. They fish in fresh water streams and ponds in the jungle.
I'm excited about my upcoming trip to Chan Chich and hope my jungle birder friends there can point out some Daceloninde Kingfishers so I can compare techniques with this subfamily of unique fishing birds.
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The Grey Headed Kite
From the order of Falconiformes in a family of Accipitridae is a species known as leptodon cayanensis or the Grey Headed Kite.
I started my writing about birds to bring into recognition the great variety of birds found on Ambergris Caye. Ambergris is a unique island among many barrier reef islands off the coast of
The Accipitridae family members are raptors and include hawks and eagles. They are diurnal (of the daytime) hunters, most of its 217 members have common predatory habits, very acute sight, powerful feet with long talons and sharp hooked bills.
Kites are more varied and specialized than any other group. Some live entirely on bats caught in the early evening hunt.
Bubba and I were visiting a post classic Mayan archeological site midway up Ambergris called 'Los Renegados'. It has recently been cleared of brush and provides a convenient opportunity to observe birds not seen from the lagoons or beach. The clearing of brush provides a hunting ground of displaced and exposed snakes, mice, snails and juicy blue crab. Bubba spotted this rare and uncommon bird on a perch overlooking the field. At first it appeared to be a Roadside Hawk, but the pattern on its breast was vertical instead of the Roadside's horizontal stripe. An adult Grey Headed Kite is about 20 inches tall, has a soft grey head, light blue-grey lores and feet with dark upper wings and tail; very distinctive, but as a juvenile it appears as a completely different bird. This condition is called 'dimorphic' sometimes shortened to 'morph' (an English term). It's a variation of color during maturity and sometimes sex. I've also seen this condition referred to as 'color phase'.
Our friend at 'Los Renegados' is in his 'dark morph' which means to me he is very young and will grow into a 'light morph' stage before becoming what most will recognize easily as a Grey Headed Kite. The Grey Headed Kites are long distance migrators. Some Accipitridae migrate from
Discovering new birds on Ambergris seems to be unending.
BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The Osprey
While trying to decide on the bird of the week I read about a candidate on the island called an osprey. Tired of researching and trying to choose, I got in my boat and headed north on the island. In passing Tres Cocos I saw from a distance one bird among the many silhouettes over the shore, laboriously flapping its wings in a hover. Fast flaps of long wings designed to glide caught my eye, and as I got closer I saw its neck bent at a right angle to its body, focusing on some aquatic prey about 100 feet below in the water. Just as I felt my boat's closeness to the bird's target area might make it abort and fly away, it suddenly plummeted, raising talons and throwing wings back. This rocketing fisherman snatched dinner in a big splash. The Bonefish wiggled and fought as the osprey recovered from the water and became airborne again. Then as if was annoyed by the fish's struggle the bird lowered its sharp beak and stopped the movement of the fish with a strategic shot to the fish's head. With the slippery fish grasped in its long curved claws it flew away.
Decision made!
Ornithologists categorize birds into families, such as the spotted owl, screech owl and horned owl. All have several things in common and belong to a family called Strigidae with 120 members. The blue-tailed hummingbird, the violet-crowned hummingbird and the rufous-tailed all belong to a family called Trochilidae with 320 members. The decision on which family you belong to is made on common traits like flattened faces, forward looking eyes or hooked bills, a lot like human traits. The osprey is said, by some, to be a one of a kind, single member its own unique family called Pandionidae, because of specialized joints in its feet and curved razor talons used for fishing. It seems there is some disagreement in the world of birders over its family tree, whether it's hawks, eagle, falcon or vulture is probably not on the osprey's mind. The osprey is very territorial and claims a few square miles for its hunting and fishing grounds. That's why it appears each cocal up and down the island seems to be home for one pair. Osprey nest in a bulky stick nest placed high in tree tops or platforms of man-made structures like water towers and roof peaks. It uses the same nest year after year.
Sometimes when the water is cloudy from bad weather and the fishing is bad, the osprey will resort to eating snakes and lizards. Its voice is a distinctive, sharp, high pitched and easily recognized, "Keeip" is how my bird book spells it, but I hear an 'R' in it! It must be an island accent!
"Kereip"!
A strange thing for such a magnificent bird to say.
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Plain Chachalaca (with rice)
From the order of Galliformes in the family of Cracids (Guan, currassows and chachalaca) is the species of Ortalis Vetula.
This week is a holiday called Thanksgiving and Elbert is a little out of control about it! We are supposed to be writing a column about 'bird watching' but he's adamant about publishing a recipe for eating them. There is little I can do to stop him. I have to admit all of the Cracids of Belize, except the Chachalacas have been decimated or locally extirpated by over hunting combined with habitat loss. They are rarely seen other than in remote and/or protected areas, so why publish a recipe for the single species in the order that's doing well?
I explained to him extinction has been frequent in the order of Galliformes since the invention of fire arms, but he seems oblivious, saying, "In life, if you taste good, you're in trouble!'
Sometimes when I just can't fathom human behavior I'll go to the Webster's Dictionary and look up a definition. It said, " Thanksgiving (thanks-giving) N. an act of expressing gratitude, esp. to God."
I have to concede in that this seems to fall under ' Freedom of religion' but I truly don't understand.
I'll have to let him try to explain and reluctantly publish his recipe.
Roast Chachalaca
Pilgrims in the new world and American Indians started a tradition of setting aside one day a year to have communion and enjoy the good things to eat God has provided for us. A tradition that has lasted hundreds of years.
A wild bush bird was offered the Pilgrims by the Indians in celebration of thankfulness for eating from the menu of god's provisions.
Circumstances have varied the cuisine but it remains true to what can be found.
On this island a recipe has surfaced that remains true to the tradition of what local nature makes available.
1 lb. corn tortillas chopped
3 large cloves of garlic - minced
2 large onions
6 oz. dark
1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
1/2 cup roasted cashews
3 sweet peppers (cut in strips)
1 tbsp. poultry seasoning
1 fresh pineapple
6 fresh dressed Plain Chachalaca
2 limes/2 oranges
Black pepper (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
3 cups coconut milk
1 jalapeno pepper
6 tomatoes (Roma)
2 cups cooked rice
Part 1
Heat butter/oil in large heavy cast iron skillet, throw in garlic, onions, hot peppers, sweet peppers and cook until onion is clear. Add corn tortillas and stir with lower heat until tortillas are coated with the oil and soft. Add
Part 2
Allow to cool for 3 minutes, then fill the birds cavity halfway with the stuffing. Insert into each cavity (atop the stuffing mixture) one whole tomato, fill the remainder of the cavity with stuffing so that the tomato is completely covered.
Cover the birds with a mixture of rum, honey and fresh pineapple in the skillet and bake until aroma and tenderness of bird tells you it's ready.
Bubba had hushpuppies I made from yesterday's Barracuda stew! He's still upset.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
Discourse with Birds
Years ago Christmas Eve, very early in the morning, on his insistence, I took Bubba fishing in my new boat! He wanted live bait, but the day was windy and the shallows where the sardines live were murky and impossible to see. His stubbornness had caused us to cruise for a mile or so on this quest when suddenly he jumped into the bow and motioned for me to stop the boat. Holding the casting net in his teeth he slung it one time over a milky brown patch of water, hauling up to 30 or more large sardines for the bait well. I asked in astonishment, " How did you know where to throw the net?" His reply has stuck in my memory all this time, "The birds told me!"
When I was a child my mother, also a lover of birds would say, "A little bird told me, "as a standard reply to my questions of how she found out about something I had done wrong.
Discourse with birds can certainly be a laughable subject and brings to mind Dr.Doolittle's "Talk with the animals" however, some credibility can be given to the subject. Who hasn't noticed the birds singing before an overdue fresh rain, or the sudden interruption of song to watch for danger?
While we were fishing, Bubba told me about a famous Japanese ornithologist that said his knowledge of birds was a result of his conviction that information about birds is best received directly from the mouths of birds themselves!
Bubba explained that folklore and fable lend to people's belief that birds can communicate with us.
According to Hebrew legend, David's son, King Solomon was known not only for his wisdom and wealth but also for his ability to converse with birds. The story says that one day King Solomon called all the birds to his place and all came with the exception of a young rooster. when the king asked the reason for his absence, it was reported by the other birds that the rooster had gone to spy on the idolatrous country ruled by the Queen of Sheba.
St. Francis of
That evening Bubba and I were sitting on the deck under the December Christmas moon, pondering the subject, sipping my favorite libation. After a few, I turned to Bubba and said, "Bubba, I am going to try my hand at this talking to birds!'
He rolled his eyes up at me as he does when I express some of my better ideas to him. Feeling the spirit of Christmas I stood up and spoke loudly into the darkness of the cocal addressing what birds might be there, "What do you want Santa Claus to bring you for Christmas?".....There was a long silence in the night. All the crickets stopped as if to listen for the reply. It seemed as if even the stars paused their twinkling for a magic moment, and then with the Wisdom of Solomon in a most holy manner, there was a herald from Buho Grande, distinctly and with genuine curiosity, he responded, "WHO"
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The Royal Tern
If you sail or motor up to one of San Pedro's many docks, you're greeted by a group of comical-looking white birds with zany black hairdos and long orange noses called Royal Terns.
During the day the terns stand in flocks on the ends of the docks in town, facing the wind very uniformly and when the trade wind blows from the north-east, all the terns turn to the left. And when the breeze comes from the South-east, the terns all turn to the right. Our island and reef run predominately North and South, so if you're sitting in one of San Pedro's many bars overlooking the reef, you're seeing another end of the Royal Tern.
I can't imagine any reason the Royal Tern could be named Royal among the terns unless having a large pronounced bill is a sign of royalty. The family is Laridae and includes all gulls and terns with about 80 species. Long, large wings and a good fishing bill make this tern one of Ambergris' successful fishing birds, and it even wears webbed feet for a little swimming if it has to.
Terns are excellent flyers and able to fish well offshore. They breed in monogamous pairs, always nest in colonies and build a crude nest on the ground or grasses deep in the
In my reading I find birders seem to disagree about one point or another consistently. The Royal Tern is no exception. One book says, "The Royal Tern is a thief and steals fish from frigates and other birds," the next book will say, " The Royal Tern's fish are stolen by frigates." The only way to really find out is to see for myself, so I went down to Cholo's Bar & Pool Hall at the beach and made myself comfortable in a stool overlooking the docks where 200 or more terns, gulls and frigates seem to be having their afternoon meal of sardines and scraps from the fisherman cleaning the catch on the dock. A frigate swooped down and scooped up some fish parts from the surface of the water and another accosted him in mid-air causing him to drop the object of their confrontation, only to fall another few feet and get caught in the air by a tern when suddenly another tern collided head on in a cat fight with Tern#1 only to lose everyone's desired prize into the water below. Surprised by this free-for-all and still uncertain who steals from whom, I turned to one of our knowledgeable local guides having a beer on the stool next to me and asked, "Who steals from who? The tern or the frigate?
He replied, " Well you should know, gringo. You're the one who writes about birds."
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Magnolia Warbler
Nothing starts my day off better than discovering a new and unusual bird while I'm having my coffee on the deck. Bubba's water bowl has been a popular spot to drink or for an occasional bath for birds around the cocal, as long as he's asleep! On this morning a small warbler with a striped, yellow breast and striking black and white patterns on its upper parts was enjoying its bath so much it was singing.
I quickly looked it up in my ID book. A Magnolia Warbler! Its melodic, warbling songs while mating are how this bird got its name.
After its bath it went directly to the coconut tree and struck up a tune that seemed to start two others in the sea grape tree singing also. I spotted one that must have been the female, the black was muted and she didn't have the stark white streak across the head like the male.
The bird started looking under the coconut palms and seemed to be able to hover and search, unlike any flying I had ever see, other than a hummingbird!
I read they eat insects and the bird seemed to be quickly picking them from under the coconut frond while hovering.
The book also said "a migrant, said to visit the
Today is the 30th of September, so I guess I'll see this little songbird until it starts to warm up again in the north.
Most of the migration to warmer wintering spots starts about now. The Roseate Spoonbills have just come back from their summer home, and the birdwatching tours to the islands in the back are starting to get popular again.
My book on migration says little is known about when, where and why birds migrate but two common factors seem to motivate all birds to travel: supplies of food and desire to mate.
So this little bird on my deck is here to mate! Thus the female in the sea grape.
I'll start watching for a nest.
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The Rufous Tailed Hummingbird
In order of Apodiformes there are two families, the swifts and hummingbirds. The hummingbird's family name is Trochilidea, and it has 330 or more members, depending on whose book you're reading the figure went from 330 to 365. I suspected some of my books are just old and more species have been discovered since 1937. My 1979 edition of Reader's Digest Birds seems to be the most complete.
Hummingbirds are in general the smallest and fastest birds on the planet. The largest being the Giant 'Patagona gigas' at 8 inches and smallest, the Bee Hummingbird of Cuba at 2.5 cm. (about the size of a bumble bee.)
It's true that hummingbirds are attracted by red nectar flowers and get a lot of their tremendous energy from its sweet juice, but their diet's protein comes from eating insects, and mosquito’s are on the menu for this island's Rufous Tailed Hummingbirds. I love birds that eat mosquitoes!
My Cabaña is circled with red blossom hibiscus and Rufous Tails are buzzing around daily. I've avoided writing about hummingbirds because it's so difficult to ID one. They almost never quit moving long enough to see and are so fast all you see is a blur, but in a rare moment last week one decided to stop and perch on a wild papaya tree off my deck, and I got a good long look with my binoculars, a sleeping bird that had a long slender orange to red bill, most of its body was an iridescent green, its entire body seemed only about 3 inches long, its tail was the biggest hint to its identification, a square of rufous color. Its eyes were black and a bar of dark feathers ran across from its bill through the eyes and beyond. It was the first time I had seen hummingbird wings not moving. They looked surprisingly normal for things that can move that fast. I guess I expected to see wings like an insect, but they were feathered and had a gray color. The feet were too small for me to even describe.
Those flying around the hibiscus seem to fight. The fight always seems to be the same; one will be hovering and darting from flower to flower. When the second one approaches the bush, the first will charge at it and chase it off into the distance, then return to its blossom hopping.
I only discovered that I have a hummingbird nest when I was researching this week's bird. Several months ago I was chopping coconut fronds with my machete from a bushy tree close to the back of my house when I saw on the underside of a frond I had just cut, an intricately woven nest attached. I felt less guilty that it was empty, not knowing what kind of bird could make such a nest and because it was so unique I put it on the book shelf in the house. It looks like a hanging basket but glued as it was woven to the palm. I read they lay usually two leathery, buff eggs.
I'm sure Ambergris has more than one kind of hummingbird but they're so damn hard to ID while moving. I'll get better at it or lucky again!
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BIRDS OF AMBERGRIS CAYE
The American Great Egret
I was motoring by in my boat to San Pedro and this week's bird was waiting for me to see it at Larry Thorpe's old sunken barge.
I had just written about the Great Blue Heron and this caught my eye with its whiteness, but it seemed to be a Great Heron. I put the boat upwind and shut down the motor to drift. I grabbed my binoculars for a close look. Bubba was in the boat with me and must have misunderstood what was happening, as usual. He jumped from the boat with a splash and this action provided me with a look at how the heron flies, but not before I got my look.
The local guides call it "the white heron". I have some trouble with classifications. The family is not the only group to be used in classifications. In fact, there are five main groupings: Classes, Orders, Families, Genera, and Species. Species are defined as populations, the members of which are able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
The American Great Egret is what Peterson described as, "the white race of blue heron", or in other words a subspecies of the Great Blue Heron.
I wanted to see the bird's feet to know more about its positive ID. That could have been what Bubba was wondering also when he jumped from the boat. The startled heron flew a few flaps, about five, and then glided down to a perch on a large log. Black feet to match the legs!
During my short look, I saw a three foot tall heron; it was solid white except for where its orange, pointed bill connected with its head and the color seem to extend towards the eye. The eye was yellow in its iris and the bird stood on black legs and feet. Its neck had the heron's "S" shape and was more than twice the length of its body.
David Sibley’s Bird Behavior Guide says, ’It nests atop the mangrove just like its cousin, the Great Blue Heron, where two or three blue-green eggs are laid.’ And this time of year until November is the nesting season for them as well; it uses the same fishing ground and techniques.
Birds tend to sleep at those time of the day when they cannot feed, thus not only do day feeding birds sleep at night and nocturnal birds during the day, but birds such as waders sleep when the tide is high. High and low tide changes about an hour each day so at certain times of the month, the hot middle of the day is good bird watching, if it's low tide. Normally early morning and late afternoon are the best times.
What I seem to like the most about birdwatching is anytime, anyplace a new and curious looking bird will surprise you with a hello, even if Bubba is with you.
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Little Blue Heron
Egretta caerrulea
High and low tide affects the current at our Hol Chan Marine Reserve. When the tide is nearing its lowest point, the current makes swimming very difficult for snorkelers and divers. The newspaper and radio tell the highs and lows. It helps some, but it isn't entirely accurate in predicting the good and bad times to dive the cut. The moon isn't the only factor in the strong current at Hol Chan but the Little Blue Heron can't be fooled and can be used as a predictor.
The Little Blue Heron is a conniiform and by name alone we know this long legged, wading bird is a masterful fisherman. Its specialized neck with twenty-two vertebra allows it to thrust forward rapidly to impale prey in the water before it. Like all fishing, when to fish is as important as where. Where is the shallow shoreline's turtlegrass; when is the time the tide gets into its lowest stages and the water is just a few inches deep on top of the seagrass beds. During this time the shallow water allows it to catch in its beak and swallow three or four small fish. Low tide is its window of opportunity to get dinner. I've learned from the Little Blue Heron when diving at Hol Chan is going to be bad.
The Little Blue Heron has a powder blue to gray body and glossy purple neck. Its bill is yellow and tipped with black. Its legs and feet are a yellowish green. He can be seen walking along the shoreline's shallow waters, fishing almost everywhere on the island.
It nests in the protection of the mangrove on the lagoon side of the island and builds a crude platform of sticks atop with the sky as a roof. Until this heron is about one year old it is snow white but can be distinguished from the white egret by its bill and leg colors. (and what are they?)
Today, as my divers and I put together our equipment on the dock in preparation for our dive at Hol Chan one asked, "How's the current at Hol Chan?" I looked over at the shoreline to check the tide mark just as my blue friend was flying away, having gotten all the little fish it could before the tide cycle switched and the water got too deep to fish while wading, I replied, "Great, just perfect for diving."
THE
Birds of Belize
Birds of Ambergris Caye is the title of the column I've been writing for the Sun. Ambergris is a unique island behind the barrier reef and is host for 260 or so different species during the year. This is a large number for a barrier reef island!
In the country of
I've decided to expand my writing to include all the birds of
Bubba will be staying at home to cover island events. He has never come to terms with creatures like crocodiles and jungle cats that I'm sure to encounter.
I'm packing my big boots.
THE
Birds of Belize
La Laguna Del Pajaros
Beginning my journey to the mainland, I hopped aboard Carlos Alejos' river trip boat from the island for Altun Ha, a thousand year old Maya site on the main land. We crossed the Back Bay and cruised up the
After a tour of the grounds around the lodge, I was given an unusually elegant cabaña and introduced to a guide named Alex.
Alex surprised me with his "quick study" English, and we chuckled about how we both wore similar "Botas Grandes". He immediately led me across a pasture of horses, thank God for big boots. We were on our way to his special bird watching spot he called "La Laguna Del Pajaros".
Beyond the pasture among strangler fig and cahune trees was an ancient spring fed lagoon, a special year-round supply of water at the foot of the jungle and end of the savanna. Just what I had come to see - the conjuncture of two rich habitats at water. A small pier extended from the bank into the arena of the lagoon. Its surrounding trees created a panorama of jungle.
I was almost overwhelmed by the birds that seemed to be everywhere I pointed my binoculars. Some I may never be able to identify.
For a while I was frantically looking up new species in my field guide. I decided after a few minutes to just relax, let time go by and enjoy my watch.
Chachalaca crackled in the background. Blue-gray Tangers, Tricolored Heron, a tree of Ani, a Green Kingfisher perching on a stick, two Gray Necked Wood Rails hunting along the bank with Little Ruddy Crakes mixing their hunting ground, two Red Billed Pigeons cooing from the tallest tree, a tree filled with yellow-lored Parrots, a variety of hawks soared above rocking wings and casting hunting eyes downward.
I turned slowly to study four Boat Billed Heron perched on a dead tree leaning in the lagoon.
During our stillness and quiet of awe, a crocodile larger than myself rose from below, then surfaced in slow motion, crawled atop a lagoon log and lay fully extended in the sun.
Crocodile watching must be similar to bird watching.
He was light mud brown and oddly yellow with dark, vertical bands on its tail. Reaching forward with his hind leg and twisting his neck back, he scratched behind one ear like Bubba does when it's time to relax on a rug.
A passing light breeze blew open my bird book, flapping and flashing its white pages. The crocodile only paused a second at the notice of me then slid below the surface. I think even Alex was amazed.
I was in bird watcher's heaven and nearing overload before I noticed this different looking tityra. I raised my binoculars to catch a close look and saw the bright red mask of a Masked Tityra.
It was all I could take. I had to put down the binoculars. It was time to leave.
Time started back slowly as I walked back across the pasture to the bar at the lodge.
I'm going to like this place!
Barstool Birdwatching
MASKALL
I settled in the lodge and warmed up to a stool in its bar. After a few cold beers and an hour of admiring the view of the ranch an idea struck me. I'll christen this place with its 1st annual barstool bird watching count.
Oddly enough, Alex, my favorite guide, is also the bartender. His English and my Spanish mixed into an understanding that a point is a pajaro (bird) and the most "puntas" wins!
Alex said, smiling, "Want a drink?" and started washing his blender in the sink.
I turned to view the ranch's orchard and was surprised by a parrot sitting on the veranda handrail.
Alex said, "That's Bill, Hello Bill, Hello!"
Bill cocked one eye at me, then towards Alex and said, "Auwk!"
Bill wasn't giving anything away and obviously had been listening to the game rules. Alex repeated, "Hello Bill, Hello!" I could tell Alex was underestimating Bill's intellect.
With my best Spanish I said, "Bill puede jugar! (Bill can play!" Alex smiled and said, "I'll fix you a special drink."
Having once been beaten by a dog, I began to focus on Bill.
Suddenly Alex raised the blender cup and scored the first point with "Great Curassow!"
I then realized I had overlooked them because they were mixing with the domestic fowl in the chicken coop.
Alex - 1, Elbert - 0, Bill - 0.
The game begins!
I had a disadvantage to start. Alex is a closet birdwatcher, and this is his turf.
Alex calmly said, "Red Rails" and gestured with the blender lid in the direction of the coop. I looked up to notice two Red Rails had given up the jungle life to live with the chickens.
Alex - 2, Elbert - 0, Bill - 0.
Alex put three scoops of vanilla ice cream in the blender with three very carefully measured shots of Absolute vodka and a bottle of Coke. My curiosity rose!
While the blender was doing its magic, Alex pulled out a well-worn copy of Peterson's Field Guide and then poured me what he calls an Alexo Especial!
I knew I was in trouble and recklessly spouted off - Grackle, Kiskadee, Oriole, Ground Dove and Black-crowned Tityra.
This seemed to cause Bill some concern, and he flew to one of the flamboyant trees around the veranda.
Alex - 2, Elbert - 5, Bill - 0.
From his perch among the bright orange blossoms of the tree, Bill gave three methodical "Auwks".
Alex and I studied Bill's score in the tree and conceded to his credit a Rufous Tailed Hummingbird, a Yellow-bellied Trogan and two Banana Quits.
While Alex and I were confirming this claim, Bill had flown to a small cashew grove in front of the lodge and had given two more "Auwks" at a Cinnamon Hummingbird and Forked-tail Flycatcher.
Alex - 2, Elbert - 5, Bill - 5.
Jamming down the button of the blender, Alex shouted without looking up, "Mangrove Cuckoo, Ant Ani and Red Vented Woodpecker!"
I turned with my binoculars to confirm their presence at the jungle's edge across the pasture.
I was transfixed with my binoculars on the ani's large black upper mandible when Bill flew in to check the official score.
I had slugged down the Alexo Especial, and Alex was now feeding bananas into the blender atop cinnamon and cane juice.
The afternoon was approaching, and I felt a call to visit the veranda's cool breeze. Alex told me Bill is usually entertaining, but today "auwk" is all he will say. Possibly it is the level of concentration on the game!
With a score of Alex - 5, Elbert - 5 and Bill - 5, the three of us relaxed and sipped the banana, cane juice concoction.
Bill cocked his head at Alex's and my contentment with the tie and decided to play his ace.
"Auak! Yellow-head Parrot, Yellow-head Parrot, Name's Bill, auak!"
Every hour or so for the remainder of the evening, Bill would give a mocking "Ha, ha, ha, ha" with a human-like quality.
Alex - 5, Elbert - 5, Yellow-head - 6!
THE
Birds of Belize
The Black Crowned Tityra
Tityra Inquisitorfraserii -
When getting to know a new bird, finding out what family it belongs to will give some insight to that birds behavior. Some characteristics are common to the whole order, nature works that way.
The black Crowned Tityra belongs to the order of Passeriformes (the perching birds).The cotingidae are
The newest popular bird book on the market A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America by Howell and Webb, has maps and graphs showing the Black Crowned Tityras present all across
The cotingidae have elaborate and spectacular courtship behavior. One species in the family is even known as "The cock of the rock," for his antics toward the female during mating.
I was hoping to see the Tityras this spring but my observation was later in the relationship, their courtship had been over for some time.
I had just settled down in a chair overlooking a lagoon. I was enjoying scanning the wall of jungle across the water with my binoculars for new birds when a noisy male and female Tityra in a tree just a few feet away got my attention.
They were both a pale silvery gray with black crowns, black bills, black wings and black tail bars. The female was different in that she had a brown patch around her eye and less contrast with the brownish gray of her body.
The male had a large bright green grasshopper in his bill.
We were all unusually close to one another and they seemed to be studying me as well. The male wasn't eating the grasshopper instead he just held it in his bill glaring at me.
It suddenly occurred to me that I must be sitting close to the nest. They're trying to deliver the morning meal to the offspring.
Tityra are like woodpeckers in that they bore holes in trees to nest in the hollow.
I Looked around me cautiously for a nest. On the opposite side of where I sat, in the boton post of the observation deck was a golf ball size hole.
I leaned over the water and peered into the hole and discovered two gaping mouths in a ball of fuzzy white feathers, waiting for a grasshopper brunch.
As I backed away the male quickly deposited the grasshopper in the hole and flew back to the branch near the female. She flew away at the instant of his return and he resumed his glare at me. I suppose they take turns hunting and guarding the nest.
Next week I'm visiting the newly formed
THE
Birds of Belize
Limpkin
In the world of Aves is an order known as Gruiformes. From that order is a family,
Aramidae with only one species in its membership called, Aramus guarauna or the “Limpkin”. They inhabit the fresh water marshes of
I told Bubba that I hear Belizean tour guides refer to it as the dinosaur bird. He said, “It’s very true the Limpkin are unique; putting them in a specific order is difficult and not always agreed on with ornithologists. In general its appearance is that of a large slender rail (Rallidae) and other sketetal features resemble a crane (Gruidae). I’m sure its dinosaur connection would be a kinship to Diatryma an extinct order known only from fossil remains. Perhaps they should be in their own order since its relationship with any living bird is uncertain.”
Limpkin are “specialized feeders”. In their usual swamp habitat Limpkin wade in shallow water and perch at varying heights in vegetation. They can swim well despite having unwebbed feet, but fly rather infrequently.
There is a very delicate balance of having these birds in
The Apple Snail is a very large, freshwater snail that the Limpkin will hold in its foot while it extracts it from its shell. Like the conch fishermen on the coast, they first pierce a small strategic hole to disconnect the snail from its anchor deep within the spiral shell. Then with it’s bill it pulls free the meat from the shell’s
natural opening and swallow it whole.
The abundance of freshwater Apple Snails is in direct correlation to where we find Limpkin. The snails’ survival is connected to cool fresh water rivers running from the forest. I told Bubba, ‘Sounds like a balance of nature thing and asked if he was going on one of his environmental diatribes.’ He gave me a look and said, “I’d like to point out that everything we do has an effect on the birds, but it’s also our water, and it can be a measure of our own healthy environment.”
“OK! OK!
I tried to change the subject by asking about its nest and he said, “It is a shallow, rather flimsy nest of sticks and other dry vegetation. The clutches (a complete set of eggs laid by one female) are of 4 to 8 buff eggs with blotches and speckles of light brown. Incubation and care of the young is done by both parents. The newly hatched young are covered with dark brown down. A few days after leaving the nest they accompany their parents for weeks continuing to obtain food from their parents until they are able to fly. Approaching the parent from behind while it is removing a snail from a shell the young Limpkin pulls the snail from the parent’s bill, then swallows it whole, and I know you are trying to change the subject.”
I get what your saying Bubba. If we expect to preserve and protect the Limpkin of Belize we must preserve and protect their special food source and its environment also.
THE
Birds of Belize
The Whistling Duck
In the order of Anseriformes (water fowl with webbed feet) is the family of Anatidae. The Anatidae family consists of swans, geese and ducks. Within the family is a tribe of whistling ducks called Dendrocygnini. This week's bird of the week is in that tribe of ducks and is the species 'Dendrocygna Autumnalis', or the Black Bellied Whistling Duck.
I was sitting on the bank of a jungle lagoon along the
The lagoon is infested with snappy Morelet's crocodile and at a first glance I thought it might have lost a leg to carelessness with them, but then noticed its other leg folded tight against its belly.
Where I lost credibility was when I began to describe its hairdo. It had a dark brown crown that went from a distinct Mohawk on top to what looked like a short cropped horse's mane halfway down its neck.
Bubba asked me if I had been smoking anything in the jungle or possible chewing cahune root again. I assured him I hadn't, but he gave me a disbelieving glance. Predators have caused nature to give the whistling duck a large clutch capability in order to continue the species. A nest in a large tree cavity may contain more than 100 eggs, but not all the product of one duck. The nest is shared by the entire community of whistlers.
even though this duck is described as highly gregarious, I saw only one during the week I spent in the area.
I know crocodile eat fish, frogs and snakes, surely little flightless duck hatchlings must be on the list. As I walked back to the lodge wondering what kind of duck this must be, as if to give me a clue it had taken flight from its perch and flew past my retreat making a high pitched nasal whistling noise. Sometimes the answer is so obvious it eludes me.
THE
Birds of Belize
Woodcreepers
From the order of Passeriformes in a family called Dendrocolaptidae is the species 'xiphocolaptes promeropimynchus'
Wood-creepers or 'wood-hewers' are climbing relatives of the oven-bird family
(furnariidae), and so closely related to them that some ornithologists regard them both members of a single family. Long outer toes and thickened tail feather shafts, climbing adaptations of wood-creepers,
differentiate them from oven-birds. Wood-creepers usually perch vertically with the spines at the tips of their tails resting on the trucks.
The nesting is in natural (not carved) cavities of tree trunks, old woodpecker holes, hollow trees and the like are lined lightly with dry leaves and a few twigs. She lays two or three white eggs. Flock is an inappropriate term, 'family group' better describes them. They live in and protect an area, violently ejecting trespassers, holding family territories. Reader's Digest says, "In many species of wood-creepers singing seems to function as a means of communication to males or young. Pair-forming wood-creepers singing loudly, produce sound from weird whistles to rather rough descending or ascending shrills. As if announcing territories they often sing at dawn or dusk." Recent logging operations have the wood-creepers and all the creatures of the forest on the run in
Elbert has been back a few days from a week alone in the rain forest and is starting to make complete sentences again, so I asked him to talk about his wood-creepers sightings. He has been ranting and said, "Some five thousand years ago the American Continent finally got up enough nerve to kick the last of the glaciers out of its parlor, ice gone, the continent called in the decorators and ordered them to create an environment worthy of some classy new avafana. "Hard wood forest are in" the decorator announced, and began to assemble landscape. One liked the space and light beside the tropical wet savanna of
The dandrocincla (wood-creepers) cast a watchful eye upon the endless acres of cool canopied forest placed here and decided it liked the new decor so much it took a 50,000 year lease.
The dendracincla are classy, alright, combining agility with beauty and a kind of shy arrogance to produce a total effect that no other bird can equal.
These wood-creepers inspired by their surroundings sport a long curved ivory bill above a buff colored throat and cloak themselves in ruddy brown and rufus feathers. The robin hood nymphs of the forest! It's true what you said about them having feet of Passeriformes but eons of standing vertically on the forest trees has required them to develop the special ability that zygodactyl feet give wood-peckers. Also, like the woodpecker, its tail feathers have become thick to help support it in this posture. As I walked along through the cool shaded dense forest of tall timbers a group was startled by me and took defensive actions, it must be this behavior that reminded me of the men of Sherwood. I was being watched by many from the trees, but only spotted one or two at a time, Here and there, clandestinely hopping behind trees and peering with curiosity around to get a look at me. We played a peck-a-boo game as I circled the trees to get a look at them as well. A large male of the flock boldly held his position and allowed me within 15 feet to get a close look while he did the same.
At the base of his smooth curved mandible was a little hint of yellow hair-like feathers and the bill seemed almost like a weapon. I've heard they eat tree frogs as well as insects. I was impressed by the richness of his brown color. It seemed to have a glossless, almost matte finish. I suspect he had not seen a man in his lifetime and previous generations of Dendrocolaptidae had not instilled in him I could be dangerous. By then he had noticed I was not as quick as a jaguar or margay and posed no apparent threat to the females and young of his group.
I continued walking and suddenly bright sunlight struck me. I looked down and noticed I was standing in a field of mahogany stumps. I walked to the top of the ridge and discovered another field of stumps....The decorators are going to be pissed to find Belizeans are selling their decor by the board foot, and the Dendrocolaptidae probably wont' renew their lease.
THE
Birds of Belize
Birdlistening
I was feeling a little old and getting bored with birdwatching when Bubba decided to teach me a new trick. How bird songs can be used to identify the bird without actually seeing it.
He introduced me to a tape from the
I’ve started spending time in early dawn on my veranda practicing identifying birds by just listening to the surrounding habitat. In the past I thought morning bird sounds were just a wake up call but Bubba has pointed out some very interesting features of what I thought I was hearing. He said, “Birdsongs are an elaborate series of messages in the 'language' of birds. Some complex songs may include as many as 80 notes per second. Such sounds seem like a single continuous note to the human ear and can only be seen not to be, by examination of a sound spectrograph recording the song. Not surprisingly, if the bird can give such calls it can also receive them. The speed of the auditory response of birds may be on the order of ten times as fast as that of a human.”
“The
“In habitats such as a rainforest where foliage would prevent being seen from short distances, the inherent acoustics of the canopy allow long distance communication.”
With a little skepticism in my voice I asked Bubba what he thought the birds were saying to one another. He convinced me by explaining that “language” is just a group of simple messages and even though he didn’t understand their languages he understood the basic needs for language. He assumed topics were one of its three main functions. They were announcing territory claims or discussing border disputes, making endeavors to attract a mate, and identifying other members of their communal family.
I learned a lot, and recently discovered that a noise in the night I thought was a croaking frog turned out to be a small owl advertising for a mate.
“Birdlistening" …it's a whole new word.
THE
Birds of Belize
Leaping Lizards
In the order of Archaeopterygiformes is the family Achaeopteryx and the only known representative of its family is the species Archaeopteryx Lithographica.
All that is known of Archaeopteryx is that it had feathers, everything else is hypothetical because of extinction.
Its 150 million year old fossilized remains mark the beginning of the avian evolution, a reptile that could fly is the honorary bird of the week this week.
Paleontology is Bubba's department. I reluctantly asked him about the extinct
Archaeopteryx, knowing full well it would trigger one of his diatribes on the subject.
He said, "Extinction on the planet is and has been a fact of life, or death, you might say, since time began. Some say its simply proof of failure to adapt with change, but change itself can also be credited with the cause of extinction.
It is estimated that there have been 50 billion species of plants and animals on this planet since life began. Currently there are 50 million. That means that for every thousand species that has ever existed on the planet only one remains today. These extinct species didn't just slowly disappear over the ages naturally, The New York Times Science Report, February 1997 explains that evidence from deep sea probing indicates 65 million years ago a gargantuan asteroid slammed into earth leaving evidence of the crater under the Golf of Mexico. Known as Chicxulub, it is found off the coast of
1. Socorro Dove, Zenaida gray soni, last reported 1958, formerly a
common resident on Isla Socorro, Islas Revillagigedo. This species apparently vanished between 1958 and 1978, presumably due to cat predation in conjunction with human settlement of the island in 1957.
2. Imperial Woodpecker, Campehilus Imperialis, presumed extinct. Last
reported 1956, demise apparently due to human hunting for food, in combination with habitat loss. The largest woodpecker in the world.
3. Slender Billed Grackle, Quiscalus Palustris, extinct. Last recorded
1910. Demise likely due to habitat loss.
4. Guadalupe Storm Petrel, Oceanodroma Macrodactyla, presumed
extinct. Last reported 1912 -Davidson. Demise considered due to feral cat (domestic cats gone wild) predation.
5. Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes Migratovius, extinct. Last recorded
in wild in 1900. Demise due to habitat destruction and over hunting.
The Smooth-billed Anis
Of Ambergris
The Smooth-billed Ani (crotophaga Ani) is classified in the order of Cucliform from a family called cuculidae. The Ani is a black tropical American Cuckoo. This family is an odd group of birds. It also contains the road runner; fossils date to the Oligocene epoch (24 million years ago) and possibly earlier. Ambergris’ Smooth billed Anis are becoming increasingly rare. The Ani appears to be a common black bird at first glance but a bird of distinction upon second look. The facial skin is bare, black and full of personality. Its bill is very large and seems over sized, also black and laterally flattened. They have zygodactyls feet like the woodpecker, which uses them to stand on a vertical surface. However, the Ani does not seem to use them for this purpose, and is forced to hop instead of walk when on the ground. The Ani uses its fet to move quickly and expertly through the brush, walking limberly and agile from limb to limb.
Words used to describe the Ani by ornithologists surprise me. “Disheveled, with wings drooping”, said David Allen Sibley. “Flight appears inept, often crash lands into bushes”, said Steve Howell in his Guide to Birds of Northern Central America. “An ungainly-looking black bird”, said Gary Stiles in his Guide ToThe Birds of Costa Rica. “In flight, Anis flap their wings loosely, the long tail, which appears as if on a hinge, swings up and down and from side to side like a pendulum, and looks as though it might drop off.” That’s a direct quote from the Audobon Society Field Guide. It’s odd how the comments of others form opinions in us. The Anis are unique, highly evolved, intelligent, very well adapted birds that are suffering habitat loss from human mismanagement of the environment.
Ive never seen a smooth-billed Anis on the island except in association with the phenomena of swarming Black Army Ants. The ants at certain times appear like a carpet of black on the littoral forest floor, covering every square inch of an area as they travel along. It’s at these times that the Ani seems to enjoy eating its fill, in fact it’s like an ant fest. The birds seem to roll around in the ants, I truly could not tell if it was wallowing in pleasure or wiping the crawling ants of parts they were not wanted; a very strange sight that repeated itself each time I was privileged to observe the ants. Bubba said he has a suspicion that the Smooth-Billed Anis know when the Black Army Ant is going to swarm and visits the island for this occasion.
Along with the Smooth-billed Ani, there are two other known species of the crotophaga family, the Groove-billed Ani and the Greater Ani. The Groove-billed lives throughout
The Greater Ani, Crotophaga major, has been said to exist by ornithologists that explored
Ambergris Caye is a salty, sandy, littoral habitat with many lagoons that give rise to a multitude of fish. This accommodates only a specific group of birds that choose to reside here. The Anis does not seem to fit into that group. On Ambergris, I see from time to time, birds like the Scissor-tail Flycatcher, Yellow Breasted Trogon or Agami Heron that are fresh water creatures of the jungle. Their visits have to do with weather events that give opportunity for foods they do not commonly find here. I think Bubba’s theory of the Anis visiting the island only at times when the ants swarm and not residing here is probably correct. There is a great deal not know about this unique bird that may never be known before they are extirpated. Twenty four million years is time enough to develop a chest full of valuable knowledge. If you have been paying close attention to the birds you have also seen parallels with human behavior and see in nature information about our own issues, some valuable, some trivial, and some humorous. The information Bubba collected about the Anis provided me with some insight into male and female traditional roles, communal living and even information about birth control. After 24 million years of successfully adapting to everything nature threw at them, shouldn’t we try to keep them around to learn all we can?
THE
Birds of Belize
Faith and Science
by Bubba
Whenever Elbert and I write a bird article that mentions scientific evidence of evolution such as ‘Leaping Lizards’ ( a story about 150 million year old fossilized remains of a flying lizard that marked the beginning of the Avian Evolution) we are certain of two things: The story will present accurate and physical evidence presented by leading ornithologists and scientists in the study of early and current bird life - and our e-mail will be deluged with letters from readers who reject evolutionary theory. Most of the critics object as a matter of scriptural principal; others say they have scientific evidence that calls evolution into question.
Faith and science have at least one thing in common: both are life long searches for truth, but while faith is an unshakable belief in the unseen, science is the study of testable, observable phenomena.
The idea ‘Achaeopteryx’ was the cornerstone for the evolution of birds is every bit as believable to us as St. Francis of Assisi saying he believed God created the birds for man’s enlightenment and entertainment. Scientists have no more business questioning the existence of God than theologians had telling Galileo the earth was the center of the universe.
We feel these two beliefs can coexist and at times complement each other, but neither should be asked to validate or invalidate each other.
THE
Birds of Belize
The Black-headed Gull
Bubba is becoming quite the taxonomist and persists in stressing its importance to my interest in birds. He never passes on an opportunity to slip in a lesson on the subject.
Yesterday while fishing and having lunch at the end of the dock I mentioned the seagulls overhead were eyeing our bait. Two in particular with black heads were about to steal the sardines that we had worked so hard to net. Even this was enough to trigger one of his taxonomy diatribes. Bubba, fixing his gaze on the bucket and hi fishing line said, "Those are 'Larus ridibundus' from the order of Charadriiformes, along with Terns, Skimmers, and Skuas. The class of Aves [birds] is subdivided into 34 orders. All members of the Charadriiformes are thought to have evolved from a common wader-like ancestor because of similar characteristics of skull and limb bones. The family 'Laridae' is one of sixteen in the order and can be defined as gregarious (sociable) seabirds with long legs, webbed feet and a relatively heavy bill. All members of the Laridae are efficient fliers,......but not particularly intelligent.
One of the gulls glided behind Budda's back and swooped down unnoticed, nabbing the bun top to his sandwich with a downward hook motion of his bill. Bubba never stopped his lecture, "Passing down the hierarchy of groups we reach the genus of 'Larus'. You should think of the genus as cousins within the family. The Larus are omnivorous. Most gulls are included in this genus."
Still undetected by Bubba a second pass over his exposed lunch produced a slab of ham, wet with mayonnaise, that the gull seemed to throw back and swallow whole as he zipped away.
Finally, Bubba said, "The species of L. ridiundus is distinguished from other members of the genus because it's comparatively small and has a slender bill. The capitol 'L' before the species name is to indicate its genus."
The gull seemed to hover motionless over the water in front of us. I suppose checking Bubba's awareness of his raids on lunch, watching the gulls suspended in air Bubba remarked, "Gulls make use of the up currents caused when a cool sea breeze strikes the warm air over land at the seaside, cruising for hours hardly moving their wings at all.
They feed largely on fish and this effortless flight is usually in search for food."
The gull dipped a wing and swung back out of Bubba's field of vision, positioning himself for another run on what's left of the sandwich. "Bubba, tell me more about omnivorousness." He accommodated with "Being omnivorius seems to be characteristic of success in survival from mankind's abuse of nature. Destruction of the environment and normal food sources makes one have to be more creative about what you can and can't eat. The Gull is a good example of a species that has gained from the presence of man. I've heard they eat garbage from the dump south of San Pedro Town. They are unlike many other species that just starve when its traditional food source is over-fished, bulldozed by development or otherwise influenced by man. Can you imagine, prosperity from eating the garbage from another species?" With a final dive the Gull made off with the mustard stained bottom bun and pickle attached leaving only the crumpled sheet of tin foil for Bubba. As Bubba watched the Gulls cruise the beach in search of more food he sighed and said, "Did you notice the white eyebrow and how it contrasted against the black hood? What a beautiful creature. The fishing sure is slow today. Would you hand me my sandwich?"
THE
Birds of Belize
Bubbas Helpful ‘Birdwatching Guide’
Techniques
Bubba over the years has devised an easy way to develop, improve and protect his image as a Birdwatching authority. Using his techniques and with a few of his simple tips an ordinary tourguide can become a birdwatching tour guide almost over night.
Currently as you walk down your favorite jungle trail or cruise the river and lagoon in your boat your Tourist guest will ask, What is this? or What is that? Caught on the spot to identify the bird in question may put you at odds with being knowledgeable about birds or having to admit an embarrassing ‘I don’t know’ or you could appear a winner buy applying the ‘Bubba technique’.
To use the Bubba technique you should first ask yourself, in what category should this bird be placed? Example, if its swimming its probably a duck, then ask yourself what’s this bird doing? If the duck is making a whistling sound as it flies away you would be safe in quickly responding, “A whistling Duck! “. As profound as this may seem Bubba has statistics that prove 90% of the time you will be accurate.
Let me give you this example, While driving your van load of tourist down the road to a Mayan ruin a tourist expecting you to be ever observant might ask,’ What kind of Hawk was that we passed beside the road?’ Trying not to sound facetious reply, ”A Roadside Hawk!”. You’ll be surprised how this satisfies them that you are indeed a well trained Birder Guide. Without having to spend your nights studying field guide identification books. Applying this simple technique can make you to an expert.
Remember the first step is to categorize the bird in question, is it a dove, is it a duck, is it pecking wood, could it be catching little flies? Then look and listen for special markings, sounds or behavior. Example; A circling gull at the sea side making a laughing sound is most likely a .............‘Laughing Gull’. Imagine this, your leading a group along a path in the rainforest and suddenly in the fruit tree before you are six large birds that look like parrots with yellow heads, ..........Yellow-headed Parrots! I know your thinking ‘It couldn’t be this easy’, well then tell me quickly, what kind of bird is black with red wings? A Red-Winged Blackbird. You’re visiting
True story, my neighbor called Bubba up to ask him to identify a large bird he had been seeing in his yard. He said It looked like a common hawk but was black ! He was so impressed that Bubba was such an authority on birds that he could tell him right then on the phone that it was a Common Blackhawk. Am I going to fast for you?
Try this ,’What is the primary staple in the diet of a Bat Falcon?…………..
If you said ‘bats’, I think you catching on!
Why don’t you try this little test:
1. A Dove in the sea grape tree has white wings it is a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. Your visiting Halfmoon Caye and you come across a colony of Booby birds with red feet, they are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3. you’re touring the savanna and discover a small bird with a white collar eating seeds. It is a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4. A bird pecking the wood of a coconut tree on the islands has black and white stripes on its back like those of a zebra ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5. A tourist runs up to you and asks ,“What’s that bird over there catching flies with the long scissor like tail ? You reply a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
If your answers are: White Winged Dove, Redfooted Booby, Whitecolared Seedeater, Zeberabacked Woodpecker, and Scissortailed Flycatcher, I think your catching on .
For years Bubba has been using this method with great success. I ask him honestly how he came up with such a wonderful technique. Probably because he’s unwilling to give away his secrets he just looked at me and said,’ What has one eye ,one horn, flies, is purple and eats people?
THE
Birds of Belize
THE KING VULTURE
Sarcoramphis papa
In the world of Avian there is an order known as Falconiformes; they are birds of prey, hunters of meat. Within this order is a family called the Cathartidae or Vultures and of the Vultures there is a species called Sarcoramphis papa, loosely translated this means “father of the coffin”. He is indisputably “The King of Vultures”.
In the whole of
Having seen the first three, Bubba and I set out to find The King. Steve Howell’s “The Birds of Mexico and
THE
Birds of Belize
Courtship and Mating
According to Bubba
When I get home in the evening I sit on the deck, lean back in my chair and gaze at all the stars the sky has to offer me, however, Bubba restlessly sniffs to the north and south for a female. Currently he's been obsessed with a French maid's poodle in San Pedro and the serenity of my veranda has been assaulted with constant questions about feelings for her and their differences.
I've found, over the years, the way to get Bubba to understand something is to give him an analogy to the Birds so here I am this week writing about the sex life of birds for Bubba's sake!
I began explaining to Bubba how some birds are noted for their unusual mating systems, nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that the large majority of birds, well, over 90% of them, have normal monogamous breeding partnerships. In spite of the interesting adaptations of the few, simple pair bonds between opposite sexes of the same species are the norm.
Even though most birds are monogamous, it is an old wives tale that many such as the Osprey, mate for life or will not remate if they lose the partner. Birds are by no means always so faithful. Partners may change between one year and the next, even between the beginning and end of a season.
Some species are polygamous, the males taking several mates: the New World Orioles and Boat-tailed Grackles of Ambergris are amongst these. Often the males will court a single female, mate with her and accompany her while she builds and lays, only to desert her as she starts to incubate the eggs and then go through the same procedure with the next female.
The female Northern Jacana found around the lagoons behind Ambergris take the opposite position having several males working for her, building nests and hatching her eggs. This is called "polyandry".
Courtship is the first stage of where you want to be, Bubba. Courtship simplified is just the behavior by which one recognizes others of the same species and establishes membership in the breeding population, usually through elaborate display or dance. I explained to Bubba that in the bird world the true definition of species is just a group of interbreeding birds which are reproductively isolated from other groups of birds. Race is a term used by ornithologists to refer to a sub-species, and sub-species are a recognizable and morphologically distinct population within a certain species like your poodle friend. Bubba looked troubled, he can't dance and has often displayed a desire for instant gratification using the nonpragmatic approach.
The second stage of courtship in the prelude to mating involves the recognition of the sex of the other bird, in many cases this by no means easy from appearances. In a bird such as the Caribbean Mocking bird that shows little difference in appearance between male and female. It is done initially through the female's recognition of the male as a singing bird. Mating is done after courtship and usually in a designated area. It is said that hybrids (the product of interbreeding two different species) are more common in species where the female only briefly visits the male at a display ground for mating. Since mistakes might be more likely where there are a greater number of closely related species, it is not surprising that one finds bright, distinctive plumage’s or songs in males where several species are gathered together, such as the rainforest, and less distinctive ones where species are not so closely intermixed in habitat.
I told Bubba he needs to remember that the choice of which partner, bird or otherwise, always seems to be made by the female. You can puff up your chest, dance around, make postures, display your plumage, sing, and even build her a great nest, but the bottom line is, it's always her decision. Bubba was quiet and reflective the rest of the evening occasionally staring down the beach and giving a heavy sigh.
Lovely Rita
For most, the tide goes out almost imperceptibly. Lovely Rita was watching Tequila Steve read and studying the shore line from her perch on
The pools show and seem to rise up as the sea recedes leaving little circles containing sea grass and sponge, iridescence and turquoise.
On the bottom lies the incredible refuse of the sea, shells - broken and chipped, bits of skeleton, claws - the whole sea bottom a fantastic cemetery on which the living scamper and scramble. When the tide is out the circles become lovely water worlds of their own.
The sea is very clear and she sees the bottom become active with hurrying, fighting, feeding and breeding animals.
Little Hermit Crabs, crowded in their out grown protective shells, scurry during this opportunity to find a new one - larger, more comfortable.
Today, the Great Blue Heron stood in Rita’s view also watching the tides go in and out. Long ago it realized - this is the time to reap a delight, such as that stranded snapper or eel. It stood casting its shadow over the pool, waving and rocking its neck like the sea grass, disguising its omnipresence. Stepping in slow methodic motions, it studied the bottom for whatever it might offer. Hermit Crabs, like frantic children, run on the bottom’s sand and now, one finding an empty conch shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft defenseless body. A wave that had broken over the barrier reef makes it to shore and churns the grassy water. For a moment it mixes a camouflage of bubbles into the pool as he pops into the new shell. The pool then clears and is tranquil and lovely again.
Rita shifted her attention to the quiet of the early morning in the bar and Tequila Steve staring at the paperback in front of his face. Twenty years as an eighth grade math teacher had given her an appreciation of silence. Each afternoon at 2:45 she had written on the chalk board that word and underlined every letter SILENCE.
Rita noticed Steve never turned the pages of his book. Along with the appreciation of silence she had also picked up an uncontrollable desire to help others with their problems, whether they asked for help or not.
In San Pedro it was considered rude, impolite and sometimes dangerous to ask a gringo their sir name, but, Rita had to start the conversation somewhere.
“Steve, what’s your last name?”
Tequila Steve, without exposing his face, pushed the book out a few more inches away from his face. He lifted his shot glass up between the two, then with a snap tilt of his head took a drink. Steve lowered the glass and returned the book to its usual position. Suddenly from behind the book came, “Why? What’s it matter down here?”
“It doesn’t matter. I was just making conversation.”
Steve was not intimidated by conversation. He could handle conversation but he didn’t listen to the words - just the tone of conversation.
He could even answer questions, not to hear the answer, but simply to be undisturbed and continue the flow. He could also give single word retorts; neither of which diverted his thinking or interrupted his thoughts behind the paperback.
“You’re right it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. Would it be intrusive to ask where you’re from?”
The word ‘
“
“Gambling.”
“Oh, you own a gambling business?”
“No, my family.”
Rita was amazed at the amount of information she had gotten from Steve so early. It seemed she was already on route to the heart of his problem. The son of a Chicago gambling syndicate boss, her imagination was taking off, could he be hiding from an opposing Chicago mob or have stolen a fortune from his family’s business and been sentenced to live in exile? At any case, he must be lonely and obviously a set-apart man. She could comfort him. She was also lonely, they could share experiences. Her excitement was rising, some evening she would have him home with her and cook him dinner. They would drink wine and watch the stars from her porch.
With his right hand holding the book at his face, Steve lifted the empty shot glass high in the direction of the bar, “
An even greater taboo than asking one’s last name in San Pedro was making reference to the amount one drank; but, since Rita now felt so close and personal with Steve she thoughtlessly took the chance at the jackpot.
“Steve you drink a lot of Tequila, why?”
“Doctor’s orders!”
“Are you kidding? You mean you’re sick?”
From behind the book came dryly, “I’ve got a bladder complaint. Bipalychaetorsonecitis the doctors call it, very contagious! I’m supposed to drink three shots of Tequila per hour, doctor’s orders.”
Rita smiled an uncertain smile, “Oh! I thought you were kidding,” she said archly. “I didn’t know you were sick.”
“Very sick,” Steve said, “and due to be sicker.”
“Oh, that’s awful Steve, I’m sorry.”
Without exposing his face from behind the book, Steve changed directions on the barstool to face, as it were, the emerald waters of the
Rita again directed her attention to the tide pools and silence returned to the bar.
THE
Birds of Belize
The Black-Necked Stilt
In the order of Charadriiformes is the family of recurvirostridae (shorebirds of warm climates) and in that family is the species of himantopus m. mexicanus. In
one leg with one wing out of place, its neck and bill hooked forward. Bubba thinks this fishing technique is to fool its prey into disregarding its presence by disguising its silhouette from below. The sea state was calm and it was a beautiful morning for bird watching. Bubba and I successfully executed our masquerade as tourists and completed the tour without suffering a single question about why they have to make the water so salty or will customs let us take home both a jar of emerald water and the dark blue from the other side of the reef.
THE
Birds of Belize
Scarlet Macaw
From the world of Aves, In the order of Psittacidae,(Parrots) is a species known as Guacamaya Roja, or in English, The Scarlet Macaw, one of the rarest birds in Belize. The whole order of parrots (Psittacidae) are brightly colored and unfortunately popular as pets. Of all the birds in the small library Bubba keeps on the subject the Macaw seems to be the most beautiful, standing two feet tall, adorned with brilliant plumage, bright scarlet wing feathers dabs of yellow, orange and blue. As a result growing number of species in the order are becoming endangered in the wild and several have been expired from their natural range in
Macaws have bills that are deeply hooked and feet that are zygodactyl (two toes forward and two toes back) for walking through the trees of the jungle canopy.
Macaws eat mostly nuts, seeds and fruit most often lifting food to their bill with their dexterous feet. Data about their breeding is poorly known. All parrots lay glossless white eggs with out markings. They are rather small for the size of the bird and rounded or oval shaped. Probably , if the scarlet is like other macaws, they lay only two eggs and both male and female tend to the incubation and feeding of the naked newly hatched young. Most macaws inhabiting forest or woodland habitats occur in small groups or pairs and nest in small colonies.
The Macaws of the world are endangered and only exist in a few small colonies in central and
Like the Holwer Monkey they are dependent on a few nut and fruit trees and if those trees are cut down, flooded by hydroelectric projects or even the path blocked between roost and feeding ground they will vanish completely from
I told Bubba that it seems we are always writing about man threatening the lives and livelihood of birds. The Belize Scarlet Macaws most recent threat is the proposed Macal River Chalillo Project (MRCP). The project proposal is to dam the Macal river, flooding its upper valley near the Raspaculo colony. The Belize Electricity Limited and The Ministry of Budget Planning and Development are currently involved in a public relations campaign with MRCP. A feasibility study is underway and supposedly the environmental impact is being considered.
Not just the Macaws but the habitats of many endangered species will be affected. The MRCP brief says, ”most of these concerns are irrelevant” and flooding of the Raspaculo will be “minuscule”. Bubba’s hair started to stand up on the back or his neck and he said, ”The river is a living system which transforms nutrients and transports them to biological communities, changing its temperature and nutrient content will be disastrous for flora and fauna that depend on it.” Bubba went on about ecosystems, watersheds, coastal marine systems, tropical food chains and ecology disruption, but I’ll spare you all that detail. He did have one very notable quote, something his mother used to say to him when he would express some of his not so bright ideas to her,
“ Are you out of your cotton pickin mind.”
THE
Birds of Belize
Chan Chich
(Mayan for little bird)
Bubba and I will be visiting Chan Chich Jungle Lodge this week for some world class birdwatching. Back when Bubba was young he found a 1989 edition of National Geographic in the garage. In it an article about Chan Chich so impressed him he has had a lifelong desire to visit this
Chan Chich is surrounded by thousands of acres of rainforest that harbor, among many other creatures, some of the rarest species of avafana found in the
While in the jungle I hope to get some quality barstool birdwatching time in at the Looter's Trench Bar with one of my favorite bartenders, "Stormin, Norman". Bubba will be pursuing more serious birding endeavors; however, he has agreed to join us for a little contest providing
THE
Birds of Belize
The Forked-tailed Flycatcher
The world of aves contains an order called Passeriformes, the largest of the 34 existing orders. The order has an unusual family known as the Tyrannidae and within that family, is a species called Muscivora Tyrannus, most commonly referred to as the Fork-tailed Flycatcher.
The Forked-tailed Flycatcher has a black cap with a yellow crown spot. Its underparts are white and its tail is black, forked and twice the length of its body.
Its nest is an elaborate hanging basket or cup preferably where colonial wasps or ants are nesting, presumably because of the protection from predators afforded by bites or stings of these neighbors. They lay one egg daily until the clutch is complete. The eggs are a white cream to buff with brown spots.
Bubba's new girlfriend gave him a Latin to English dictionary and he's convinced it's the key to a greater understanding of birdwatching. For instance, I would have guessed the Latin name Muscivora Tyrannus would have to do with its incredibly long forked tail or this veracious insectivorous birds appetite for flies but instead it's a description of its personality. Bubba looked it up and interpreted it as the tyrant intruder. A tyrant is defined as a cruel oppressive ruler or master. I began to look closer at the bird in a different light and discovered its behavior true to its name.
The Tyrant Flycatchers all defend exclusive territories and are highly aggressive towards intruders, even intruders like hawks that may be tree times their size.
My observation is that the forked-tailed likes pastures in association with cattle. I suppose this makes a rich hunting ground for flying insects. Bubba and I watched one sitting on a fence post in Gallon Jug. It was gazing over the meadow where Barry Bowen keeps his prize bull 'Champ'. As it flew from post to post its tail seemed like a burden. Bubba's contention is that everything has a purpose and I was pondering why its tail length should be so exaggerated when it spied a small swarm of honey bees. He flew into the swarm dragging his tail and suddenly spread and bowed it stopping his flight forward to begin almost a hover catching the bees in midair. The tail provides fantastic aerobatic maneuvering ability that assists in catching quick flying prey. I hate that Bubba seems to be always right.
THE
Birds of Belize
The Snake Bird
In the order of Pelicaniformes is a small family known as Anhigidae, in this family is the species known as 'Anhinga Ahinga', sometimes referred to as the snake bird.
Bubba came back from his walk around the lake at Chan Chich very excited. New birds, especially new birds that aren't in his field guide seem to give him extra pleasure.
The name 'snake bird' is in reference to its especially long and flexible neck. When it swims, its body is submerged with only it’s slender neck and head protruding. A hinge mechanism at the eight neck vertebrae enables the neck muscles to dart the bill rapidly forward and puncture the flank of a passing fish. Bubba claims the Anhinga he saw had its neck coiled twice and still could preen its back side easily.
Its nests are usually built in association with nests of herons, cormorants and other tree- nesting waterbirds; however, the Anhinga prefers much calmer waters and cannot tolerate the cayes of
The male claims the nest site. He advertises for a mate by 'wing-waving' and 'snap-bowing'. Wing-waving consists of alternately raising and lowering the folded left and right wings by a shoulder rotation. A very odd dance. Snap-bowing is done with tail raised, neck arched, shoulders rotating, the bird thrusts its neck forward and snaps with its bill for a female's attention. Bubba and Norman tried this for a while, it was definitely one of those Kodak moments, but produced nothing for them around the Looter's Trench Bar.
The female selects a mate and his nest site. If accepted, she builds the nest with twigs and other plant matter brought to her by the male. Copulation takes place on the nest. It produces 3 to 6 chalky pale blue and sometimes green eggs. The chicks are fed by regurgitation, like most pelecaniformes.
Bubba got another thrill when
The Chan Chich lake is surrounded with well-wooded swampy marsh in jungle and surely provides it with a wealth of fish and exotic water animals.
THE
Birds of Belize
Barstool Birdwatching-Chan Chich
After a morning walk, I lured Bubba into the Looter's Trench Bar with
Years ago when I pulled Bubba from under his mother, I thought the best I would ever achieve with him would be to convey six very important understandings for a bird dog, " No, sit, shake, outside and good dog." I'm surprised with how far he's come using those fundamentals. Here he is about to undertake his 4th 'Barstool Birdwatching' event. He's become a widely published, world renowned bird columnist whose opinions of birds and related subjects are prized by Internet surfers visiting his 'homepage' and showering him with fan e-mail. Since gametime was nearing, Norman, the presiding bartender, and equal competitor, poured himself a scotch on the rocks and said " When the guys finish inflating your egos, I'm ready."
"Would you like me to go over the rules
"
I was stunned, Bubba's eyes were wider than I had ever seen him open them. Neither of us had thought of what kind of Birder a man in
Still in awe I said, "Well....uh....cinnamon hummingbird in the Heliconia." Bubba
barked at the oscillated turkey on the walkway. there was a long silent pause.
"A longtailed hermit hummingbird next to your cinnamon, a blackheaded vulture in the tree with those red loreds, a collared aracari mixing with the keelbills, 2 rufus tailed jacamar in the shade above the hot tub, a yellow winged tanager eating those small wild berries and a pair of masked tityra inspecting that old woodpecker hole. That's 14 to 1 to 1."
I realized that my mouth was hanging open and shut it. Bubba had stopped panting, his
head bent down with his lips frozen in a circle that seemed to say 'oooooh!"
He regained his posture and began to look
Suddenly he asked aloud ' Where do the Mennonites get all those suspenders?"
I was confused and surprised. Bubba rarely speaks aloud to anyone but me. He must be fully aware of how annoying those inane touristy questions must be to someone like
Bubba shouted, "There's more tropical plants around here than in a bank lobby!"
"Cool it Bubba, can't you see we've failed to frustrate him?"
After he left the room I turned to my rocket scientist partner and asked, "You're supposed to be the most intelligent bird dog in birderdom, why can't you score a few points for us?"
His shoulders slumped again and he answered, "Intelligence has much less practical application than you think! this is
"Lunch!"
I was completely stumped and bubba seemed only interested in chowing down on the beans and rice.
"Norman can we have another clue?"
"OK! But just one. 2000 years ago around Caesar's court the gallas were prized and even lived in populated areas of
Suddenly a wooden duck with a cigar in his mouth dropped from the ceiling. On a spring. Around its neck was a placard with the word "chicken" printed on it. Its wings flapped up and down as it bounced around
THE
Birds of Belize
It all started with a phone call from my editor. An assignment that would surely prove to be a savage journey into the heart of birdwatching. A hotel proprietor on the island had constructed a birdwatching tower and wants to organize a birdwatching group for monthly brunches at chic locations around town. I was told that I was the Bird Columnist and have been appointed as a committee member. My editor promised an expense account to cover the story. I immediately asked for an advance to cover rent on the proper equipment to do the job! This would be a serious assignment so I needed an advance to secure the munitions and drugs.
In San Pedro Town I rented a red convertible golf cart from Oreo and loaded the back of it with a cooler of Belikin and a quart of Mexican mescal. I had the luck to intercept a Garifuna maiden and scored some moist cahune 'chew root'. I could only get a $2,000 advance out of my editor. The tyrant made me listen for 10 minutes on the phone about how I'm going to lose my credibility as a serious bird columnist if I don't stay out of the Pier Lounge.
The tower was south on the island's
As we crossed along the potted beach crest road dividing the front beach from the island's back side our journey was halted by a small lagoon that had formed in the middle of the road bed; we sat and pondered the fork to evaluate the situation. I took a chaw of the chew root and opened Bubba a beer, turned up a swig of Dark Caribbean, shot an ounce of mescal, and glanced at my watch. A grackle whistled his morning whistle and cawed from a roadside seagrape, suddenly a Mayan Oriole swooped across the road and flew down the detour to the lagoonside. There is nothing more irresponsible than a man in the depths of a birdwatching tour, I took the detour! A flock of white ibis flew along the path as the air filled with every Quack, Qock, cheep and warble I had ever heard. I looked at Bubba and he looked at me. We both understood we weren't in
There in the road lay the pitiful form of an American Birdwatcher. He clutched a small journal of all the birds he had seen in his left hand. His eyes were swollen shut from hundreds of mosquito bites on his face. His bare legs were red and infected from scratching sand fly bumps. In one of the vest pockets of his Banana Republic jacket was a map of the island drawn by Richie Woods, marking the Back Lagoon with a big X.
His flesh was swollen from poison wood exposure and a make-shift necklace of gumbo limbo leaves was entwined with his binocular strap. He murmured through his agony and tried to raise them one more time to the slits of his eyes crying, "Oh my God, look! Look!" I then noticed the fang marks of the Tommy goff on his blue leg. The poor devil is in for a
horrible death. I propped his body against a sapodilla tree at the road's side in the shade and poured water over his face and cracked lips. As he sipped I popped the 9mm at the base of his skull and it was over. He never knew anymore pain, his misery ended.
I gave Bubba a sharp look. He seemed to understand this wasn't going to be the Sunday outing we expected. What ever it was that this man had seen, Bubba knew I wouldn't stop until we had seen it too!
I stared at the road ahead, Passeriformes, Galliformes, Tinamiformes, or maybe even Dinornithiformes!
What would drive a birdwatcher to this degree? What ever it was I'm on my way to find out.
We cruised by what seemed like miles focusing on what voyeuristic delight might be ahead for us. Then, along the road's east side was a white picket gate. I parked the cart and opened the gate for Bubba to enter first. Along the slight narrow path and ground were landscaped and manicured gardens. The path turned into steps that ended at a wooden ladder of a towered platform. A sudden mystical revelation hit me! I was at the
I climbed to the tower's platform, the view was fantastic - I could see the reef and the lagoon at the same time. All the way to Caye Caulker in one direction and San Pedro Town laid out in the other. I was stunned. I couldn't help but wonder of the adventure that lay ahead for Bubba and I. Somewhere out there is another rare bird waiting for us to discover it.
THE
Birds of Belize
The Bubba Report
Belize has a very poisonous snake known by some as the Tommygoff , or ‘Sevenstep’ A favorite tale about the snake for the Mestizo is that an old creo man was listening to a tourguide explain to some tourist how a man only has seven more steps to live after being bitten by this viper. After hearing this the creo man interrupted with,” That’s a lie! I’ve seen people live all day”.
Bubba didn’t.
The later stages of the venomous effects are ugly so after an hour or so I took his life. I buried him in the jungle. I know your going to think this macab and a little hard to understand but, I also took his head. The Crabs and Fish did a good job of cleaning the skull for me and after a coat of varnish he looks real nice. He’s right here on the bookshelf beside my desk where I write, still looking after things for me and supplying me with inspiration for my writing.
THE
Birds of Belize
LesserYellow-headed(Savanna) Vulture
Cathartes b. burrovianus Aura Sabanera
I went down to the beach this morning to find Bubba lying on his back with his eyes closed looking very dead. I walked up to him slowly and sad, thinking of all the birdwatching adventures we had been through in these last ten years. I had just begun to sob when he suddenly opened one eye, looked at the vultures circling over him and explained in a low voice that I was spoiling his ploy to get a close look at the Lesser Yellow-Headed Ambergris Vulture from the order of Cathartidae. Not moving and still speaking from his post mortem posture he explained that Vultures of Ambergris hunt actively, quartering the savanna like a harrier. Searching for small aquatic animals. When the dry season strands fish in shrinking ponds or savanna flats these nomadic birds will be visiting the island in masses. Bubba was successful in arousing the curiosity of several, luring them close enough to see their red eyes and naked multicolored heads. They have a bluish-purple bank at the base of the bill. The yellow-orange color of its head is crowned in a pale blue accented by a blood red nape band giving this bird an eerie psychedelic appearance. I'm constantly amazed with Bubba's resourcefulness and totally appreciative of our close look at another magnificent island bird.
THE
Birds of Belize
The Halfmoon Rookery
Bubba came home from a week-long fishing trip looking very thin. Without saying a word he went straight to the bookcase where we keep all of his bird books and buried his head. All I could get him to say was, "Boobies at Halfmoon," then he fell back into his research desk, mumbling to himself about 'rookeries' and 'colonies'. I could feel an adventure developing.
Halfmoon Caye is a unique island on the rim of Lighthouse Reef Atoll, that contains the mysterious Blue Hole Cavern, formed before the ice age and explored by the Cousteau expedition in the 70's.
This 50 thousand year old coral atoll supports an eco-system that harbors a rookery of the Red Footed Booby on its barrier island.
Rookeries contain colonies of nesting birds and provide a safe place to roost. Roosting is a term used to describe what a bird does when it rests or sleeps. Roosting in close proximity to one another provides security from predators and sometimes protection from the weather.
The rookery on Halfmoon is special in that it's one of the last existing rookeries of the Red Footed Booby Bird.
The only influence of humans on the island is its lighthouse and the only human inhabitant is Monrad Flores the lighthouse keeper who lives there with his dog, 'Whiskey'.
The island has been protected since 1928 when it became a Crown Reserve. Crossing the 50 miles to the island from San Pedro can be arranged by hoping aboard one of the dive boats bound for the 'Blue Hole' .It's a day trip and boat captains usually visit Halfmoon for a quick tour while lunch is being prepared for the divers.
My adventure began when I made a deal with Captain Azueta of the Miss Gina for my passage. I promised to guide his divers through the hole.
The trip and dive in the Blue Hole went smoothly. As we docked at Halfmoon the captain asked me to show the divers around the island. Walking barefoot along the well marked path to the west end was no problem. The path curved back into a thick wooded area of cypress, coconut and gumbo limbo, and then ended at a metal observation tower. The tower rises to a level with the giant rookery. The view was stunning and the rookery was very active.
Boobies, frigates, pelicans, cormorants and gannets all in the same order called Pelecaniformes. The island is crowded with them.
Pelecaniformes are a closely knit family of marine plunge-divers. They eat fish caught by diving or steal from others who are better at it. The entertainment level from the tower for a birdwatcher is a ‘10’. The comic look of young boobies in the nest made me laugh.
Big clumsy young white boobies with blue clown faces and red feet were waiting for momma to deliver lunch.
The frigates seem to have no problem sharing space in the rookery with the boobies and their nests are intermingled.
Binoculars are not really necessary because some of the nests are only a few feet away. The birds seemed to ignore us, going about their daily life as if the tower of gawking wet-suit clad humans didn't exist.
Watching the young interact within the rookery of adults is fascinating. This must be what Bubba was mumbling about. From the tower in just a few minutes one can witness these young birds learning lessons about life in a colony.
I left the tower with a genuine feeling of thrill. I've heard Halfmoon described as a jewel in the crown of
END
‘I Don’t do Poetry’
I don’t do poetry!
I just don’t have the time,
It’s just not me to make things rhyme.
I don’t do poetry!
I prefer I to sit and drink.
It would be too much trouble
And you have to really think.
I don’t do poetry!
I can’t see the pleasure,
and who really gives a damn,
about measure.
I don’t do poetry!
I’ll leave it to others.
I’m sure its done by sissy men,
who even write their mothers.
I don’t do poetry!
And lets leave it at that!
I could if I wanted to,
but keep it under your hat!
The Black-headed Trogon of Ambergris
Trogon m. melanocephalus
In the pantropical family of brightly colored forest birds called Trogonidae is an order called Trogoniformes and in that order is the Citreoline Trogon known to some as The Black-headed.
Trogons are medium-size arboreal birds, colored with green or blue-violet above and red, orange, or yellow below. With their long tails, short legs, and short, heavy bills, trogons superficially resemble parrots, but trogons have much smaller bills and orbital eye rings. There are 9 species of Trogon in Central America 4 and sometimes 5 can be found in
Some ornithologist class this week’s bird of the week in a group of trogons simply called yellow-bellied it has a black head with blue orbital ring and a yellow belly with a blue green and violet back. My observation was that its head back and tail bend forward to form a crescent posture, projecting only blue green and violet that matched the foliage color and curves. This plus their motionlessness camouflage even this colorful bird. The black-headed Trogon found countrywide also lives in Ambergris’s mangrove and littoral forests. It nests in tree cavities and some times excavating termite nests for shelters. They eat fruit, insects and small animals. The Trogon at my house is cuckoo about coconuts. I open the coconut and place it atop a boton about 5 feet of the ground near the birdbath outside my window by my rocking chair. It’s the dry season on Ambergris, months of little to no rain cause the birds to move around in search of water. I keep two bird baths full this time of year and my reward is to be able to sit and have come to me birds I don’t normally see in my little cocal. Among the Trogons unique features is the heterodactyl foot, with the inner front toe turned backward. I asked Bubba to explain why we include what kind of feet birds have in our articles. He said, ”You can look at a birds feet and know what it does. Many people think that a bird’s knees bend backward. Birds actually walk on their toes; however, the backward-oriented joints that seem to be their knees are their ankles. The extended projections that we call bird feet are made up of greatly extended toe bones. Starting at the toe tips and working upward, one sees that avian joints bend the same way human joints do – birds’ joints are just in unexpected places.
Birds’ feet have a wide variety of uses, including locomotion (running, walking, hopping), clinging, climbing, carrying, perching, killing prey, preening, holding food, cradling eggs, aerial courtship, swimming, steering underwater, and absorbing the impact of water landings, to name just a few and you can just bet that the bird is equipped with the correct feet for what it does the most.
Most birds have toes arranged in an anisodactyl manner, with three toes pointing forward and one toe pointing to the rear. The hind toe, called a hallux, is the structural equivalent of the big toe on a human foot. Other birds, such as owls, cuckoos, woodpeckers, and parrots, have a zygodactyls arrangement, with two toes forward and two toes back. These work very well when standing on a vertical surface.
Lobes and palmations (webbing between the toes) assist in swimming or walking on loose surfaces. Some species have special adaptations in their foot structure; for instance, the Ospreys on Ambergris (Pandion haliaetus) have spiked scales on the bottoms of their feet that enable them to grab slippery fish, and Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) have a serrated talon used in preening. All of the Latin words that described the different types of birds feet contained the word,’dactyl’ an old Latin term that means ‘skillfully and artfully constructed. Our bird of the week The Trogon has heterodactylous feet, unlike any other bird in the world. The basic arrangement of two toes in front and two toes in back is shared by many families but in those birds it is the outer most toe that points backward, in the Trogon the inner toe has rotated back. Trogons have short legs and weak feet, traits that limit their ability to walk and climb. Natural selection dictates that there is a purpose for everything. Trogons belong to the sole family within the order Trogiforms and appear to have no close relatives among living birds and are considered rare. Biologist have conducted few studies of Trogons, and large gaps remain in or knowledge of these birds. The primary threat to this species are logging of native forest. Tourism in
Bubba said that I should be sure and mention that,
David Sibley’s ‘Guide to Bird Life and Behavior’ is a major source of information for him and that ‘A Guide to The Birds Of Mexico and Northern Central America’ by Steve Howell and Sophie Webb is his answer to the tourist query ‘What book should I buy for Belize Birds?”
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