Thames Nature Notes: Jungle & coast

Yellow crowned night heron

After leaving Caye Caulker we spent some days in the Cayo district which was really beautiful, but the weather was, for the most part, cold, wet and grey. We went zip-lining, spent a day at the ATM cave, which was quite an experience, visited the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich and Cahal Pech, went to the Botanical Gardens in the jungle and bounced some thirty odd miles along a 'washboard surface' road to the lovely Rio On Falls. On the final day, the sun shone and we drove almost to Guatemala to the beautiful Mayan ruins of El Pilar. We were the only visitors that day and had the whole site to ourselves. A grey fox stopped and stared at us several times and there were many exotic species of birds and butterflies to enjoy.

An osprey just above our friends' house in Belize City

We spent 5 days over the Christmas period with our friends from 20 years back. They have a magnificent house by the sea at Bella Vista and I spent many a happy hour there watching an osprey, the frigate birds, pelicans, herons, egrets and some lovely garden birds. We also fished from the dock, but only David managed to catch a yellow-fin Jack.

Frigate bird chasing a bait fish

The magnificent frigate birds usually steal fish from other species but they also take advantage of panicked bait fish when a large predatory fish goes on the rampage. Here you can see a female frigate bird just about to swoop on a tiny bait fish leaping from the sea to avoid whatever was hunting beneath the waves!

Hibiscus flower in the late afternoon light

Our friends have a lovely front garden and hummingbirds are sometimes attracted to the hibiscus flowers. I waited patiently for some time but lucked out.

West beach on the Northern Lagoon

David & Debbie took us on an amazing day out, which included trolling for snook and tarpon, a trip up the Sibun river to visit Bird Cay on Northern Lagoon, lunch on West Beach, and a 45 minute trip in an amphibious vehicle through water and then into the jungle as far as Gracie Rock.

On the way we saw a green heron

A great blue heron outside the Geggs' house

A bare-throated Tiger Heron

From Belize City we drove along the stunning Hummingbird Highway on our way to Punta Gorda. This was new territory for us as the Hummingbird Highway was unpaved when we lived in Belize which made for long, slow, uncomfortable driving and we never got as far as Punta Gorda. It's probably the wettest part of Belize - the rain supposedly falls mainly at night - but it rained far more than we'd have liked which put the dampers on most photographic opportunities. We stayed at a lovely jungle lodge with attractive trails into the jungle, but the grey skies and jungle canopy meant that the light was too low for bird photography. I was lucky enough to come across the immature Tiger Heron on the outskirts of town, however, where there was a clearing.

Passion flower

The owner of the lodge was good enough to show us around a butterfly farm and on the way we stopped to look at some of the leaves and flowers needed for the successful breeding of butterflies.