On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Our first trip for the “post COVID” period was planned last summer before the delta variant appeared and successfully took place just as omicron was starting. This was a combo birding and snokeling/beach sitting trip. We stayed at three lodges, Pook’s Hill Lodge, Chan Chich Lodge and Turneffe Flats Resort for 3 or 4 night each.
Part one Pook’s Hill Lodge in the jungle covered hills west of the Capital of Belmopan.
It’s a rather rough road in but the surrounding jungle gave us a wonderful warm tropical ambience. A pleasant change from Pennsylvania in December and I saw some gret life birds as well as good looks at some familiar jungle friends like the Keel-billed Toucan (Belize’s national bird)

On one sunset walk I didn’t take my camera along, just my binoculars, because i figured it would be too dark for good pics, but this Keel-billed toucan perched high in a dead snag and basked in the light of the sunset and our great guides got him in their spotting scope and then took pics with everyone’s cell phones. I’m no good at digiscoping by hand holding my phone but they we’re great!

Parrot’s fly very fast and don’t often sit still where you can see the, but when they do it’s usually high in a tree with bad backlighting for photography! But I take what views these wonderful and quintessentially tropical birds offer. They are very social and always in pairs or flocks. This is a pair of Red-lored Parrots. (Note: a birds lores are the spaces on the front of their face between their eyes and their nostrils at the base of their bills.)

A white-fronted parrot. It’s partner was sitting nearby.

One trip we made included a stop at the Green Hills Butterfly Ranch near Mountain Pine Ridge National Park. The ranch raises butterflies and sells them as living chrysalises to butterfly exhibits in the USA. The tour was interesting and informative. I know a good bit about the activity of raising butterflies and giant silkmoths like Lunas and Cecropias, so if really wanted to really study the operation and ask a lot of questions, but it was our first day and wearing a mask in the midday heat was getting to me so I opted to sit and watch their hummingbird feeders, I believe we had 6 or 7 species there. My favorite, although not a lifer, was this Violet Saberwing, which is a very large hummingbird and is my favorite color too! I’d seen them before in Costa Rica, but in rainy weather, not in full sun like this beautiful male was!

While we were eating lunch at the Butterfly Ranch. my sister spotted a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird sitting on a palm frond about 50 feet or so away and when I looked at it through my camera I saw it was asleep with its head bent over backwards! At first its bill was closed then it gaped a little and then after about a minute it woke up, stretched a little then flew away. We were to fqar away to tell if it was snoring like this hummingbird in Peru.

This is the back side of one of the Cabañas at Pook”s Hill. Almost all the buildings at the lodges we stayed in on the mainland had thatched roofs made from the fronds of the Cohune Palm like this.
The Cohune is a magnificent tree and we’ll see some pictures of them in part 2 of this series. Its of the most used plants by the Mayas both today and in the past. The fruit of the Cohune is a hard oily nut a little smaller than a tennis ball and they can be burned for heat. Pook’s Hill has a Cohune fruit fired hot water heating system and the showers were excellent.

This hilly area we visited in Mountain Pine Ridge National Park does have a lot of pines and some oaks so it is very different from the jungle around the lodge. This beautiful view from an overlook let us see out to distant farmland and ….

…the best birds we saw here were 3 soaring King Vultures. The biggest vultures in the new world besides condors. They are magnificent birds with black & white plumage, but they are rather shy compared to Turkey and Black Vultures so much harder to get close to.

Pook’s Hill Lodge did have electricity and decent wifi, but they lighted the mainlodge and dining area with kerosene lamps. Seeing them and with that fait smell, It really took me back to my cabin camping memories of many years ago!
Coming soon Belize 2021 Part 2, Chan Chich Lodge and Gallon Jug Farm
eclare
That toucan is gorgeous…those colors!
MagdaInBlack
Kerosene lamps smell does that for me too.
Love the toucan ?
Mai Naem mobile
Because I like to point out stupid stuff, your first pic says Dec.2022. Belize is on my bucket list. They just decided to kick off Lizzy as their head of state – right after Wills and Kate came and visited recently which i thought was pretty funny.
schrodingers_cat
Nice photos!
A parrot and some toucans.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks! Nice drawings!
MelissaM
I never would have guessed hummingbirds slept like that! Don’t they get that crick in their neck like I do??
Lovely photos!
Albatrossity
Very cool pics from a great birding destination. King Vultures!
Re the snoring hummingbird, this might be good reading.
Looking forward to the next installment!
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Albatrossity: Thanks, The raptor pics will in 2 weeks, next week is pics of Chan Chich Lodge and some other colorful birds.
It doesn’t actually surprise me about the hummingbird snoring being possibly a stress reaction, A lot of animal behavior we think is cute has nothing to do with cuteness and often is a fear reaction like with these viral slow loris videos.
J R in WV
Amazing pics, from the lantern-lit lodge to the toucan, and everything in between!!
Thanks for sharing! We love this weekly feature, and I wish I had time to share more right now myself.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@MelissaM: I know right. It looked so uncomfortable. I’ve seen pics of sleeping/torpid hummingbird before and they just sort of hunker down at night and when it’s cold. Maybe this on was hot and that is a way to cool off. I know I felt overheated that afternoon!
munira
Fascinating birds. Love the sleeping hummingbird (who it seems is not snoring).
tybee
nice pics.
we were in belize last may but on the coast for snorkeling and fishing.
next trip will be into the hills for birds…
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@tybee: The last part of this series will be of our snorkling trip to Turneffe Atoll. I just want to go back and do it all again!