Birding in Belize

An ocellated turkey

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In the morning I am awakened by trilling of melodious blackbirds. It's still dark at 5:30, but I'm too excited to sleep. Behind my cottage, its crown just visible beyond the steep rise of a grass-covered Mayan temple, a fig tree is festooned with the weaver-like, though much larger, nests of Montezuma oropendolas. Only two males are in residence, making enough noise for a hundred. The tree supports a colony of approximately 50 birds during the nesting season, during the months of January to July. There will be no sleeping-in then.

I grab a self-serve cup of coffee—a civilized touch—and sit on the dining room veranda. As the sun's rays begin to burn off the morning mist, the silhouettes of a dozen or so ocellated turkeys become clear, high in the branches of a breadnut tree on the plaza's perimeter. Endangered due to hunting and habitat loss, Belize is one of the last refuges of these beautiful birds. Among their large forms is a smaller, more familiar shape, a little blue heron oddly out of place. Tom Harding approaches with his own coffee, glances up, and smiles. "He first came here three years ago as a juvenile, and comes back every year for about four months. Thinks he's a turkey, he's got an identity problem." He hangs around on the fringes of turkey society like the adoring batboy for a husky ball team. The turkeys simply ignore him. Each morning they sweep down from the trees like heavy bombers. Like turkeys everywhere, they are not overwhelmingly bright, but they do seem to know that Chan Chich offers safety, and they spend much of the day wandering the grounds.

Setting down my coffee, I head down the road. The walk nets my first toucan sighting, a pair of collared aracaris feasting in a breadnut tree, their black, yellow, and red plumage standing out against the forest. I wander into the bush a little—but not far, remembering warnings that it's easy to get lost in a hurry—and when they finally disappear in the trees I glance down and discover my legs are covered in bright spots of blood, my first clash with the ubiquitous "no-see-ums."

I head down the river walk, one of eight trails that have been carved out of the bush. It's hot and humid and a little slippery, and I walk carefully, having learned that some jungle trees have barks that will produce blister burns, so there will be no grabbing should I take a fall. At the bottom of the trail sunlight filters through the dense trees and plays upon a small pool, where songbirds flit like dark shadows in the undergrowth. Large yellow butterflies play across the surface of the pond, and as I watch a fish jumps, barely missing a butterfly. A sudden crashing sound makes me look up, to see half a dozen russet spider monkeys swinging through the highest branches. A tiny agouti freezes on the trail, one tiny foot raised, his body quivering with tension. I make a small movement and he is off like lightning.