Birding in Belize

A braided jungle vine

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The following night I'm lucky enough to have Gilberto, the Lodge's most experienced guide, to myself. As we set out the dry rattling sound of palm fronds crashing to the forest floor makes me jump, but I am reminded of Josie Harding's comment: "The bigger the sound, the smaller the animal. If it's making a racket, it's almost certainly a bird." But some rustling overheard proves not to be avian, as two pairs of red eyes gleam down at our flashlights. The long lithe forms of kinkajous are clearly visible, high above on tree limbs looking dangerously fragile.

We take the Sac Be Trail, which meanders for a mile through the bush before emerging near a white suspension bridge. The forest floor is littered with the glittering blue-white eyes of wolf spiders, like a carpet of scattered diamonds. Twenty yards down the trail Gilberto stops and directs his flashlight at the ground two feet ahead. A small brown snake is slowly gliding across the path. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be frightened or not, so I ask.

"What is it?"

His casual reply, "fer-de-lance," renders me dead still. This innocuous-looking snake packs a double whammy: Its venom is both a neurotoxin and a haemotoxin. As we watch the snake turns, undulating down the edge of the path, 18 inches from my right foot.

"We do not see them very much. The last time I saw one was maybe five months ago, so you are very lucky. They are not aggressive, unless you provoke them." Not knowing what a fer-de-lance considers provocation, I'm not particularly comforted. But I do feel lucky. (My only other serpentine encounter is less pleasant: A dead vine snake above the bathroom ceiling lends my cottage a distasteful odor, but it certainly serves as a reminder that this is no ordinary hotel.)

A short sharp call catches Gilberto's ear. I haven't got a clue where it's coming from, but in less than a minute Gilberto finds the source, a red-eyed tree frog clinging to the narrow trunk of a young cecropia tree, its body a clear lime green, its red eyes large. The frog spends most of the rest of its life in the forest canopy, hidden among bromeliads, and it's an unusual sighting at this time of year. Though we've been walking for two and a half hours and everyone else is asleep, I don't want the night to end. I take another tour around the grounds, visiting my tarantula friends, stepping carefully over toads, and enjoying the stillness. Something calls in the forest, something scuttles nearby. And in the end, I sleep. Three days are not enough at Chan Chich, and it's with an anticipation tinged with deep regret the next morning that I board a tiny two-seater plane, headed for Belize City and the next leg of my jungle adventure.