A couple weeks ago, Andrew headed back to New York City for work for a few days, and I
headed into the jungle. The Cockscomb
Basin Wildlife Sanctuary is a couple hours south of Belmopan and is in the
thick of it. It’s a 150 square
mile area that is protected and managed in part by the Belize Audubon
Society. It’s home to tropical forests,
rivers, and loads of wildlife, including jaguars. I went down for an overnight trip with a
friend and colleague from the British High Commission here in Belmopan. She has been in Belize for three years and has visited
Cockscomb before, so I figured I’d take advantage of her bird knowledge.
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| A pretty waterfall at the end of one of our hikes. |
The Audubon Society has some basic accommodations in the
preserve, so we reserved one of them. “Basic”
= no air conditioning, no hot water, no fans, no electricity after 8pm. All well and good… except when it is 110
degrees and the humidity makes the air feel like a sauna. The two days I was in Cockscomb were THE
HOTTEST I have possibly ever been. I
drank liters of water… and immediately sweated out every drop.
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| The Ritz...it is not. Photo courtesy the Belize Audubon Society. |
But I digress… The main point of this post is that we an
AMAZING array of birds.
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| The Woody Woodpecker woodpecker (AKA pale-billed woodpecker) |
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| Boat-billed heron... and baby boat-billed herons! |
Woodpeckers,
tanagers, parrots, all manner of little songbirds, and… the most amazing of all…
scarlet macaws. We heard them before we
saw them, could tell they were getting closer, and then they started flying
overhead in groups of 3 or 4 until a flock of upwards of 30 had assembled in a
large tree at the edge of South Stann Creek.
I understand many of you are probably thinking, 30 birds, big
whoop. But when you consider that the
total population of this bird species in Belize has been estimated at as few as
150 birds, this really was incredible to behold.
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| So amazing to see these macaws flying through the forest! |
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| A few of the 30+ birds that took over this tree. |
The first book I read when I got to Belize was called The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw by
Bruce Barcott. For anyone interested, it
provides an excellent overview of the history and politics in Belize in the
context of the conflict between development and environmental protection. This is a small, still developing country, and
macaws are under pressure from habitat loss and poaching. The status of the population of these birds
in Belize is tenuous at best. But we saw
30 of them, flying free, flashing rainbows of color amid the trees, and it was a
sight I will never forget.
