Bubba's Birding Blog for Birdwatching in Belize: 2011

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Lamanai For The Birds

Lamanai, for the Birds
Lamanai is a Maya word meaning “submerged crocodile”, but also the name of the third largest, and possibly the most interesting archeological site in Belize. Located in the Orange Walk District, the Lamanai temple complex sits atop the western bluff of the New River Lagoon and is surrounded by pristine rainforest. This Pre-Classic site had its origins 3,500 years ago and experienced the longest period of occupation and development of any other Maya archeological site in Belize.

The journey to Lamanai is as interesting as Lamanai itself. Tour operators on Ambergris Caye sell this day trip as an eco-adventure and for the aware “birder” it may be the most productive of rare and unusual sightings Belize has to offer.

The trip leaves the dock in San Pedro for the New River Lagoon at approximately 7:30 a.m. and passes through a number of diverse avian habitats along the way. The boat first crosses through mangrove channels at the southern tip of Ambergris Cays offering opportunities for sighting Belted Kingfishers, Great White Herons, Little Blue Herons, Great Blue Herons, Roseate Spoonbills, Black-Necked Stilts, as well as the common occurrence of Brown Pelicans, Frigates, Cormorants, Ospreys, Plovers, Pipers and Terns.

The boat then exits the mangrove on Ambergris’ west side and crosses the southern end of the Bahia de Chetumal. Early Spanish frontiersmen accessed Lamanai via the Bay of Chetumal from Corozal traveling up the New River to a large bluff. The bluff is adorned with very impressive Maya temples that date from 1500 B.C. until the arrival of the Franciscan Friars in 1650.

Our crossing to the shortcut takes approximately 45 minutes and ends entering the Belize mainland at the mouth of the Northern River in the Northern Rover Lagoon. Elbert spotted a Green Heron fishing the shallows of a small island lagoon, the only island that was supporting tall coconut trees. The Northern River runs through tropical swamp where the fresh water of the river mixes with the tidal salt water, so that salt levels fluctuate. Characteristic in this area are Red Mangroves (Rhizophora harrisoni), with spreading silt roots. The flowering orchids, vermilions and epiphytes they support are the chief source of nectar for the Mangrove Hummingbird. In this swamp, Mangrove Vireos, Mangrove Warblers, Flycatchers and Snail Kites permanently reside, and many water birds rest, forage and nest.

This leg of the trip ends on the firm earth and dark soil at the edge of the swamp in the village of Bomba, where you are transferred from boat to bus for the trip along the Old Northern Highway. During the 50-minute trip to the New River you will pass through savanna. Elbert and I spotted three Jabiru Storks in the marsh grasses along the way as well as a flock of White Ibis and a variety of Hawks, Vultures and Egrets.

We boarded a different boat on the New Northern River near Tower Hill. The New Northern River between Tower Hill and Lamanai runs through Riverine/Gallery Forest and is a habitat for Limpkins, Kites, Bitterns, Rails and a variety of Herons, such as the Tri-colored and the Chestnut-bellied. A common site along the river is the female Northern Jacana trotting along its lily pads foraging for water bugs and small frogs or fish.

The journey ends at the base of the bluff and the edge of the rainforest on the New River Lagoon at Lamanai. Our group was introduced to a very will informed Belizean Archeological Tour Guide who led us through a field museum first and then on a jungle walk – up, down and around several Maya temples set under the rainforest canopy.

He began our trip by pointing our a Keel Billed Toucan in the trees above where we did our introductions.

He identified flora and fauna of the forest along the way, stopping at a tree of Howler and Spider Monkeys and pointing out the need to not stand directly under them. He also gave notice to the Wood Creepers, Yellow-headed Parrots, a Groove-billed Ani, a Keel-billed Toucan and a Slaty-tailed Trogon. We had a wonderful lunch on a picnic table under the shade of a giant Bullet tree at the edge of the river before returning.

Yes, definitely. Lamanai, for the birds.
Lamani Tour is $155.usd plus a $5. park fee call 226 2405 or elbertgreer@yahoo.com

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The Bubba Birdwatching Philosophy

For Elbert birdwatching is another way to relate to life. He says it's a different, more graceful path that makes living enjoyable and its problems easier to solve.

I find my entertainment by not limiting by observations to birds alone but including birdwatchers. Elbert calls it Bubba style. Watching birdwatchers has revealed more to me about human behavior than birding techniques. I've resolved the greatest discovery of the human will be that a human being can alter its life by altering its attitude. Elbert said, "One of the cardinal rules of 'Bubba Birdwatching' should be that judging others takes a great deal of energy and, without exception, pulls you away from where you want to be." I think he doesn't understand. Being a birddog is probably an advantage for me. In my search for 'Birding Truth' I have discovered many opinions-and if they don't fall in line with my belief I try not to dismiss it or if I find fault in it I try to see a positive side. For

example, 'The Aggressive Compulsive Lister', I admire them for how seriously they can take themselves. In my adventures I've run into quite a few with this birding malady, a personality that seems to polarize 'Bubba Birdwatching'. They go about recording details, listing and counting as if they were in a birdwatching emergency. In some ways this strategy epitomizes the essential message of 'Bubba style'. It is as if someone prescribed to them birdwatching as an anti-anxiety medicine and their medication is out of adjustment.

The human trait of being in a hurry to relax has always confused me. The aggressive compulsive birder wants to see that bird now! So they can get onto the next one and the next, then hurry back to the lodge to write them down on the 'life list'. Elbert said, "almost every opinion has some merit, especially if we are looking for merit, rather than looking for errors, and I should try to help them with their birding enjoyment by showing them value in 'Bubba Birdwatching'."

There are three excellent reasons for becoming a Bubba Birder. First, when you are aggressive you put yourself and everyone around you in an uncomfortable birding mood. Second, birding aggressively is extremely stressful. Your blood pressure goes up, your grip on the binoculars tightens, your eyes are strained and your thoughts are spinning out of control. Finally, you end up wasting time in getting to where you want to be emotionally.

Bubba Birdwatching is done to relax. When I ask birders, what does it mean to relax? Most will answer in a way that suggests that relaxing is something you plan to do later - you will do it on vacation, in a hammock, when you retire or when you get through birdwatching. The obvious implication is the rest of your time should be spent nervous, agitated, rushed and frenzied. This is not the 'Bubba way'. It's useful to think of relaxation as a quality of heart that you can access anytime rather than something reserved for a later time. it's helpful to remember that relaxed people can still be birdwatching super achievers. When I'm feeling uptight, for example, I don't even try to write. But when I feel relaxed, my writing flows quickly and easily.

Being a Bubba Birder involves training yourself to respond differently to the dramas of birdwatching. It comes in part from reminding yourself over and over again that you have a choice in how you respond. For instance, upon seeing a new and unusual bird one can run crashing through the jungle trying to focus the binoculars, looking for a pencil, and looking it up in Peterson's all at the same time or be a true Bubba and simply whisper, "Wow, did you see that?" ......this plateau is achievable. You can learn to relate to your thinking as well as your circumstances in a new birding awareness. With practice, making these choices will translate into your becoming a true Bubba Birder.

A Word from Bubba

How To Change The World

In Three Easy Steps

By Bubba

It is said that when a human stands on the rim of the Grand Canyon and looks to the other side, they have an emotional experience.

I’ve heard them say, ’we just seem so damn tiny.’

Likewise, the challenge that afflicts Ambergris Caye can seem overwhelming in scope and scale. When problems are as big as overfishing, Pollution and coastal overdevelopment, it’s easy to think that there’s no way one person can do anything to bring about positive change. But just as the trek to the peak of Mt. Everest is made step by tiny step, positive change often comes in tiny increments.

Awareness, Legislation and Enforcement are the blue print for positive change. My big rock to chip at is Awareness!

We understand there is no easy way to reverse the tide of environmental degradation, but we also understand that given a simple choice between eco-friendly and environmentally damaging practices, the vast majority will choose to do what’s best for the Island.

Ambergris Caye in its remote and forgotten corner has been exempt in the past from the consequences the rest of the world has been paying for its mismanagement of development and the environment but that’s about to change with paradise discovered.

What, you may ask, has this to do with Birds? The Birds environment and the environment we live in, are the same environment. Efforts for either are parallel. Standing on a soapbox and shaking your finger to the sky in this age will get you ignored but entertain and you message will be remembered Pointing out the beauty and creating awareness of its care and maintenance to the masses who read the newspaper may be just one birddogs effort, but with every person I successfully effect to smile, the situation improves incrementally,

And suddenly we don’t seem so tiny anymore.

Customer parking only

Customer parking only

Customer parking only is a sign my neighbors put up on the property next to me. I laughed at my ridiculous neighbors and this preposterous sign in the coconut grove of my island paradise because of the remoteness of our homes with no roads, no shops and no cars but laughed only until they cut down the trees, replaced the beach with cement, dredged a channel and cut the mangroves to bulldoze a road through. It was no longer funny when my favorite birds became scarce and parking in the proper areas became a real issue.

The world is changing. Not news! Your right. From our vantage point on Ambergris Caye we islanders have watched the outside world change for a long time, but now our world on Ambergris is changing and you know what is said about change, you can change with it, or die!

Ernest Hemingway wrote,” I know a good country when I see one, plenty of birds! A land ages quickly once we inhabit. The natives live in harmony with it, but the developer destroys. The land gets tired of being exploited and wears out quickly. The land was made to be as we found it.”

We can restore Ambergris by planting and landscaping for sustainability of its natural habitat.

Part of our islands attraction is the natural environment we get to enjoy by living here and the islands inevitable development has, and is progressing to crowd out our natural environment but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

The islands development and living in a natural environment with its avifauna are not mutually exclusive. We can change the developing landscape of the island to accommodate avifauna and in doing so create an environment also pleasing to ourselves.

Successful landscaping begins with dirt, the first ingredient in our islands aviary, before and after the bulldozers. Saving the first few inches of sandy loam top in a corner of your lot will be a treasure of fertile starter soil for your new plants after development.

You’ve heard the expression,’ Old as Dirt’, Paleopathologist kinda guys say, the age of Yucatan Peninsula is estimated to be 18,000 years. Northern Ambergris Caye was once undoubtedly a part of the Yucatan. However the island from Santa Cruz Lagoon southward (aprox.75% of the island) is like a sand bar. It had its beginning approximately 2,000 years ago. This is young for an island and too young for fertile terra negro. South Ambergris’s birth was not a sudden upheaval of volcanic action, tectonic plate shifts or even the results of the end of an ice age but a slow growth of reef sediment collecting beneath the roots of mangrove thriving behind the reef over the last 2000 years. The flora that now is a retireing littoral forest on Ambergris is growing in a thin layer of organic material deposited atop this sandy collection during this short period. There is no dirt below, only calcium carbonate (a residue from the reef) and a salty acidic slime from the mangrove that will not give nutrient support to the existing flora. Fresh water is the second ingredient in the Aviary. This littoral forest surviving on an organic layer of fertile matter is watered by an extremely shallow layer of fresh water literally floating above salt water. The littoral forest is the food source that allows many of ambergris’s unusually wide variety of avifauna to exist, such as the rare Black Catbird, the Mayan Orioles, Chachalaka, Yucatan Jay, and all the birds that do not depend on the sea for food.

Valuable fresh water falls from the sky for free and is held in place to be used by flora and fauna on barrier islands by a layer of clay like substance at the level of the sea underground. This delicate clay divider of salt from fresh is created by the up and down churning action of tidal pressures underground very much like the action of making butter from milk. With the fresh water sitting atop the salt below, shallow depressions in the ground become fresh water ponds easily and provide drinking water for the birds as well as cheap irrigation sources for the fauna. The third ingredient would be food producing plants. Replanting the correct plants after the developers clearing can create positive sources of food for birds. Knowing what plants provide necessities is easy. The Tropical Almond Tree terminalia catappa seems to be the fastest growing tree I’ve ever experienced and its peach like fruit attracts flocks of Parakeets to my yard. The Zericote tree‘s orange blossoms and fruit attract hummingbirds and Oriole. This tree is also easy to start, its one of those plants like the gumbo-limbo that you can just stick its log wood in the ground, water and it sprouts. The hibiscus flowers are a source of more than one food and the insects they attract are more valuable to birds than nectar. The cocoa-plum tree, chrysobalanus-icaco does very well in this loamy soil and produces a pinkish-white marshmallow like fruit that attracts Chachalaka and Trogan.

Bubba and I visited The Belize Botanic Gardens and found it to be a rich source of positive examples of how thoughtful planting attracts rare avifauna. http://www.belizebotanic.org/ has information as to which plants survive where and what food is provided for whom. The Belize Botanic Gardens group cultivates, promotes, researches and enables the research of tropical flora and its conservation with an emphasis on Belizean native species and their habitats.

We learned all the variety of life on earth is called biodiversity and the health of plant biodiversity is directly related to our birds well being. Bubba feels there is no difference between our birds well being and Human well being.