Forest Headlights

This is how we know it is late dry season: click beetles with headlights! We were recently doing bat surveys near Laguna Seca in Gallon Jug Estate, and the night was lit with these interesting large beetles. It is amazing how much light is put out by them!

In the family Elateridae, click beetles have the ability to make a snapping sound thought to help them avoid predation. If the beetle finds itself upside down, the ability to click pops it up and over, right side up.

Laguna Seca morning

How many Belize Field Notes readers (that are former Lodge visitors) have visited Laguna Seca? It's a wetlands system that extends northward across the Gallon Jug Estate property. If you are visiting Chan Chich Lodge, be sure to take the excursion from the Lodge for a leisurely Laguna Seca walk. There is a nice path wending its way through fairly extensive Maya ruins. Both spider and howler monkeys can almost always be seen there. For birders, specialties include the Agami heron, Northern Jacana, Least Bittern, and Black-collared Hawk. Of course the surrounding forest is filled with the "usual" cast of tropical birds.

There's more. Not long ago I posted about a "procession of peccaries." That video was taken at Laguna Seca. Last night when we returned to do a survey, there were the peccaries again, in the same spot. I could see they were attracted by the low water levels and nice cool mud wallows. Next project: get a photo of them wallowing...

Waiting in line

Thought you might enjoy seeing the drink queue at our pond. Of course, not everyone is interested in the water!

Apologies for delayed posting ... It seems Google Blogger had some problems 11-12 May and deleted quite a few posts and comments. This blog was affected. They claim they will restore everything and I've filled out the appropriate maintenance request forms but here it is a week later, and my posts are still among the missing. I'll try to get things back on track for next week. Have a great weekend!

Veranda Bird Viewing

Is this a cool bird or what? Thanks to Jim Wright for sharing his Masked Tityra (Tityra semifasciata) image. This bird was, Jim says, "viewable from the veranda" at Chan Chich Lodge. Apparently it was a long sought bird, and then suddenly, there it was. This snowy white bird is a male while the females are more gray/buffy on the back and head.

If you don't readily see it, you certainly can hear it, even if you think you are not good at recognizing calls. This one is very distinctive although you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a frog or an insect... Take a listen here.

A Procession of Peccaries

Gorgeous morning today in Gallon Jug, sunny, breezy, about 80F. We like to walk on Sundays, so we headed out to Laguna Seca, a vast wetlands system extending northwards across the Gallon Jug Estate property. The great thing about Gallon Jug is the sense that, even after our 25 years in Belize, anything can happen, that the jaguar is just around the next corner.

In this case, it wasn't a jaguar but rather, a procession of peccaries. White-lips, or warrie, to be exact (Pecari tajacu) . This is the "big" peccary and a species that requires large forested areas to forage for their preferred food items. I was able to get out of the car and approach them slowly on foot in order to get this video. You can see that they were fairly unconcerned. I didn't push it by going too close or attempting to make them scatter. They tolerated our presence for a long time before easing off into the bush when we finally slowly moved the car forward.

By our estimates, there were about 6o of them that crossed the road, a good sized herd. And I'll repeat my mantra: because of good protection here on the Gallon Jug Estate, this large herd of a heavily hunted species, appears to be thriving. Believe me when I say they are wiped out in many areas of Belize, Central and South America.

Traveling Monkey

This must be the week for monkeys. My good friend Norma, who pretty much runs Gallon Jug (don't tell Zander), snapped this photo the other night of a young howler monkey (Alouatta pigra) near her office, hanging out in a flamboyant tree. Right in the heart of Gallon Jug not far from the airstrip. Those of you that are familiar with the tiny Gallon Jug community and airstrip will recall that this area is very much in the open, about 500 m from the forest edge.

Not so very far really, for a howler monkey to come, and nice of this guy to prove my point. Unlike the spider monkey discussed in the previous post, howler monkeys are perfectly capable of traveling through open areas as this little guy convincingly proves. Of course we don't know what happened, or how he came to visit the heart of Gallon Jug, but a guess anyway, is that he's reached the age where he needs to strike out on his own and perhaps establish or join a new troop. The howlers just inside the forest margin had been vocal all day, perhaps encouraging him to leave. He could have crossed the Ring Road, traveled through the mango orchard and dashed through the citrus orchard coming to rest for the night in that friendly flamboyant.

He spent the night, was there the following morning before striking out again, on his own.

Monkeys at Breakfast

I don't suppose it is too often that you can dine with monkeys ... but that was apparently almost the case when good friend Jim Wright snapped this photo from the Chan Chich Lodge veranda over breakfast recently. He and Patty were here with birding friends that we've come to enjoy seeing on an annual basis.

Spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) thrive in closed-canopy tropical forests which provide arboreal pathways for their foraging activities. Unlike the howler monkeys that are known to come to the ground, cross roads, swim rivers and otherwise move about in a "disturbed" landscape, the spiders require contiguous tropical forest for their wide-ranging lifestyles. With just a little thought, you realize that this is exactly the sort of habitat under pressure elsewhere as forests are cleared for agriculture or other human activities. Not so in Gallon Jug.

By the way, if the name "Jim Wright" sounds familiar, it is because he is the author of "Jungle of the Maya" which I posted about in January 2010. It's a great book, I'd encourage everyone with an interest in tropical forests here, to check it out. Chan Chich Lodge, Gallon Jug Estate, and the Selva Maya -- Maya Forest -- are the focus.