Three Months of Bird Watching in Belize

With huge tracts of protected forest and jungle and more than 400 species of birds that either live in or pass through these areas it’s almost impossible not to turn into a bird watcher while you’re traveling in Belize.

Karen bird watching at La Milpa Field Station where we saw 50 different species of birds we’d never seen before in just two days.

During our nearly three months in Belize we saw hundreds of species we’d never seen before in stunning natural places like Chan Chich Lodge and La Milpa Field Station in the vast Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area. That’s where we met guide and naturalist Vladimir and dubbed him the bird ninja. Then there’s Lamanai Outpost Lodge and the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary. Some birds simply appeared by the side of the road.

We saw the flashy colors of trogans and aracaris and the shimmery, orange-dotted get-up of the ocellated turkey. We learned to recognize the frog-like call of the toucan, marveled at the near-perfect camouflage of the great potoo (which still looks just like a tree limb even after you know it’s there) and tried and tried and tried to see a harpy eagle in the wild.

 A few of our favorite birds of Belize

A rare orange-breasted falcon.	A ferruginous pygmy owl.
A pair of collared aracaris.	A toucan.
A lineated woodpecker.	A great egret.

An ocellated turkey.

A pygmy kingfisher.	A black-headed trogan.
A laughing falcon.	A black-collared hawk.
A violaceous trogan.	A slaty-tailed trogon.

A red-footed booby and fledgling.

A white-necked jacobin.	A tiger heron.
Look close. There are two great potoos (an adult and a juvenile) sitting on that branch.	Yucatan nightjars nest on the ground.
A roadside hawk.	An osprey.

Magnificent frigatebirds.

An orange oriole.	A boat-billed heron.
A northern jacana.	A great blue heron.
We’d hoped to see an endangered harpy eagle in the wild while in Belize but we had to settle for this one in the Belize Zoo.	A crested guan.

Wood storks (with the black heads), herons, egrets, cormorants, and other water birds.

A chestnut-headed oropendola.

Rare king vultures.

An ornate hawk-eagle.

Here’s more about travel in Belize