"Birding in Belize" a Belize Travel Page by no1birdlady

Seven of us from our local Audubon Society group in Augusta, Ga. went to Belize to look at birds, wildlife and Mayan ruins. We went with Wildside Birding which is a small tour group run by Kevin Loughlin and Glenn Crawford. Because we were there to see the wildlife, we stayed in rather remote areas where the birds would be right outside our door. It was a 2 week trip and we saw a little over 300 species of birds. And they are such incredible birds too. It is amazing to me how much of Belize has been set aside for conservation.

While in Belize, we visited several Mayan Ruins. It was quite interesting because the first one we visited was at La Milpa in the conservation area. This ruin has not really been cleared so we could see the way a Mayan ruin looks in the jungle in its natural state. This actually is the 3rd largest Mayan city in Belize. The next ruin was Lamanai which has been cleared and restored in part. We took a river cruise to get to it which proved to be very good for birds. Once there, we had a guide for the ruins to tell us about it. Then we went to Caracol ruins which is Belize's largest ruin. We went up to the top of the temples here and sat to look for hawks soaring about. Birding was very good at all of the ruin sites, even Caracol with all of the other visitors hiking the trails with us.
At Lamani we had an interesting incident with Black Howler Monkeys who wanted to get a better look at us so they dangled right in our faces as we took photos of them.

Our group is interested in a lot of things other than birds. We look at plants, historical sites, insects, mammals, and the culture of the country we are visiting. There is a lot of all of that in Belize. One day walking down a road we found a rather large scorpion. Our guide held it so we could take photos. In his hand you can see how large it is. Another time we were birding in a pasture where there was a newly born calf who was so cute. We also climbed to the top of Mayan temples to see the sun set and were silly in the van when we all were tired!