"Early morning bird watching" Top 5 Page for this destination San Ignacio Things to Do Tip by toonsarah

This was easily the best of the free activities we participated in here. We gave it a miss on our first morning as the weather was too wet, but the next day, despite heavy overnight rain, was better, so we were up at 6.30 to meet up with a group of other guests in the bar for a cup of coffee while waiting for our naturalist guide. There were quite a few of us in fact – it seemed that others had, like us, been waiting for the first dry morning. The guide arrived festooned with binoculars to share out among us, and with a very good telescope too.

Our walk simply took us on a loop around the grounds – you don’t have to go far here to see plenty of birdlife. The guide was very good at spotting things, but we were also helped by having a keen bird-watching couple in the group who also pointed birds out to us and were able to identify them if we were out of earshot of the guide. In the 90 minutes or so that we were out we saw:
~ yellow-winged tanager
~ black-cowled oriole
~ slatey-tailed trogon
~ melodious blackbird
~ crimson collared tanager
~ keel billed toucan, the national bird of Belize (photo 3)
~ collared aracari toucan (main photo and photo 2)
~ social flycatcher
~ golden-fronted woodpecker
~ tropical kingbird
~ violatious trogon (photo 4)
~ lineated woodpecker
~ banded-back wren
~ white-collared seedeater
~ black-headed trogon
~ plain chacalaca
We also saw an agouti trotting across the grass (see photo 5). The telescope allowed us to get great views of all the birds, though photographing them wasn’t always so easy, with the exception of the collared aracari toucans who seemed far more interested in eating than in worrying about us.

Of course there are no guarantees with wildlife spotting activities – you can’t depend on the birds turning up to order. It seems we were pretty lucky to see as many as we did given that the weather wasn’t great, but I think you’d have to be very unlucky not to see a fair number as the grounds here have been specially planted to attract a good variety. It’s an easy walk and right on your doorstep so it would be a real shame not to get out of bed a bit early on one morning at least during your stay!

Website: http://www.chaacreek.com/tours-activities/onsite/bird-watching/