Black Rock

In my first post about our Belize trip last month, I wrote that we went to Belize to see Mayan ruins and toucans. That was true, but that alone is not the whole truth. Sure, we did want to see both those things, and we did. Very comprehensively on the Mayan ruins side of things and well enough on the toucan side of things. But that wasn't all. We went to see the landscape and the barrier reef and eat local food and meet people we'd never met and snorkel and swim and learn about everything we could in the limited corridor of the country we decided to explore in 2025.

We also had no intention of stopping our bird quest at toucans. We wanted to see much, much more. And Belize is an amazing place to do so.

To further that goal, we decided to take a bird watching tour on one of our three full days in the jungle in western Belize. We picked a place called Black Rock Lodge which is about eight miles and about 30 minutes into the Belizean rainforest right along the Macal (which used to be macaw) River. It was a pretty incredible choice. Our guide, Richard Harris (but not the actor, obviously), goes to Black Rock on his on his days off to go birdwatching. On his days off!!!

To be clear here, we are not first time bird watchers. Over the past few years, we've spend many, many weekends roaming around our home state of Virginia looking for birds. We've also spent significant time in the United States and overseas seeking out local species of birds, most notably in Kenya, Tanzania, New Zealand, Singapore, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Uganda, New York, Oklahoma and Seattle. And I'm sure with that list I've missed many, many spots.

From here on out, this post is mostly a photo dump but I think some of the pictures we gathered on this day are just gorgeous. There's a little bit of an explanation here and there but mostly, this is a pretty pictures post. Enjoy!

Tanagers

We found two species of tanager at Black Rock: the yellow-winged tanager (it's really just a flash of yellow on the wing) and the summer tanager. The male summer tanagers are very, very red. The last picture below is the female summer tanager.  

Manakins

There are two species of manakin in Belize (the white-collared manakin and the red-capped manakin). We found them both at Black Rock Lodge. Manakins are just exquisite little birds. The red-capped manakin is a bit out of focus but that shot was taken through a window between a series of leaves and branches that required some body contortions (by me) to get properly. A second or so after taking this photo, it was gone.

Aracari 

A bit more than two years ago we visited Costa Rica and were dying to find some toucans. We did, but barely. One of the bird highlights of that trip was finding a couple of flocks of collared aracari, technically toucans but not FULL toucans. I was thrilled with those sightings in late 2022. We found a ton more at Black Rock and in a familiarity-breeds-contempt type moment, collared aracari became a species I was ready to move on from and find something new. Been there, done that?

I do still love the colors on the collard aracari. It's like someone spray-painted some red spots and bands on a bird which is really just yellow on its front and blue-black on its back. Of course, that's not what happened. I love how well you can see the red tail feathers that are also present on the keel-billed toucan (one of the collareds' cousins) in the second photograph.

Seedeaters 

Certainly not the most colorful birds we saw in our few hours at Black Rock but definitely worth including for one reason and one reason alone: I don't think I've ever seen a seedeater in person before. The top one is a Morelet's seedeater. The bottom two are male (black) and female (brown) variable seedeaters.

Gartered Trogon

We saw two (or was it three?) species of trogon either at or on the way home from Black Rock but the only good pictures we got were of this singular gartered trogon. You may marvel at the colors on this black, white and yellow bird but it's probably one of the least colorful trogons out there. 

Great Kiskadee

Speaking of black, white and yellow birds, we saw great kiskadees in a number of spots in western Belize. 

Maybe. 

The first afternoon we were in country after arrival at our hotel, we found some yellow and black birds at play on our hotel property. Our Merlin app variously identified the birds we saw and heard (with the pictures we sent to Merlin and the sounds picked up by the app) as great kisakees, social flycatchers or tropical kingbirds. Which ones were those on our hotel grounds? Probably social flycatchers according to our guide, Richard. Kiskadees, he explained, are bigger (without having seen any of the birds we saw two days before we met him).

The one below, though, he felt pretty sure was a kiskadee. I'm still confused.

Chestnut-Sided Warbler

OK, so this is probably the least spectacular picture in this post but it's here because every time I get a halfway decent picture of a warbler, I feel some measure of success. We can find warblers near our home in Virginia but it's only for a brief window in the spring and fall and these birds do not sit still. I must have taken 15 or 20 pictures of this chestnut-sided warbler before it flew off. This one is the best I got. I know, it's not great.

Hummingbirds

OK, so this is hummingbirds with for sure a lower case "h" because neither of the birds below actually have "hummingbird" in their names.

When we got back to Black Rock Lodge after our hours-long walk around their property, we found pretty much every spare tree covered with slices of fruit and every hummingbird (lower case, again) feeder filled to the brim with some sort of sugar water (I'm imagining). These hummingbirds don't play. They are territorial and they chase rivals away. Cool to see. Been a long time (Ecuador, 2016, I'm thinking) since I've seen this many hummingbirds in one spot.

The bird in the top picture is a white-necked jacobin. The bird in the bottom picture is a wedge-tailed sabrewing.

Cattle Egrets

How did I not know about cattle egrets before I visited Belize? We have cattle and egrets in Virginia, just maybe no cattle egrets maybe? Yes, that sentence deserved two maybes.

So cattle egrets are just what they sound like: egrets that hang out with cattle. I guess they pick the bugs of the cows. And sure enough, pretty much every time we saw a field of cattle when we were being driven around Belize, we saw a corresponding number of cattle egrets hanging out with the cows. We saw a large flock of cattle egrets flying down the Macal River when we got back to San Ignacio. No solitary birds at all, unlike other species of egret we have seen nearer to home.

Yellow-Throated Euphonia

OK, so we are almost done here and we are getting into the mind-blowingly gorgeously colorful species. I had no idea what a euphonia was before we got to Black Rock Lodge. In fact, I had no idea what a euphonia was when we got back to Black Rock Lodge after our birding walk. Now I do. These little sparrow-sized birds are spectacularly maize and blue colored. Well, except the females (the bottom pic).

Honeycreepers

Before we departed for Belize, I did a little homework. Or, depending on your perspective, I cheated. I wanted to get some idea of what birds we might see in country so I peeked at a list of Belize birds, including checking out the ebird list for Black Rock Lodge. One bird caught my eye: the red-legged honeycreeper. These brightly-colored blue (or is it more indigo?) birds with the contrasting red legs were a bird we just had to see. HAD to. So when Richard asked us what birds we were hoping to see, we answered "toucans". And then we answered "red-legged honeycreepers". We really wanted to say "male red-legged honeycreepers with mating plumage" but didn't want to appear greedy, I guess.

I did not expect that we would see these birds. Yes, I know I just said they were on the ebird list for Black Rock Lodge but there are plenty of birds on ebird lists in Virginia that we never see despite multiple trips to the same locations in different seasons. My hopes were low here.

I should be more optimistic. Not only did we get some great looks at the males which we knew were the bright blue with the red legs but we also saw females (second picture below) and a molting male. This could not have worked out more perfectly.

And...we saw some green honeycreepers too. Bonus!!!! That's the first photo, in case that wasn't reasonably inferable. 

That's it! That's all I got but I think what I got is a whole lot. This has to be (and I know I'm doing this in a completely understated way) pretty much the best day of birdwatching ever. No hyperbole there. I'm serious. Can't wait for the next day this good. No idea when that can even possibly be but I'm up for it when it happens. Until then, I'm satisfying myself with Virginia birds, not that there's anything wrong with that. They are just going to be a bit less colorful.