Birds at the Lodge
Whether you’re an experienced birdwatcher or a curious beginner, our tours are designed to suit your needs and preferences. Our expert guides will take you to the best birdwatching spots and provide you with valuable information about their habitats, behaviors, and features.
Join us on an unforgettable birdwatching adventure at Birds at the Lodge!
Orchard, Meadow & Forest Edge
Tanager Rainforest Lodge stands on thirty acres of land bounded by the Rio Grande that meanders around the property. Until the year 2001 it was a small farm employing traditional farming techniques including slash and burn, milpa farming. The two large meadows were used as cattle pastures and there was a four acre citrus orchard. Hurricane Iris breezed through the property in October 2001 bringing down many trees. Since that time the property has been recovering from both the hurricane and its previous use and contains areas of secondary growth forest, dense scrub known locally as “wameel”, open meadow and gallery forest lining the river banks.
More than two hundred and fifty species have been observed on our property. One rarity to be found here is the Black and White Owl which has nested in the large trees overlooking the riverbank. On at least one occasion it occupied the nest of a Gray Hawk that it bullied off its nest over a couple of days skirmishing. The Bare-crowned Antbird is another resident species and can often be heard skulking in the bush on the edge of the meadow below the lodge.
One Belize birding expert saw and heard more than one hundred species before breakfast one morning and another visiting North American birding group leader made twelve species of raptor early one morning.
Coast & Cayes
Most of the southern half of Toledo has a wide, approximately fifteen mile, band of lowland broadleaf forest that extends from the water’s edge up to the foothills of the Maya mountains to the west. The littoral edge with large black mangroves is home to Mangrove Warblers, Osprey, Magnificent Frigatebirds and Brown Pelicans. The Port Honduras Marine Reserve includes many hundreds of uninhabited mangrove cayes.
The sea is warm and shallow for thirty miles out to the Sapodilla Cayes that lie at the southern tip of the Belize Barrier Reef. Lime Caye is a great place to see birds resting and refuelling during their migration. During the months of September, October and November many migrating species will land to rest and feed before their onward journey. This means that most species observed at this time will be outside their normal summer or winter habitat. Their state of exhaustion makes them often oblivious to humans and they will walk around at the feet of visitors when they would normally be far more secretive. More than eighty “exotic” species have been observed in a couple of days during the migration including Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Ovenbird, Gray Catbird, Painted Bunting and many warblers. Local residents include the Reddish Egret and White-crowned Pigeon.
Birding along the coast near Punta Gorda town one can see the Green Heron, Little Blue and Great Blue Herons, Yellow-crowned Night Heron. The Brown Pelican fishes in the mornings in synchronized pairs. Yellow-crowned Night Herons roost in the mangroves close to Garbutt’s fishing Lodge. As the fishermen clean their catch on the water’s edge below the fish market on Front Street Brown Pelicans, Frigatebirds, Black Vultures and Great Egrets hang around to prounce on scraps tossed into the water.
Wetlands & Lagoons
Toledo has a karst landscape formed from soluble limestone rocks where rivers disappear into sinkholes and reappear from mountainsides and the rocky hills rise out of a flat plain that, combined with annual rainfall of more than three metres, is ideal for growing rice. These swampy plains attract Woodstork, Jabiru and Bitterns, Sora and Purple Gallinule, Peregrine and Laughing Falcons and a wide range of other species.
The area in central Toledo close to Big Falls is known as Dump, being named after the dumped causeway that formed the original road running across the swampy plain. Early morning and evening birding there offers rewarding birding experiences.
Close by the Piedra Lagoon is a deep “cenote” (a lagoon formed after the collapse of the roof of an underground cavern). Herons and egrets roost in the trees surrounding its edge and the Pied-billed Grebe, Least Grebe and Sungrebe are regular visitors.
Aguacaliente Wildlife Sanctuary was more easily accessible in the past when a wooden boardwalk ran a mile and a half into the sanctuary towards the tree main lagoons. It is still accessible during the drier months from January to May. It is a four mile trek in and out again. More than 250 species have been observed there; Jabiru, Woodstork, Blue-winged Teal and Black-bellied Whistling duck are common sights.
Broadleaf Forest
Toledo District south of the Deep River Forest Reserve has large areas of extant secondary growth broadleaf forest. Our birding tours take us to several locations with rich birding. Two of these are local Mayan archaeological sites. Nim Li Punit sits on the hill to the west of Indian C reek village with views east across the coastal forest to the Port Honduras Marine Reserve. Lubaantun Mayan site offers another area of mature growth so both these sites can be explored and enjoyed while birding.
Other natural attractions that offer good birding are Rio Blanco National Park and Blue Creek. Rio Blanco National Park is a favourite stop for lunch above the waterfall where guests enjoy leaping into the deep pool beneath the falls. A two kilometre forest loop trail offers great birding and the opportunity to visit the lek of White-collared Manikins.
Blue Creek is known for its cave where the river emerges from the mountainside and visitors enjoy swimming upstream into the cave. It is in fact the same Rio Blanco that disappears underground into a sinkhole a couple of miles north. It emerges from the mountain with a new name and different colour, Blue Creek. The mature forest on either side of the creek is home to many species.; notably the Rufous-tailed Jacamar, White-whiskered Puffbird, Blue-crowned Motmot and Slaty-tailed Trogon.
Savannah Pine Ridge
Almost the entire north eastern quarter of Toledo is taken up by savannah grasslands know locally as savannah pine ridge. This broad band of lowland coastal grasslands continues most of the way north along the coast of Belize. We bird among the stands of pines and scrub oaks and islands of saw palmetto and find a different range of species for many families. We find the Acorn and Ladderback Woodpecker, Canivets Emerald and the Azure-crowned Hummingbird, Yellow-headed Parrot as well as the Rusty Sparrow, Grassshopper Sparrow and Savannah Sparrow, the Eastern Meadowlark and Black-throated Bobwhite.
We arrive by daybreak and bird facing west with the rising sun over our shoulders illuminating the electric blue of the Indigo Bunting foraging among the grasses. On our way back south we can stop to bird at Nim Li Punit Mayan site that offers mature broadleaf forest and the associated species.
