Postcard from Belize

Time spent in Central America in the winter is time spent with American warblers. Black-and-white warbler sightings are a daily occurrence in Belize.

The colourful keel-billed toucan is always a big favourite with clients and passing tourists.

Searching out the boat-billed heron is one of the less onerous tasks on tour. This beauty appeared right next to the trailside pond at Cockscomb.

Days spent snorkelling produced a fair crop of birds too. Brown pelicans were commonplace and we also visited breeding islands used by magnificient frigatebirds and searched tiny cays for migrants.

Our trip ended at Crooked Tree where we had a surprise white-necked puffbird.

Postcard from Tikal

One of the highlights of Tikal was the pilgimage to Temple IV to visit one of the more reliable orange-breasted falcon sites in the world. It did not disappoint. Thanks go to John Cahill for securing access to the back of the temple for these views.

 We worked hard for ocellated turkey in the Yucatan in 1999, at Tikal in 2012 things got ugly on every lawn...

 Collared aracari.

The outstanding highlight of the Tikal leg of the tour was the ease with which we could get good views of pheasant cuckoo. We were put onto this bird initially by John Cahill and it was superbly entertaining over the next three days.

Keel-billed toucan.