Nov 27

Orange Walk, Belize - November 27, 2017

We started early again on our own birding expedition around the property. We headed to the edge of the village and then walked over to the old landing stip and ended at our room.

We saw lots of birds, many of the same that we have seen before, but I think we added one new one. We did see lots of different butterflies, moths, some hummingbirds, parakeets, and the highlight was seeing 3 Keel Billed Toucans in one of the tallest trees, then they flew overhead to another massive tree. Bill was able to get some cool photos of them flying overhead. The toucan torpedo is a great pic!

Chris confirmed these other birds that we saw on our morning walk:
Hepatic Tanager
Orchard Oriole
Rose Throated Becard

Paula and Janet filled us up again with fresh fruit, omelette, bacon and potatoes. This is the first meal that I have not over overdosed on the butter, only because they did not serve it to us!

After breakfast we did the Medicine Walk and Village Life tour with Chris. They were kind enough to provide this tour to us at no extra charge. We learned that from 250-900 AD, the classic period, doctors that knew how to use these medicinal plants (prior to that it was a real crapshoot):
Jasmine bush with small green leaves for numbing your mouth in order to reduce pain while removing teeth. I did remind Bill that just because Chris hands it to you doesn’t mean that you should put it in your mouth.
Shate looks like bamboo. The US used this plant to colour their money.
Provision tree is good for regaining energy.
Wild Papaya with fruit is a female. If it has a lot of leaves and flowers it is a male plant.
Banana Silk Spider
Red Ginger; you can drink it
Oregano with really large leaves
Bananas were native to East India and were brought by the British
White Blossom Ginger
Moses in the Cradle is a plant used to heal cuts. Moses is the little white flower
Halaconia looked like a Bird of Paradise to me.
Pride of Barbados or Birds of Paradise; you can see the wings, head and tail feathers
Lesser Yellowheaded Vulture that will attack live prey.
Gecko
White Collared Manakin was posing for us and is rare to see here
Chris was kind enough to make me a palm fan to keep me cool
Lemon Grass Bush for making tea when you are not feeling well
Yellow Throated Warbler

In the village saw a Ruddy Ground Dove and its nest, Chris’ house, the school, library, park, football field, grocery store where we bought plantain chips, houses, Sugar the cute puppy, and our final destination for our cooking class, Las Orquides Restaurant. In the village they have given up on the Mayan religion and there are now 6 different denominations of Christianity here.

Las Orquides was run by 2 women at a time and they rotate on a weekly basis and they individually get to keep the profits.

During our cooking class we learned that Anattoo gives red colour and was used for colouring the temples. It is added to ground corn for empenada or salbutes which was a small fried tortilla with shredded meat and tomatoes on top.

All Spice along with dried Oregano leaves and were added to our Escabeche along with onions and chicken. It is a soup that is only made for special events.

White lime was ground limestone and added to hard corn and boiled to soften the corn for grinding. The white lime also keeps your teeth healthy and white.

Marta demonstrated how to grind the corn into a paste for the tortillas the traditional way. Paul and Jill showed up with Wild George and a new couple John and Vanessa. They heckled us as we ground our corn and then shaped our tortillas. They did not realize how difficult and labour intesive it was until they had their turn!

Marta toasted our tortilla over the wood burning oven, then we were able to sample our masterpieces with some tomato and habanero sauce. It was really good, definitely worth the effort, but I think I will only have one!

Gladys helped us make tamales. Tamales are made with tortillas, tomato sauce and meat inside steamed banana leaves. Each of us made one and was served to us as an appetizer for dinner.

We enjoyed more tortillas that they ladies made for us, empenadas (Bill loved these) and our Escabeche along with a couple of Belekins. It was all really good!

On the way back to the resort we saw a bunch of new birds:
Black Headed Saltator
Golden Fronted woodpecker
Black Cowled Orioles
Summer Tananger female
Red Legged Honeycreeper juvenile
Magnolia Warbler
American Redstarred Warbler
Bright Rumped Attila
Yellow Winged Tanager

On my walk near our room in the afternoon I saw 2 Russet Naperville Woodrails walking around in a clearing. As soon as they heard me, they ducked into the shrubs.

Bill and I took an afternoon Nature Walk tour with Chris We saw:
2 Black Vultures way up in the tree at the entrance to the museum
White Tipped Dove walking in the ground
Owls Eye Butterfly
Northern or Thrushlike Schiffornis
Red Throated Antanager
Golden Fronted Woodpecker
Tawny Winged Woodcreeper
Yellow Winged Tanager
Vampire Bat
Howler Monkeys
Lesser Chachalaca
Mosquitos everywhere!

We walked around the British Sugar Mill that has been abandoned since 1866. It is really cool and lots of the equipment is just lying around and rusting. The brick building is very cool looking and has a tree growing on top of it.

We also saw the ruins of the two churches that the Spanish had built. The only think left is the structure because the Mayan had burned the churches down when the Spanish departed.

Abdul and Chris led us along with Vanessa on the Night Walk around the property. We eat had a headlamp and instantly could see a ton of little green glowing eyeballs. Tina would have been freaking out because each one was a tiny Wolfspider.

We were able to see a lot of other creatures during our walk:
Marine or Cane Toad
Centipede
Geckos that made clicking sounds in Brazil and don’t say “gecko”
Possum was climbing up in the tree
Sleeping dragonfly attached to a leaf
Kinkajou was really cool. It belongs to the same family as raccoons. Their tail can be used like another limb and they are herbivores that eat fruit.
Turnip Tailed Gecko was on the side of the generator building. It is very rare to see one. Abdul and Chris was very excited and took photos of it too.
Bats zipping around us the entire time and Howlers creating a ruckus in the distance. Those guys seem to make noise almost all day long. So much so, that it just become white noise.
Bill won’t eat coconut or raisins, but to humour Chris, he ate live termites off the ground.
Mexican Mouse that I spotted tucked away in the shrubs
Tarantula that Bill spotted on a vine leaf
Cricket and spider eating a grasshopper, what a macabre site!
Caterpillar
Fire Flies blinking on and off.
Yucatan Banded Gecko. This one is very colourful and rare too.
Rainforest Toad
Common Paraque flew up in front of us
Barn Owl in the distant trees flying just far enough ahead of us that we did not get a good look

We had another great dinner and had to say good-bye to Paula. She was taking three days off and was going to a zoo in Mexico with her son and daughter.