A fine Guatemalan send-off…

Things went as spectacularly as I could have hoped this morning, and we had beautiful weather for exploring the forest outside of the Tikal archeological site. We even waited until after breakfast before heading out, and that felt luxurious.

We had been hearing parrots, noisily “vocalizing”, as I’ve been taught to say, in the treetops since we arrived, and we have caught glimpses of some, but they usually stay mostly out of sight. This morning, however, a group of red-lored Amazons (Amazona autumnalis) must have been especially bold or hungry, because I finally have a picture to show you. In case you didn’t know, as I sure has heck did not, “Amazons” are a genus of parrots, and “lore” is the space between the eye and nostril.

After dinner last evening, we must have felt that we had not yet fed enough mosquitoes because we headed back into the site to check out one more monument. On the way, we spotted a couple of new birds, but it was way too dark for pictures. Happily, this little cutie, a white-whiskered puffbird (Malacoptila panamensis), gave me another chance today, and yes, that is its real name.

At the same time as I was trying to redeem myself with a decent puffbird picture, another little darling, this bright-rumped attila (Attila spadiceus), was busily hopping around on the ground gobbling up bugs and daring me to get a picture of it, too.

Then things settle down for a bit, and we continued down an unmarked dirt road into the forest and past signs warning us to turn back because of the danger of getting lost or meeting crocodiles. Neither Anne nor Deb were deterred, and the road eventually led to a small pond, not even half the size of the pond in Estabrook, and things quickly got exciting again. We could hear a large bird or birds squawking on the other side of some trees on a little peninsula, and then they started flying across the water to the other side.

Once I saw one in flight, I was immediately reminded of black-crowned night herons that I’ve seen fly across Juneau Lagoon, so I began frantically searching for them over the far shore. The first few hid pretty well, but this one finally relented, and if you glance at the picture below, you can imagine my surprise. What on earth is that? Thankfully the merlin app had an answer: that is a boat-billed heron (Cochlearius cochlearius). Wow, just wow! Right?

But that’s not all. On the same tiny pond, with more crocodile warnings, this little bird was busily diving for its breakfast. If those fuzzy feathers look familiar, that’s because this is yet another grebe, in fact, a least grebe (achybaptus dominicus), which is different from the little grebe we just saw in Jordan.

Then it was time to start heading back to the hotel so we could check out and head back to Flores, but on the way, we found one more trogon, this beautiful black-headed trogon (Trogon melanocephalus).

Finally, as we headed out for lunch after checking into our hotel in Flores, Deb spotted this stunning butterfly, a split-banded owl-butterfly (Opsiphanes cassina), near the ceiling of a passage way.

Tomorrow, we all get up early, and Deb will fly down to Guatemala City to join up with her volunteer veterinarian organization to work for a week in Antigua. Meanwhile, Anne and I will travel back to Belize for the next leg of our adventure.