I don’t know if it was the weather, which was no worse than yesterday, or me, but the critters in Estabrook pitched a no-hitter today. Oh sure, I glimpsed some deer, a great blue heron, etc., just as a runner might get to base with a walk or an error, but I didn’t get a single picture. Darn.

The good news, however, is that I still have a few pictures left from our recent trip. Phew! So, here are a few from Belize that I haven’t had room to show you yet.

As we were leaving the Caracol archeological site, and soon after Anne spotted her first gray fox, our driver pulled over quickly and said, “there’s a Laughing falcon (Herpetotheres cachinnans).” Well, I looked right away, and I thought he was kidding because all I saw was a power pole with one of those high-voltage insulators on top, but that was no insulator! It was a white bird with a jet-black mask: a laughing falcon. When we asked how it got that name, our guide played us a sample of its call, and all was perfectly clear. Do yourself a favor and follow the link, click on the “listen” button in the lower right corner, and be amazed.

Before we left Caracol, I spotted my first ever summer tanager (Piranga rubra). I see that we do get to see them from time to time in Milwaukee, but I have not yet been so lucky.

There was also a clay-colored thrush, which I did see before in Guatemala, but it didn’t let me get a picture as nice as this.

As you may recall, after our short diversion to Tikal in Guatemala, Anne and I returned to Belize to hit the beach on Caye Caulker. Well, neither of us is really into hitting the beach, which is just as well because Caye Caulker doesn’t really have beaches. Instead, it has tropical mockingbirds (Mimus gilvus), which I did not even know existed before this.

The natural coastline of the caye is mostly a band of mangroves with a few gaps, and we found this darling juvie black-bellied plover (Pluvialis squatarola) foraging in one of those gaps.

On my last excursion inland, I thought I saw another hooded oriole, and was glad to have another chance at a better picture. But, that would be too easy, and my sources inform me that this is an immature orange oriole (Icterus auratus), instead. Ha!

Lastly, back at Cahal Pech, were we first visited, one of these amazing butterflies, a Julia Heliconian (Dryas iulia), finally relented and posed for a picture.

I’m off this afternoon to give my talk on my trip to Ukraine back in June at Northshore School for Seniors, and I understand that there are still seats available, in case you want to drop in. If not, perhaps I’ll see you on Saturday, when Friends of Estabrook Park is hosting a “clean-up” event, and believe you me, despite our best efforts, there is still plenty of cleaning up from the flood back in August still to do

As you may know, I use WordPress to format these posts and email them to you. Also, WordPress only provides 3gb of image storage, which I quickly burned through, so I have been hosting the images on Flickr and embedding them in my posts. This works mostly fine.

The problem is that some of you have told me that the aspect ratio of the images is off in the posts you receive by email. Since that didn’t happen for everyone, I assumed the issue was with how your particular email client handled embedded images from WordPress, and that there was nothing I could do about it.

Well, I recently learned that there might actually be something I can do on my end to help your email client render the images properly. So, this is a test. I have inserted the same image twice via two different methods, and I have done this for an image in portrait orientation and one in landscape. That makes four images altogether.

If you have been seeing incorrectly rendered images on your end, please let me know if either method improves things for you.

Here’s a white-whiskered puffbird embedded with WordPress’s “Flickr embed” block.

Here’s the same white-whiskered puffbird embedded via WordPress’s “custom HTML” block.

Here’s a least grebe embedded with WordPress’s “Flickr embed” block.

Here’s the same least grebe embedded via WordPress’s “custom HTML” block.

If this helps, great and sorry it took me so long to sort out. If not, it didn’t hurt too much to try, and maybe it will provide a clue to a solution that does work.

Anne and I arrived home safe, sound, and on time last evening, which is always nice. In Estabrook Park this morning it was cool, but not cold, windy, and sunny, which is also nice for a November day in southeastern Wisconsin. The critters seemed miffed, however, perhaps because I was away for so long, and I struggled to see many, let alone get pictures. The pond appeared empty of waterfowl, but I heard that folks saw a bald eagle soaring overhead, which I completely missed. Dang.

Anyway, this female belted kingfisher over the river was one of the few who not only showed up but also let me sneak a picture. “Thanks, Sweetie!”

Given the air temperature, I was giving the insects a pass today, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to spot this dragonfly, another autumn meadowhawk, of which we’ve seen a few this fall.

And that, sadly, was all I was able to manage this morning. The silver lining is that it leaves a lot of space for more trip pictures, so here they are.

The bare-throated tiger-heron at Crooked Tree Lodge must have been unimpressed of the picture I took of its cousin beside the road in Guatemala, because it really put on a show Wednesday after lunch, although it looks less than please with the chore.

We saw plenty of yellow-crowned night herons on Caye Caulker, but I hadn’t seen a black-crowned night heron all trip. That was until the boat ride at Crooked Tree. There was a youngster, like the ones we see from time to time at the pond in Estabrook, but it’s hard to beat the dashing look of a mature adult.

There was no shortage of insects at Crooked Tree, believe you me, and this little beauty, a spot-tailed dasher (Micrathyria aequalis), may be the smallest dragonfly I’ve ever seen.

Finally, another bug on the smaller side and just as pretty was the Hermes satyr (Hermeuptychia hermes), of which there were quite a few.

Lastly, back in Estabrook, the work crew has completely hauled away the pile of broken limestone that they excavated from the river bottom, and now they appear to be wrapping up relandscaping their work area.

The forecast for tomorrow is a little cooler, a little less wind, and a lot less sun, so enjoy the blue sky while you can.

As promised, Anne and I head home today, but I had time before breakfast for one more walk around the Crooked Tree Lodge, and I am sure glad I did.

This little cutie is a green kingfisher (Chloroceryle americana), who I also first saw in Brazil, but had failed to capture on film until today. Compared to the enormous ringed kingfishers I’ve seen here and even the belted we have in Estabrook, this one is quite a miniature in size, but certainly not in attitude.

Before supper last evening, I got to go on a little boat ride down the lagoon and back. I got to see a bunch of herons, including my first black-crowned night herons of the trip, but the big surprise was this enormous green iguana (Iguana iguana) casually chewing the shrubbery along the shore. I’d bet it is at least five feet long, if you include the tail.

Finally, after several false alarms, I did find what appears to be a true monarch butterfly. I read that they do migrate, but just between the highlands and the lowlands around here, not the crazy trip the ones we see in Estabrook get to make.

There’s no time for editing, so sorry about all the typos, but it’s time to get on the road to the airport.

Anne and I arrived at the Crooked Tree Lodge mid-afternoon yesterday, and the sights have been fantastic. If you read this blog, and I hope you do, then you know that Anne has taken me to some wonderful places, and I have had the good fortune to see plenty of amazing creatures, but I have not yet seen anything quite like this.

I can’t remember if it was Anne or I who first spotted a large-ish black bird near the top of a big, but not too tall, tree, but once I knew it was there, I got right to work trying to capture an image. The foliage on the tree was pretty thick, however, so I was not having much luck. Worse, the bird finally tired of me and bolted. My heart sank, but not for long. The bird only flew across the driveway and settled onto the bare branch of a fallen tree barely above eye level. Perfect!

Then things got really crazy. It turns out that the first tree was full of these birds, and they all followed the first. Even better, they appear to really like perching together unlike any wild bird I have ever seen. Even pigeons on the Port Washington Road bridge in the middle of winter don’t bunch up this tightly.

It turns out that these precious creatures are groove-billed anis (Crotophaga sulcirostris), and I saw their cousins, the greater ani and the smooth-billed ani, in Brazil, but they sure didn’t act like this. What a treat!

One surprise on this trip, among many, is that I have seen few, if any, sparrows and finches. Not even house sparrows. Thus, I was very excited to see this next bird, a Morelet’s seedeater (Sporophila morelleti). It turns out that there is an entire genus of these so-called “seedeaters”, and it “contains 41 species.” Wow!

I first saw this next species of bird back in 2017, but I’ve never managed to capture an image until now. Say “hello” to the very first roadside hawk (Rupornis magnirostris) I’ve captured on film, and “yes,” that is its official common name.

Similarly, I first glimpsed a vermilion flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus) in Big Bend National Park, but they have eluded my camera until today. This little beauty not only relented this morning, but it posed magnificently. What a stunner, eh?

Not all the miracles came in feathers today, and here’s a brown basilisk (Basiliscus vittatus), which is nicknamed the “Jesus Christ lizard” for its ability to run across the surface of water. I had the good fortune to see that feat today.

Finally, the place is just hopping with butterflies, and here’s a darling little (Juditha caucana), who may have the common name “Caucana metalmark”.

Tomorrow, we say our final goodbyes to Belize and Guatemala and start our journey home. See you soon.

Anne and I took the ferry back to the mainland this morning, but before we left, I had one more outing to look for wildlife on Caye Cauker, and what an outing it was.

We’ve seen blue herons, and white egrets, and even a blue heron that is white for its first year, but what if we had a blue and white heron? All you would have to do then is add a little purple to its back, and you’d have a tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor).

That’s quite the long, straight beak, but if you prefer a long, decurved beak, then this Hudsonian whimbrel (Numenius hudsonicus) may be just the ticket.

If that’s a tad too long or too decurved, you could dial both back a bit with this short-billed dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus). It seems that they have every sort of shore or wading bird here that you could imagine.

If passerines are more your speed, get a load of these characters. This first one is a bananaquit (Coereba flaveola), which I first glimpsed in Brazil, back in 2023, but never managed to capture on film. Even this one wouldn’t let me move to my left enough to get that darn piece of straw out from in front of its face. “Well, hello there, you evasive little stinker.”

Next, we have a hooded oriole (Icterus cucullatus), which I did not know even existed until I spotted this amazing creature.

I had heard that there are iguanas on the island, but it took my last outing to finally spot this magnificent black spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura similis).

Lastly, after the ferry dropped us off in Belize City, we got a ride back inland to the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, where the birds are great, and I’ll show you some tomorrow, but let me wrap this up with a gorgeous white peacock butterfly (Anartia jatrophae).

It was another day in paradise, out here on Caye Caulker, and we got an early start exploring the south end of the island.

There were a lot of wonderful things to see, but a highlight has got to be my very first adult yellow-crowned night heron. Long time readers will surely recognize the name because we had a juvenile hang out on the pond in Estabrook a couple of times for a while, but I have never seen the full majesty of an adult until this morning.

Another adult we saw for the first time this morning is this little blue heron, although we didn’t have to wait nearly as long for this sighting.

I can’t assert that this next bird, my very first willet (Tringa semipalmata), is a youngster or an adult, but it is for sure not in breeding plumage.

As Anne and I strolled along the edge of the island, often between walls of mangrove, I spied at least a couple of gray catbirds, but there was also a glossy black bird of about the same size. Well, I didn’t get a good luck until we ventured out again this afternoon to investigate the north end of the island, and it turns out that there is such a bird as a black catbird (Melanoptila glabrirostris), and this is what it looks like. Ha!

I was thrilled to see an osprey this morning, and things only got better on our hike back to our hotel when I spotted it with a fish. Thus, you can imagine my joy when we went out again this afternoon and spotted this one in its nest with a nearly grown-looking youngster. Hot diggity dog! They’re making more!

After all the warning signs at Tikal about crocodiles, we were all a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to see one. Well, Anne and I are the lucky ones, because here is our first American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus). “Sorry, Deb!” Even better, as luck would have it, I was able to capture a pretty nice image, without losing any limbs, and if you click on it so you can zoom in, you can even see the vertical-slit pupil in the eye on the left.

Finally, there were a few butterflies around, and I especially enjoyed spotting this one, because I thought it was a monarch, but it didn’t look quite right with those white-ish blotches on the hind wing and a slightly darker reddish color elsewhere. Well, that’s because it’s a soldier (Danaus eresimus), not a monarch (Danaus plexippus), and it doesn’t venture farther north than Florida and Texas.

Tomorrow, we ship out again, but we’re not done with Belize yet, so stay tuned for who we find next.