Kayaking with Dennis

Dawn came with a silky stillness in the primordial air.  

Gentle undulations rock the sea like a faint heartbeat, punctuated by the silent passage of egrets skimming the surface.

To the north, the sky clears as dawn breaks free of the low clouds and day begins in earnest.  

A day made for kayaking, slipping soundlessly along the water's surface, at one with the natural world.  Dennis and I head toward the sunlight in the north, easing in and out of passages amongst the mangroves.

We glide up to herons, like this yellow-crowned night heron.

Alert to our prescence, this yellow-crowned night heron is not unduly agitated.

OK, you are getting into my personal space here.

A little too close for comfort; I am out of here...

Way back in the marsh we saw a flash of peacock blues and greens.  What on earth?  It flew into the heavy mangrove tangle and walked from root to root, always keeping on the far side of vegetation, giving us only glimpses of a bird with a heron-like neck and bill but with a bulky, turkey-like, body.  It cautiously peeked out at us, seemingly as curious about us as we were about it. I got a couple of shots in hopes of being able to key it out later.  I succeeded in capturing the world's worst photos of the world's most beautiful bird - the Agami Heron.  Click here for the world's best photos of this fabulous bird.

I marked the tip of its beak with a purple arrow and its eye with a vertical arrow. Doesn't seem possible, does it?  But you can see it again in the next shot.

And again vertical arrow marks the eye and the horizontal one marks the tip of the beak.  The unusually long beak is one of the Agami's identifying characteristics.

Better luck in photographing a juvenile green heron.

The gloom of the tangled vegetation can't hide this lovely bird, but doesn't do much for the photo.  :-(

It very nicely cooperated and turned its streaked breast toward the camera.

We'll be back for more of that Agami heron and perhaps to see the green heron mature.

The day dawned with a pink and grey softness.  

Allen is just visible in his canoe as a little speck to the left of mangrove trees on the right of the photo.  He paddles over from Monkey River Village at day break to work at our place with landscaping and handy man projects.

In the few minutes it took Allen to arrive, the day has brightened a bit.  You can see Allen beaching his canoe at the south end of our lot. 

Our cabana looks serene and sleepy in early morning light.

It is almost too beautiful to leave, even for a day trip. But there is an auction calling us, so off we go with Sue and Chris on an adventure in Mennonite country near the inland village of Armenia.  Sue had seen ads for an estate auction; everything, including livestock, household goods, and farm implements were on the block.  How could we resist?  

The estate being auctioned is at the end of this road.  You can see some vehicles already parked there.  Look at that fabulous tree in the mid-ground!  In the grey, drizzly day it glows as if it is afire.

Close to a hundred folks showed up for the auction, and with the exception of 4 (you know who those 4 are), all were Mennonites.  The Mennonites were very welcoming to us and explained the auction process.  This particular event was to sell off all the worldly goods of a recently deceased elderly couple whose decendents had their own households.  The auction was to turn the assets into cash which could then be easily split between the decendents.  Dennis and I had quick look around and then left Sue and Chris at the auction while we went to the town of Belmopan, which is actually the capitol of Belize, to pay our land taxes, an adventure in itself.  When we returned to pick up Sue and Chris, they had not bought anything, but enjoyed watching the bidding.  Apparently the woman of the house was well-known for her canning abilities; her canned vegetables and fruit (even canned pineapple!) were all sold at high prices.  

This fine fellow was roped to a fence post to graze along the road near the auction.  Look at those horns!

The mountainous countryside is beautiful with pastoral scenes check-by-jowl with wild jungle.  All in all, it was a fine day in spite of the drizzly greyness. 

Kayaking in Englishtown, Toledo, Belize

The weather was so incredibly wonderful when we were in Belize back in October.  The seas were mirror flat almost all day long every day we were there; perfect for kayaking.  I spent at least 30 hours kayaking, most of it by myself, although Sue and I had a nice morning out one day.  We set out from Chris and Sue's place in central Englishtown, since they had the kayaks.  We had started to head north along the coast, but soon decided to head east over to Great Monkey Cay (pronounced "key").  I took my snorkel gear and was able to get in a little snorkeling while Sue relaxed in the sunshine and recaptured my kayak when it drifted off.  ;-)   The water was flat enough to take a route to the outside of Great Monkey Cay and loop around to the south to visit Little Monkey Cay.  Little Monkey Cay is a rookery for assorted egrets, pelicans, and frigate birds that settle down there every evening.  Throughout the day you can find bird activity there.  Little Monkey Cay was almost demolished by Hurricane Iris in 2001.  It has slowly been coming back, although it is still nowhere close to its former glory.

Sue and I heading off to the north.

The sea was flat enough that I felt comfortable taking my cameras with me in the little "sit upon" kayak.

The map below shows the routes of the trips that I took.  The three thumbtacks mark the three households in Englishtown with full-time residents.  Note that the map is oriented with north to the right so that I could get more coastline in the image.  Great Monkey Cay is at the bottom in the center and Little Monkey Cay it to the left.  The route that Sue and I took is in red.  Right above little Monkey Cay is the entrance to Black Creek which runs behind our place marked with the leftmost thumbtack.  That kayak route (yellow) is a good one when the open sea is too rough for a  little kayak.  

Monkey River Village (labeled "town" in Google Earth, but at only 250 or so inhabitants is barely a village) is at the mouth of the meandering Monkey River at the left of the image.  Howler monkeys give the river its name.  You can see the Monkey River Road leading inland.  This dirt road is frequently impassable during the rainy season.

Two other kayak routes I took followed little creeks or dredged canals back into the marshes.  I spent hours nosing along in these little creeks.  Incredible birds, wonderful plants; never saw another person - my idea of heaven.

Belize from Above

We flew into the international airport in Belize City and from there caught a little puddle-jumper prop plane to head south to our place.  With the exception of the last few shots, all were taken out the window of the little plane.  Most of the time the plane is flying at an altitude shared with vultures and frigate birds.

This is the Belize River flanked by thick jungle .

  Toward the middle of the photo you can see a little homestead at a sharp bend in the river.

The water at the bottom of the photo is Caribbean Ocean.  Inland are Quashi Lagoon and the large Southern Lagoon.  Behind the Southern Lagoon are the Peccary foothills and then the Maya Mountains.

The coastal village we are approaching is Dangriga.  You can see the Maya Mountains in the background.

Notice the reflection of the pilot in the window.  That straight tan line perpendicular to the coast is the airstrip we are banking to land on as one of 2 stops along our way.

Back in the air after Dangriga, we can see the Sittee River with citrus groves and banana plantations on either side. 

Now we are on the ground, well, actually on the water in our boat.  to our right is the airstrip.  If you look really, really carefully, you will see a little speck in the air.

The speck is bigger...

bigger ...

and about to touchdown on the airstrip.

This is the same size plane we flew in on, although it ours Maya Island Air.

Stay tuned for more.

Back to Belize

Seems life has been conspiring to keep me from posting a blog entry recently.  Computer issues, mainly.  But also getting ready to go back to Belize.  In a couple of days, we'll be at our beachfront jungle for a couple of weeks, seeing sights like that pictured below.

See you there.

Seeing Red

I'm in Georgia now, visiting my Mother for a bit.  Most of the summer, the weather in Georgia was monstrously hot and somewhat dry.  But now the weather is perfect with highs in the 70s and 80s and lows in the 40s and 50s.  We have been taking advantage of the warm, sunny days to go out to Sutton Park, a city park here in Elberton, to walk the trails.

The trails are smoothly paved, making navigation easy.  The occasional benches are perfect for stopping to observe the flora and fauna.

We spotted this beautiful Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida, loaded with clusters of red fruits.

Hard to resist photographing the red and green against the bright blue sky.

Flowering Dogwoods are understory trees that are native to this area.  Many birds eat the fruits.

This cluster of fruits is from a cluster of flowers surrounded by 4 showy white bracts that serve as the petals.  You can see the bud for next springs flower right next to the fruits.

Flowering Dogwoods are native to this region of the US.  Other Cornus spp. are found throughout temperate forests of the world, but this one is my favorite.  Its 3 inch white flowers open early in the spring, the red fruits are attractive in the late summer and autumn, and the autumn leaf colors are orange and red.  


We also saw many specimens of another favorite tree of mine - the Southern Magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora.  I don't have any photos of the trees to show you, but I do have shots of their cones with bright red seeds peeking out.

The 4-5 inch long cones are fuzzy and split open to reveal the bright red seeds.

Botanically speaking, these aren't really cones; they are fruits.  But they are commonly called cones because of their shape.  Makes sense to me!

The lovely red seeds are eaten by squirrels, turkeys, quail, opossums, other animals.

The Southern Magnolia is native to the southeastern US, but is cultivated in many parts of the world.  It grows to great heights (90ft, 27.5m), has glossy, evergreen leaves, and magnificent creamy white flowers in the summer.

Today is yet another lovely day; I'm sure we will make another trip to the park.  Wonder what we will see this time?

Colorful Birds

This spring we were fortunate to have a number of Indigo Buntings pass through and make a stop at our bird feeders.   

Here is an English House Sparrow at the feeder with an Indigo Bunting.  The Bunting is somewhat smaller  than the  sparrow.

And then they hung around all summer long, a first for us.  

There were at least 3 adult males.  

I'm not sure how many of non-descript females were around.

I believe this is a female Indigo Bunting.

But I am not certain.

The females often have some blue on the wings, and I don't see any blue on this one.

The males are unmistakable with their nearly solid blue color.  The heads are often darker, almost purple.

Their nearest relative, the Lazuli Bunting, has a white belly and orange chest.  The Indigo Buntings breed in North America and winter in Central America.  We may see these birds or their relatives in Belize.

The cardinals are another colorful bird that show often at the feeders.

The Cardinals live here year round.  They sure can brighten up a dull winter day.