Back in 2014 and 2015 we visited Belize for our annual dive trips, and then turned our attention to Little Cayman for several dive-related reasons. This year we went south again to stay for two weeks at Blackbird Caye, an island on the eastern side of Turneffe atoll, and we’re glad we did. The atolls are relatively remote, with little development beyond a few small dive resorts and fishing camps. No cruise ships go there and the population is small. The atolls are part of the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, most of which is protected by the government.
Between spending more time out diving and the need to rest at other times of day plus trying to avoid an onslaught of biting flies, I wasn’t outside birding as much on this trip, which may explain the fewer species I saw this year compared to a decade ago. And there were also some stormy days, and relentless drifts of Sargassum seaweed piling up on shore which perhaps made the narrow strip of sand between the ocean and the lagoon less appealing to birds. Nevertheless, the birds I did see were exotic (for me) and fun to watch.
Brown pelicans, Royal terns and Magnificent frigatebirds were a constant presence over the water, and they seemed to prefer fishing in the late afternoon. Maybe the fish were coming in close to shore? By the time we’d showered and dressed after our final dive of the day it was about 4 or 5pm and the aerial hunting show was in full swing out in front of our cabana.
Immature and adult Brown pelicans
Grooming on the dock
Young Pelican drying its wings between dives
A video shows their soaring, diving, and eating. Given how big they are it’s surprising how easily they take to the air from the surface.
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The Frigatebirds often joined them for fishing in the late afternoon. Both were especially active on and after stormy days. The water gets all churned up, brown rather than beautiful aqua colored, but obviously those conditions make fish more abundant in the shallows.
Male Frigatebirds have a red throat
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When we were there a decade ago, invasive lionfish were rampant everywhere on the reef and the dive guides would hunt them, bringing them back to shore to clean them and present filets to the chef who would make ceviche with them. The Frigatebirds came around during during the cleaning sessions to catch scraps the dive guides threw into the air for them. The lionfish are much less a problem now and the dive guides no longer hunt them. But the presence of Frigatebirds at the resort then and now speaks to their opportunistic nature.
April 13, 2015. James senior giving treats to a juvenile frigatebird.
(On this trip, after our first week of diving we asked one of our dive guides if he’d be working the following week — so we’d know when to tip him — and he said no, but James would be. We said James! He’s still working here? Elroy said no he died a few years ago, it’s his son James….who has followed in his dad’s line of work. We called him Young James when we dived with him the next week)
Unlike pelicans and most other fish-hunting birds, Frigatebirds can’t land on the water or they’ll never be able to take off again. Their feathers are not waterproof so they’d soak up water, get too heavy to fly, and drown. They are very light birds and in fact have the largest wing area per body weight of any bird (6 foot wingspan for a 2 pound bird), and losing their preen gland was just one way of jettisoning weight. So they delicately snatch fish at the surface, swooping up again to soar and scope out the next prey.
The third of the trio of regular fish-hunters by the shore were the Royal terns. The terns’ style of fishing is intermediate between the frigatebirds, who barely touch the surface, and the pelicans who slammed into the water in big splashes. The terns dive straight down, make a small splash and take off right away, unlike the pelicans who hang out on the surface for a while.
The first section of this video is on a stormy day, when the terns were perched on pilings. They kept looking upward, not sure why. The second section is one diving, a difficult maneuver to get on video, they are so quick.
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Ruddy Turnstones were also regulars at the resort every day. They loved the giant swathes of sargassum weed, which are magnets for amphipods and other small critters, and upon which the shorebirds feasted.
Ruddy turnstones + sandpiper
The floating sargassum seemed most attractive to them, even more than the piles that accumulated on the beach. The flock of couple dozen would dance around on the mat of shifting weed picking at bugs. Sometimes the incoming swells got rough and the birds had to use their wings to keep their balance.
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The turnstones were in various stages of shifting from nonbreeding to breeding plumage. In another month they’d be gone north.
Assortment of plumages
The last time we were at Blackbird Caye I saw several kinds of shorebirds. This time I only saw one other species, a single Spotted sandpiper. It’s possible that all the earthworks needed to control the sargassum disturbs the beach habitat for other shorebirds.
Spotted sandpiper. It was in the video clip too.
The man raking worked 5 days a week all day long, barely making a dent, with another guy working the weekend. They wore face masks against the odor. Rotting sargassum produces toxic gases. Periodically another employee used a tractor to scoop up seaweed and cart it away. I’m not sure what they did with it.
The sargassum problem is more than a cosmetic one. It is degrading shoreline ecosystems all over the Caribbean, which are already under stress due to warming sea temperatures. Sargassum at sea plays a valuable ecological role, but washed up on beaches it’s dangerous to local life. Smothered by Seaweed: Sargassum Wreaks Havoc on Caribbean Ecosystems details the causes and consequences of the explosion of sargassum weed. We’ve been watching the increase over the past decade and this year has been the worst by far.
The most abundant birds at Blackbird Caye were the Great-tailed grackles. We heard them from morning to night. One attraction for the grackles was the swimming pool, where they’d come to drink. I didn’t actually get many pictures of the grackles although they were everywhere. I did once record a clip of them talking in a sea grape tree. They have quite a large vocabulary, this is just one of their phrases.
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Great-tailed grackle
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Some other birds who frequented the grounds of the resort included several mockingbirds who chased each other around and had lots to say. A couple of orioles. Once an osprey flew by and a woodpecker landed on a palm nearby to feed.
Tropical mockingbird. These guys were chatting away for hours in the trees right outside our door.
Hooded oriole
Osprey. The last time we were here we saw several every day. I guess they come and go.
Golden-fronted woodpecker
One afternoon we slathered on bug repellant and ventured over to the lagoon side of the facility. The breeze drops to nothing there and swarms of mosquitoes and doctor flies are everywhere. But! there were lots of swallows. Barn swallows and a lifer for me, Mangrove swallows.
One of the Mangrove swallows who landed by the dock for a moment
The lagoon is lined with mangroves, completely impassable to humans walking. These were a couple of grackles chasing each other.
Blackbird Caye resort is on Turneffe atoll. There are two other atolls off the coast of Belize and they have even less land area than Turneffe. We dived at Glover’s Reef atoll about 15 years ago. The third, Lighthouse Reef atoll, is the destination for a weekly hour-long trip from Blackbird Caye resort for different kinds of dives. There are two very small resorts at Lighthouse Reef atoll itself but the remoteness means their infrastructure is limited. No AC for example, which is a dealbreaker for us. It’s too bad because the diving is better out there.
Because it’s an all day trip over to Lighthouse Reef atoll, we stop for lunch at Halfmoon Caye there between dives. Halfmoon is a nature reserve, marine protected area and bird sanctuary administered by the Belize Audubon Society. One of the few Red-footed booby nesting rookeries in the Caribbean is located in a patch of native forest at one end of this small caye. The boobies share the rookery with frigatebirds. A 10-minute walk through the forest takes you to a raised observation platform at canopy level where you can see the birds nesting. In April the nestlings are starting to fledge so between their activity and the parents coming and going it’s pretty busy. Quite aromatic too.
Turtle nesting grounds. Their season starts in May so we didn’t see them nesting (saw a lot underwater though).
Observation platform
These are all frigatebirds. The ones with white heads are nestlings.
Booby baby and parent
Most of the boobies in Belize are the white morph. The brown birds here are immatures.
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Most of our days after coming in from diving I spent relaxing around our cabana on Blackbird Caye, hanging out with the regulars. It was a lovely couple of weeks. Most likely we’ll return again.
Pelicans chillin
Grackles near sunset
The Dawn Chorus is now open for your birdy reports of the week.