Living in the Belize Keys, we often like to take trips to the mainland and visit the jungle. A change, as they say, is as good as a break, and being pampered in a calm and relaxing natural paradise is certainly a change from the tourist bustle of Ambergris Caye.
On one such trip, we decided to tour northern Belize and knew that if luck was on our side, there was a chance of seeing jaguars in the wild. Ever since my first encounter with lions in Kenya many years ago, I had been fascinated by big cats and seeing a jaguar was high on my bucket list. Although the best time for sightings was sunrise, something I don’t see often, the prize would be well worth the loss of a little sleep.
So in our rented car we traveled to the Río Bravo area and the La Milpa field station. Located about two and a half hours from Belize City, La Milpa is one of two field stations located in the largest private reserve and the second largest protected area in the country: the Río Bravo Conservation and Management Area ( RBCMA). In addition to being a center for research and education, they offer accommodation to travelers.
Our cabin wasn’t fancy, but it was spacious and clean, with a private bathroom and a nice deck with a couple of hammocks for afternoon naps. Its electricity is solar, the water is from a well and its conservation is strongly recommended. All meals are served buffet style in the main dining room and there was certainly no shortage of excellent food. I guess since most of the people who stayed there were research students who had been walking through the jungle for several hours before each meal, that shouldn’t have been a surprise.
We often saw wild peccaries and turkeys swinging outside our cabin in the mornings; Howler monkeys could be heard in the nearby trees; and on a night trip, a Kinkajou wandered through the trees for a photo shoot. The area around the field station is full of nature trails, and with my new “jungle shoes” I was able to easily veer off a couple of the easier ones. The field guide, Freddie, was happy to come along and point out the various trees and plants, and was incredibly knowledgeable about how the ancient Mayans used them for daily use and medicinal remedies.
However, every morning our cat hunt boiled down to driving the roads around La Milpa just before dawn. Freddie had told us that several had been seen that way in recent weeks, or in the area around the Mayan ruins (did I forget to mention that La Milpa is also home to the third largest Mayan site in Belize which is currently being excavated by University of Boston), so we were full of optimism. After a couple of mornings with no sightings, we drove close to the ruins area and started on foot, but still no jaguars. As we headed back to the truck, something flew across the clearing that caught our eye, and as we sniffed further into the trees we saw the most amazing bright blue bird. I’m not really a “seizure” but this little guy was beautiful and we spent several minutes looking at him before heading back to the field station for breakfast.
As we ate scrambled eggs, sausage, and fried jacks, Freddie asked if we had any luck seeing jaguars that morning. We said unfortunately not, but we had seen a really beautiful blue bird. Silence fell around the room.
One of the researchers grabbed the book “Birds of Belize” and asked us to see if the bird we had seen was there. We scan through the color plates and point to our “little fellow.” Questions now quickly arose as people grabbed boots, cameras, binoculars, and more. “Where exactly was I?” “Could we find it again?” “How long has he been?” and “don’t just sit there eating, LET’S GO!”.
We all got into trucks, vans, jeeps and with us in the front we drove the convoy back to where we had parked our truck earlier. We looked up at the tall canopy and… there it was, right where we’d left it. Pictures were taken (we didn’t have the same sophisticated cameras as the researchers, but we were able to get a close-up by holding our camera lens up against a telescope) and details were recorded. So what was so special? The bird we had seen was the Lovely Cotinga, one, or possibly THE, rare bird in Belize. As Freddie told us later, in more than two years of living in La Milpa he had seen hundreds of jaguars, but never a Lovely Cotinga before that morning!
It was certainly a beautiful bird and the highlight of our trip, but we will be going back to the Rio Bravo area because I still want to see a jaguar.
