February 6-14, 2026 with Megan Edwards Crewe & Alex Sundvall & Local Guides Eduardo Ruano and Isaías Morataya
Belize is a bit of an unsung hero in modern tropical birding. What was once one of the premiere destinations for birding the tropics has now become overshadowed by the likes of Costa Rica and Panama. It is unfortunate, because the birding in Belize is some of the best in the New World! With a surprising amount of varied habitats for a small and largely lowland country, an impressive number of species can be seen in quite a short amount of time. Paired with some incredible Mayan archaeological and heritage sites, this is really a fantastic destination for birders! In just 8 days of this short and sweet tour, we managed to find nearly 300 species of birds between just two of Belize’s finest ecolodges. Some of our group highlights were spectacular encounters with Sungrebe, Russet-naped Wood-Rail, and Spectacled Owl.
From Megan, myself, our trusty local guides Isaías and Eduardo, and all of us at Field Guides, we would like to thank you for joining us on this adventure through Belize. What a fantastic place to escape to during the cold winter months to see some color and life! You were a great group that did an amazing job with some challenging logistics and long days. We hope you enjoyed your time with us and we hope to see you all again sometime along the birding trail!
What follows is a daily account of our travels through this magnificent country.
Day 1: We hit the ground running right away after an afternoon pickup from our guide Isaías at the Belize Airport. Our first stop was mere miles away at a staked out Black-collared Hawk nest, one of the more uncommon raptors on this tour. After some great scope views, we continued southward until we spotted some gargantuan white birds soaring in towards the road. A quick stop and we were treated to sensational views of at least three Jabirus, one of the largest flighted birds in the world. Closer to the lodge, we paused again on the side of the road to view some ducks, which ended up being some Blue-winged Teal. Here we also had our first looks at Black-necked Stilts and Fork-tailed Flycatcher. For folks that have only seen the nominate subspecies of Fork-tailed Flycatcher in South America, this could be a good bank bird for you as the nonmigratory populations are likely a separate species from that migratory one. On the entrance road to Black Rock Lodge, we stopped briefly for a Roadside Hawk fittingly right on the side of the road, and a tiny Least Grebe hanging out in a small pond. With a snap of the fingers, we had arrived to Black Rock Lodge and had left the open agricultural fields behind for dense hilly rainforest. The difference in birds was immediate! After a brief orientation at the lodge, we settled into our rooms and headed for dinner. Just as we were doing this, we had things like both Stripe-throated and Long-billed Hermits, Wood Thrushes everywhere, nesting Scaly-breasted Hummingbird, and a calling Great Tinamou. As we drifted off to bed, some of us were fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) to have a Spectacled Owl calling over our cabins most of the night.
Day 2: Our first full day of birding in Belize started early with a pre-breakfast walk around the grounds of the Lodge. A common theme of this tour is to be late to meals because there are too many birds, and this was no exception. One of the major highlights was actually getting to see that Spectacled Owl that had been calling all night. This was a younger bird with still some fluffy feathers around its head, but it was fully flighted and didn’t seem to care too much about our presence as we got crushing views of this huge owl. Raptors continued to deliver, with distant but prolonged views of the fantastic Ornate Hawk-Eagle and White Hawk (another good bank bird for those listers, these Central American birds are nearly pure white compared to the darker southern birds!) Other great birds on the walk were our first tastes of White-whiskered Puffbird, Ivory-billed Woodcreeper, Northern Schiffornis (heyyyy ricky!), Common Squirrel-Cuckoo, White-breasted Wood-Wren, Green-backed Sparrow, and Red-legged Honeycreeper. Once we finally got back to the lodge for breakfast, we found a Lineated Woodpecker excavating a hole right off the deck; an exciting distraction from breakfast once again! After we got some food in our bellies, we took a longer walk down the trail to a scenic overlook. This time it was the Hummingbirds' time to shine, with some great ones like Purple-crowned Fairy, Canivet’s Emerald, and Violet Sabrewing making appearances, along with the more expected species. The raptors also performed well with the addition of two incredibly emblematic species for Black Rock Lodge: the incredibly rare and hard to find Orange-breasted Falcon and Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle. Black Rock Lodge is one of very few places where the Hawk-Eagle is known to nest and therefore one of the only reliable places in the world to see one. Another classic raptor of this region we spotted was the huge King Vulture. This beast of a bird is more related to the condors than the other New World vultures, so really it could be called Central American Condor. Once again, we returned late for lunch, and the birds kept on distracting us, with more flyovers of White Hawks, Black-and-white Hawk-Eagles, King Vultures, and a Bright-rumped Attila that perched right above our heads in the roof rafters, showing off its well named bright rump in some of my best views of this often-secretive bird! Also, far down on the river below the lodge was a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron sitting motionless waiting for a fish to swim by to catch. In the afternoon, we went back along the entrance road to search for a few more open country and transitional species in some different patches of forest in the brand-new safari style truck! The viewing in this vehicle was much easier and allowed us all to see and hear lots of the birds as we drove along (if only we could have taken this to Caracol!) One of the main highlights of the afternoon was a spectacular roosting Northern Potoo and a pair of adorable Tody Motmots. Other highlights included our first Long-billed Gnatwren, Barred Antshrikes, Short-billed Pigeons, Brown Jays, and Russet-naped Wood-Rails. We also had both forms of Northern Rough-winged Swallows: the migratory northern group and the local cave-nesting resident Ridgway’s group, another potential split waiting to happen! We ended the day with another great dinner at the lodge and an early bedtime to prepare for our long day out to the Mountain Pine Ridge.
Day 3: The birds kept coming before we even left the parking lot of Black Rock ,with our first looks at the stunning White-crowned Parrot and another look at our Spectacled Owl that continued to keep us all awake with its nightly calling. Along the entrance road, we stopped for a brief look at a Lesson’s Motmot, but we had a lot of ground to cover and not much time to do it so we didn’t spend tons of time with it before heading off for bigger and better things! Farther along the road a quick stop for a White-necked Puffbird turned into a much longer stop as we were getting new birds hand over fist! Some calling Couch’s Kingbirds provided our first definite encounters with this challenging-to-identify species. A troop of Collared Araçaris called raucously as they flew through the trees and a trio of parrot species flew over, with Red-lored and White-fronted Amazons being new ones for us. A calling Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl eventually came forth and sat out in the open so long for us we eventually stopped looking at it and instead turned our attention to a small group of Band-backed Wrens that posed nicely for us, a species we don’t always encounter and never encounter this well! All good reasons to linger a little bit on our way into the mountains. Eventually we made it to our main stop for the morning: the Slate Creek overlook, a marvelous vista that can be great for raptors as well as a few other uncommon forest birds, and the introduction of some of the high elevation pine forest birds for us. Pretty soon after getting out of the van, we found our first of these pine forest birds, a pair of Grace’s Warblers! Once at the overlook, we had a spectacular showing of raptors, including a close flyover of a White Hawk, Double-toothed Kite, and Great Black Hawk. More distantly, we had more King Vultures and our first Gray-headed Kites. In the forest around us we had Gartered Violaceous Trogons, Keel-billed Toucans, Boat-billed Flycatchers, a Cabanis’s Wren, and our first encounter with Green Jays. I sound like a broken record, but again, these Green Jays are ripe for a split, as they sound and look quite different from the populations you see elsewhere (proposed name for this Yucatán exclusive group could be Mayan Jay). We headed higher into the mountains to the famous Thousand Foot Falls for lunch. Here we found another pair of Orange-breasted Falcons hunting birds at the mouth of the waterfall and some more of the high elevation pine forest birds like Hepatic Tanager and Azure-crowned Hummingbird. A nice bonus were some Lesser Swallow-tailed Swifts buzzing around our picnic area! After lunch, we descended the mountain towards the Green Hills Butterfly Ranch, stopping briefly for a nice perched Broad-winged Hawk on the side of the road. Once at the Butterfly Ranch, we took a quick tour of their facilities to see the work they were doing with the rarer species of butterflies in the region and then spent a longer bit of time watching their hummingbird feeders. Here we recorded 9 species of hummingbirds, with our best looks at Wedge-tailed Sabrewings, lots of White-necked Jacobins, more Violet Sabrewings, and even a few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Around the feeders we also saw our first Greenish Elaenia and tracked down a Golden-olive Woodpecker. Heading farther down the road, we found a spectacularly cooperative Double-toothed Kite perched alongside the road. This is a species often only seen briefly in flight, and this one just sat and let us approach for amazing views, eventually flying right over our heads as it locked onto some prey behind us in the forest. We headed back to the lodge for dinner and another early night preparing us for the even longer journey in store for us tomorrow.
Day 4: Our final full day of birding from Black Rock had us heading deep into the forest to the archaeological site of the Mayan city of Caracol. The sister city to Tikal in Guatemala, this major city is one of the premiere sites in Belize and Central America. On our way out of the lodge, we stopped quickly for what would be our only Bronzed Cowbirds of the trip and some great looks at a perched Gray-crowned Yellowthroat right out the van windows! As we ascended into the mountains once again, we stopped at the Forestry station hoping to run into a few more of those pine forest birds we had missed the day prior. Thankfully we lucked into a cooperative flock of Black-headed Siskins, a few Rusty Sparrows, and a couple Acorn Woodpeckers. Heading deeper into the forest yet, we crossed a bridge where we spotted our first Limpkin of the trip, a bit of a wayward bird and one we’d be shooing out of the way once we got to Lamanai! We got to Caracol right about the time they opened and spent the entire rest of the morning exploring the grounds of this incredible city and birding as we did it. It was a bit of a cloudy and rainy day, so unfortunately it wasn’t as birdy as it could have been but there was still lots to see! Collared Trogon showed particularly well, and for the temple climbers, we had some really great views of Northern Emerald-Toucanet and White-throated Thrush. We also had our first views of Montezuma Oropendola with a Giant Cowbird not too far behind. Here we also finally had our first quality views of Keel-billed Toucan, one of the most quintessential tropical birds that exists. After lunch, we headed as deep as our van allowed into the Chiquibul Forest Preserve, thanks to a good connection from Isaías. This relatively untouched forest preserve is one of the last remaining strongholds for a few of the deep forest birds in the region. Even though we didn’t make it as far in as we had hoped due to deteriorating road conditions, we still managed to get great looks at Eye-ringed Flatbill, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Black-faced Grosbeaks, Green Honeycreeper, foraging Golden-hooded Tanagers, White-whiskered Puffbirds, Northern Barred-Woodcreeper, Golden-winged Warbler, and we even had some fleeting glimpses of a pair of Crested Guans and heard some distant Slaty-breasted Tinamous! We also had one of the better mammal sightings for the trip, a Tayra standing in the middle of the road! A fantastic closer to the day in the deep forest. On the way back to the lodge, a few of us were treated to some flyby views of Scaled Pigeon and Scarlet Macaws!
Day 5: On paper, today was mostly a travel day between the two lodges, but that didn’t stop us from getting a ton of birding in! Along the entrance road to Black Rock we stopped again to try for some transitional birds we had missed, with highlights being Slate-headed Tody-Flycatcher, Mangrove Vireo, Blue Bunting, White-bellied Wren; with incredibly cooperative Black-crowned Tityras, Northern Bentbill, and Rose-throated Tanagers! The Tanagers have gotten particularly difficult in recent years, so that was a really nice regional endemic to encounter! We then drove a ways to our lunch spot, which just so happened to be conveniently near the Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. Here we found a few more new open country birds, including our only Rufous-breasted Spinetails, Scarlet-rumped Tanagers, and Yellow-tailed Oriole of the trip. It was the heat of the day, so activity was fairly low so we didn’t spend too much time before we headed back to the restaurant for lunch. As we neared the Airport for our transfer, we stopped again for the Black-collared Hawk and another Jabiru (just another Jabiru right?) After we said our goodbyes to Isaías and the Black Rock crew, we said hello to Eduardo and the Lamanai crew as we headed toward the main attraction of the afternoon, a boat trip down the New River to our second and final lodge of the trip. This boat trip is always pretty spectacular and today was no exception. New birds were everywhere for us, weighted particularly towards waders and waterbirds of course. All three of the more common Kingfishers (Ringed, Belted, and Green) showed well, as well as a full 8 species of Herons (including Boat-billed), Northern Jaçana, Wood Storks, White Ibis, and a couple more Jabirus, one of which was a spectacularly low flyover right as it was getting dark. Flying around the river hawking insects were groups of Lesser Nighthawks and the local Yucatán Richmond’s group of Vaux’s Swifts (another possible future split). We even had a White-crowned Pigeon flyby, quite the rarity away from the coast and islands! However, nothing could compete with what might be the best Sungrebe encounter I’ll ever have in my life. In the 20 years of river guiding Eduardo has done, he’s never had anything quite as spectacular as this particular Sungrebe. This is a species that often flushes at the first sound of a boat, and certainly once one is seen they are sent scurrying into the tangles of roots and vegetation along the banks. However, this one really didn’t seem to care about us at all, feeding right alongside the boat too close for our lenses at times! Sungrebes are part of the finfoots, of which there are only 3 remaining species left worldwide: one in Africa and one in southern Asia. This is the only representative in the Americas of a once more extensively distributed family, and one that is always high on the list of folks to see! This experience is one I’ll certainly never forget.
Day 6: Our first full day at Lamanai started early with another pre-breakfast outing on the trails to try for some of the new forest birds of the region. While the forest birding was similar to Black Rock, there were a few notable additions to the birds here including our first calling Thicket Tinamous, Gray-headed Doves, and Blue Ground Doves. We also had our first Yellow-billed Caciques, Ochre-crowned Greenlet, Yellow-olive Flatbills, and great looks at Black-headed Trogon and Smoky-brown Woodpecker. After breakfast we headed over to the Lamanai Mayan site, which was one of the last still inhabited Mayan cities and incredibly well documented in a lovely museum. Early on in our hike, a fantastic Lineated Woodpecker and Chestnut-colored Woodpecker stole the show. Sheltering from a passing rain shower, we took the time to scope some Brown-hooded Parrots that perched in some nearby trees. Once the showers passed, we started our hike and almost immediately spotted one of the local Tropical Royal Flycatchers, which unfortunately didn’t stick around long enough for a scope view! Other highlights from the walk were Yellow-bellied Tyrannulets characteristically high in the canopy, Slaty-tailed Trogon, Blue-winged Warbler, and great views of a perched Laughing Falcon! After a brief afternoon siesta, we spent the rest of the daylight hiking some of the deeper forest trails of the archaeological site and back to the lodge, hoping to encounter some more missing birds for the list. We tried very hard to spot some of the calling Mayan Antthrushes, but unfortunately this is a species that is more often heard than seen. Some of us were able to get some glimpses of this forest chicken, but alas it never sat on a song-perch where we all could really drink it in. One of the cool things about birding in the early spring are all the neotropical migrants around. We had an impressive list of warblers this afternoon, including Worm-eating, Kentucky, Hooded, Magnolia, and Black-throated Green Warblers. We also heard a Scaled Pigeon, which solidified the sighting for the entire group. After dinner, we went on one of the classic Lamanai Spotlight safaris: a dark river boat cruise for birds and wildlife. These are always pretty fantastic, but we lucked into a truly spectacular boat ride, staying out a bit later than we thought we would because of how good the birds were. Highlights were our first looks at the incredibly tiny American Pygmy-Kingfisher, another Northern Potoo, a spectacular eye-level roosting Yucatán Nightjar, and the elusive Agami Heron. Even more elusive than the heron however, was a calling Uniform Crake, a fantastically difficult bird. The mammals also performed nicely with a few species of bats, Mexican Hairy Dwarf Porcupine, and even a brief sighting of a Baird’s Tapir!
Day 7: Another pre-breakfast outing, this time by boat along Dawson Creek leading to a short hike around the savanna habitat close to the lodge. There are a ton of savanna endemics we needed to get, so this was a very important morning! Thankfully nearly all of our targets were very cooperative and we made short work of things. Two of the very important birds were the two Amazons: Yellow-headed and Yellow-lored, both in decline and very restricted on this itinerary. Thankfully we had amazing scope views of each, including some comparative scope views of Red-lored and Yellow-lored together! We also had our first views of Yucatán Woodpecker and Yucatán Jays, in the forested areas, another pair of endemics. In the savanna itself we encountered a covey of Black-throated Bobwhites, Plain-breasted Ground-Doves, Olive Sparrow, Thick-billed Seed-Finch, and the local populations of Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Botteri’s Sparrow, and Carolina Wrens; all of which could be split off from the other populations some day. On the boat trip back to the lodge, we had our first looks at Black Catbird, Gray-throated Chat, a very cooperative Snail Kite, and an incredible flyover of an Aplomado Falcon! Over 80 species for the morning, and yet that still won’t be the most species on a checklist while we are here… After breakfast we took a leisurely stroll around the village of Lamanai, picking up some great views of Pale-billed Woodpecker, Ochre-bellied Flycatcher, Olive-throated Parakeet, Brown-crested Flycatcher, Southern House Wren, Yellow-breasted Chat, Hooded Oriole, Blue-gray Tanager, and Cinnamon-bellied Saltator. After lunch and a brief siesta, we piled back into the van and traveled around the nearby rice and farm fields looking for some more open country and other water birds. Some of the most common birds on this adventure were the flocks of grassy field birds; here including Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Blue-black Grassquit, and Morelet’s Seedeater. The rice fields were pretty dry, so there were fewer waders and shorebirds around than we were hoping for, but we still found an impressive number of Purple Gallinules, another Jabiru, and flyby Peregrine Falcon and Merlin. Just before it started raining again, we drove down one of the farm roads and had another spectacular viewing of a Laughing Falcon, this time just off the side of the road! Here we also started encountering large flocks of Fork-tailed Flycatchers catching insects from a recent bug hatch. Also around were Eastern Meadowlarks, Vermilion Flycatchers, a White-tailed Hawk, and a large flock of Grassland Yellow-Finches! This is a fairly recent colonizer of Belize and one we don’t always encounter on the tour, but this year we found a group of 175 all in the same tree! Interspersed among the hundreds of Fork-tailed Flycatchers around we also had a few Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, getting some fun comparisons between the two! One of the final fields we checked had all three lowland vultures patrolling, and we had our best views by far of Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture perched right on the side of the road. While we were watching the vultures, Eduardo spotted a Jaguarundi hunting the far end of the sorghum field! This small cat is rarely encountered and was really a special sight to behold. All in all, a nice way to spend a rainier afternoon rather than spending it dodging rain on a trail. For the folks that wanted to, after dinner we took a short walk down the trails to spot a few Mottled Owls duking it out for the attention of a female.
Day 8: Our final day of birding started out with a spectacular morning along Irish Creek. At 120 species, this was by far our birdiest morning of the tour. Nearly every possible species for the morning showed itself at some point along our boat trip, with the main highlight being an army ant swarm right on the shoreline easily viewed from our boat. Antswarms are getting rarer and rarer, particularly in northern Central America and Mexico, so finding one and seeing one was really special. In particular, the woodcreepers had an incredible showing from this swarm, with good numbers of Ruddy, Tawny-winged, Northern Barred, and Ivory-billed Woodcreepers. The first two are essentially antswarm obligates, meaning they typically aren’t found too far from a swarm. We also had a few Gray-headed Tanagers, another antswarm obligate. Also along the creek we achieved better views of Black Catbird, Gray-throated Chat (a stunning male that sat in the open for us!), White-browed Gnatcatcher, and our first looks at Yucatán Flycatcher. Also along the creek we had our first good looks at Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet, another species that could get split in the future. After a few long days, we took a longer afternoon siesta and ended the day with the most intense activity Lamanai offers: The sunset cocktail cruise. While enjoying beverages of choice, we lazily floated along the lagoon and rivers. Even while relaxing we were birding however, and added Ruddy Crake and Least Bittern to our lists amongst the other more expected water birds. For those that wanted it, after dinner we went back out on the boat for another spotlight safari targeting our last remaining owl: Middle American Screech-Owl. While they unfortunately avoided our sights, we did end up hearing a pair! This is another bird that likely contains multiple species, and this one is different from birds you might have heard and seen in Costa Rica. Not to mention we also had another Agami Heron, and every checklist today swept the available Kingfishers with truly impressive numbers of American Pygmy-Kingfishers. A fantastic finish to the tour!
Day 9: Our final morning was purely one in transit, with a final boat trip up the New River and a transfer to the airport. No new birds were seen this final day, but it was still nice to say goodbye to the Limpkins, Jaçanas, Wood-Rails, and Herons we had been seeing daily at this point.
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/579739
You can see my iNaturalist report of non-avian taxa at this link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/field-guides-birding-tours-belize-tropical-birding-short-and-sweet-i-2026
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/bze26aTRIPLIST.pdf
-- Megan and Alex