Travel to Belize and Walking the Neighborhood

We caught the 10:30 pm red eye from SFO to MIA and then hopped over to Belize, arriving at local time 11:30 am. Immediate impressions as we walked out the door was that “We definitely weren’t in the cold, rainy Central Valley anymore!” The warm steamy air quickly enveloped us and started a stream of sweat to form on our backs as we walked to catch a ride to the hotel. We caught a shuttle from the Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport to the Biltmore Best Western Belize to check in for our two-night stay. On the twenty-minute ride into Belize we got our first views of some of the local pasture lands, the Belize River, some mangrove forest and a glimpse of the Caribbean Sea. Our first birds of Belize included Great-tailed Grackles, Groove-billed Ani, and Tropical Kingbirds on the side of the road. After checking in and relaxing a bird (ugh, red eye flights…) we headed out in the late afternoon to make a short tour of the hotel grounds and some of the neighboring semi natural lots. We walked over to the nearby Animal Medical Centre, checking out the small broadleaf woodlands patch and the skies above, hoping for a flyover hawk or vulture. We ended up back at the hotel grounds for dinner and a last check of the gardens for any hummingbirds hanging around. By the time we hit our rooms, exhausted and excited, we had added 25 species to our fledgling Belize life list.