Chan Chich, Belize August 4th, 2010

Once again it rained during the night. For a while I laid awake wondering if the rest of the trip would be washed out. Had we been naive to think that the rain would be relatively predictable during the wet season?

As it turns out, I didn't need to worry. By the time we were out of bed, the rain had stopped. In fact, the whole day was sunny and relatively cool for the rainforest (probably mid 80s).

For our pre-breakfast trek today, we headed back to Sylvestor Road. This road and the main road were really the only areas that weren't super wet and muddy as you can see by this photo:



Here is a shot of Sylvestor Road (the wettest section):


Outside of this Banded Owl Butterfly and yet another Gulf Coast Toad, there weren't too many photo ops:






We did manage to see a Smoky-brown Woodpecker which was a new sighting for us. Plus, back at the cabana, I had a few minutes to take some butterfly and flower pictures:





After breakfast, we did a big loop. We went out the main road and back via the Logger's Trail and Temple Loop. We saw lots of birds during this hike including Pale-billed Woodpeckers and Black-headed Trogons. Here are some shots from that hike:

Yellow-throated Euphonia:


Unknown bird that we are still trying to identify:


The Logger's Trail:


And, a new snake for us. This juvenile Indigo Snake was just laying in the middle of the trail. Good thing I always watch my step. While this snake was only about 2 feet long they can be as large as 10 feet long:





Some sort of fungus:


Tired of toad shots yet?


After yet another great Chan Chich meal, we headed out around that lodge and ended up at Sylvestor Road again. The rain from the day before really made all the colors seem brighter in the sun today:

Barred Whiptail (notice the great colors):


Flower:


Butterfly:


Here's something that we never expected to find while hiking in the rainforest....a turtle. It's a White-lipped Mud Turtle:





Another colorful Butterfly:



And finally, our resident Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. Yet one more example of wildlife taunting me by sticking it's tongue out at me. From elk, to monkeys, to coyotes, I have lots of wildlife tongue photos.



After dinner, we had another eventful night walk. This time we only walked the stone paths around the lodge.

Schmidt's Black-striped Snake. Too bad this snake was really shy and slithered quickly into the undergrowth:


Yet another huge insect. This grasshopper was around 4 inches long:


Red Rump Tarantula:


A scorpion on the deck of our cabana:


The same scorpion but under ultraviolet light. The glowing is caused by fluorescent chemicals in the scorpion's exoskeleton:


A 3 inch millipede:


And, finally the lit up Chan Chich welcome sign:



We also saw 2 more cat-eyed snakes, a Paraque (a night hawk), more toads (of course), and another praying mantis.

And so ends another successful day of hiking, photography, and critter watching in the rainforest.