Bats, Birds, Books ....oh and one little Agouti called Ben

"Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made."

John Berryman (1917 - 1972)

These adorable, but slightly menacing creatures are Pygmy Fruit Eating Bats. They have a condo in a palmetto tree outside our window. They don't live there full time, but hang around (ha ha) every two or three days. Maya has been standing on a pile of crates to get photos when we can. Catching them with their eyes open is difficult. Catching them with their mouth open is even more difficult if they don't happen to be eating at the time. The little grey ones are babies and we've been watching them grow. As mammals, they nurse and we have caught this happening and it is absolutely fascinating. Welcome to our world. We're bats about Belize.

























This is Chilli. Chilli is a Red Lored Parrot who found his way from the rain forest near the Macal River, to San Pedro and then back to mainland Belize. He currently resides at Belize Bird Rescue. His wings had been cut back badly but after their expert care he is now free flying and they are hoping he will soon find a mate.

Belize Bird Rescue does more than rescue and rehabilitate birds, their kindness and hospitality attract all sorts of stray people and animals.























This is the rather inappropriately named, Hunter (the dog), with Ben (actually Benjamina) the Agouti. Ben was brought home as a newborn, with umbilical cord still attached, by one of their other gentle but giant dogs. Agouti are eaten as bush meat in Belize. Luckily no one has told Hunter that.





















This is Colette helping with early morning feeding. Ben may look very cute and truly is scrumptious, but she is a wild animal. Having spent time at Belize Bird Rescue that might be difficult to believe, since Benjamina has full run of the house, which can be somewhat disconcerting as she has a habit of rearranging things, but she is free to come and go as she pleases and will hopefully mature and attract a mate herself.





















Ben is becoming less dependent on her milk feeds and seems to enjoy solids, such as this juicy piece of mango. It is so nice to live in a place where you can pick mangoes off the tree. Have we mentioned that Belize truly is paradise on earth?





















We need to get back to the bird bit though. Somehow the cuteness of Benjamina overwhelmed us and she got in on this blog much too early. Belize Bird Rescue has hundreds of birds, many of them chickens. This chicken and her little baby seem to understand that a chicken's place is in the hen house.



























But many of the chickens don't understand that fact. This very handsome and rather large cock (sorry we couldn't help ourselves) practiced his crowing outside Colette's window every night. She claims it was reassuring but got back to San Pedro with big bags under her eyes. As she denies that she consumed far too much wine and stayed up far too late with her wonderful hostess Nikki, putting the world to rights, it must have been this very large cock that ruined her beauty sleep. (oh we really must stop with the childish innuendo)

Sometimes the situation became somewhat Hitchcockesque, as the chickens and the odd turkey settled for the evening. Trust us when we say that you didn’t want to be the first one walking down these stairs in the morning.

And the turkeys were definitely odd. This is the author Joan Fry (who incidentally should not really be mentioned in this part of the blog but she’s nearly as cute as Benjamina, so we’ll let her off) with her friend Lee and an odd, un named turkey.

Truly though, after this picture you might start to understand that there really are chickens everywhere at Belize Bird Rescue. And thank goodness for that.





















Without them we would have no eggs as we are very fussy about eggs and there really are none better than those grown on a healthy diet, free range and organic. Big kudos to Jerry and Nikki for ensuring that we do not have an eggless existence.

Oh deer. Oh deer indeed. Somehow they’ve ended up with a pair of deer as well. Bambi you would think, but these are trained attack deer and Colette saw exactly what they were capable of, when she bravely threw Nikki under the pounding hooves of one very pissed off young buck. Fortunately there was a hose nearby and Colette can certainly hose a deer down in self defence....is there a song coming on here? Hose a deer, a female deer...Actually it was the male deer who attacked and he is scary and strong.

For those of you who prefer views to animals, this is the view you wake up to at Belize Bird Rescue.

And if you are really lucky, this fantastic cowboy (and he is truly fantastic), Alyson, will take you out for a ride in the rain forest. Colette and Joan Fry joined him. Difference is, Joan is a horse expert and gets to ride regularly.

Colette loves horses but doesn’t get to ride very often and embarrassingly actually managed to find herself hanging from her bra from her saddle. Her horse was very patient with her.

Now before we get to the book section, we have a few more gratuitous photos to add.

Gratuitous and indulgent still life and a saddle similar to the one Colette dangled from by her bra.



























Gratuitous yet amusing picture of chicken in parrot cage.


















Gratuitous but somewhat heartwarming picture of Buddica and Maya.





















Completely gratuitous shot of three stunningly gorgeous people. Kathleen, Colette and Andre. Now onto bookish things.





















Joan's book signing in Belmopan sign with Joan and Jerry being propped up by a sign.





















Joan dressed in her riding gear for a horse adventure. We're not sure we've ever seen anyone in Belize get dressed up so fancy to ride a horse.





















Joan is interviewed on the Morning Show by Senator Aiden Salazar. Colette's behind the scenes version of the 'monkey dance' stopped them both from falling asleep. Early mornings are not Joan's forte'.






















San Pedro welcomes Joan with a banner. (with very tiny writing)





















Miss Tammy turns over her Hummingbird restaurant to cook some of the wonderful recipes from Joan's book, How to Cook a Tapir - A Memoir of Belize. Of course, the amazing Tapir is now an endangered species and we would never cook one, but the rest of the meal rocked.





















San Pedro's Mayor, Elsa Paz, meets Joan and receives her own signed copy of the book at Page's Bookshop.

We'd like to thank everyone who made Joan feel so welcome back in Belize and all of our wonderful friends who continue to supply us with chocolate and bring us the little things that make life a little bit easier. Much love.

Birds, Bees and Bromeliads

What a busy month. We have loads to tell you. Let's see - It started with Colette deciding to rescue a parrot. Someone locally had just gotten a young Red Lored Green Parrot. These are native to Belize and we have learned recently that it is not legal to own any native birds. Many people do keep parrots as pets here and all of them (except for those imported legally under CITES - and there isn't many of them) have been poached from the jungle. This usually involves cutting down the tree and raiding the nest. These poachers then sell the young birds, often with their wings cut terribly, to people who want to keep them as pets.

Parrots are intelligent, engaging and entertaining animals and it is not surprising that they so many people want to keep them as pets. Unfortunately, the wild population is being decimated in Belize by poaching and by citrus farms, who consider parrots a pest and slaughter them (legally) by their hundreds.

Colette was lucky to have been in touch with the wonderful people from Belize Bird Rescue http://www.belizebirdrescue.com/near Belmopan on mainland Belize. They did everything within their power to assist Colette so that she could bring the parrot to their sanctuary for rehabilitation. So we'll start this blog by following one young Red Lored Green Parrot on his journey back to freedom.

This young Red Lored Green Parrot had found its way from somewhere near the Macal River on the mainland. It ended up with a family who was finding it difficult to care for it. They had only had it a few months.

Belize Bird Rescue sent Colette an appropriate carrying cage with a little perch in it. This picture was taken at the local airport as she was preparing to fly the parrot over to the mainland. Belize Bird Rescue were waiting for her at the other end and whisked her and the parrot off to their amazing facility near Belmopan.

Both of us love mainland Belize and Colette was thrilled to have this opportunity to spend a little time there. Little did she know that she was going to be visiting a magical place and spending time with some amazing people.

As she got near to Rock Farm, where Belize Bird Rescue is located, she recognised a landmark from previous visits to the mainland. This is a huge Christian radio station that sticks out eerily high up on a hill, rising up out of the jungle. The drive was spectacular as always but she wasn't prepared for the beautiful place that Rock Farm is.

It is an idyllic place, clearly built with love. Almost like something out of a children's story book or fairy tale, where animals are everywhere, happy, healthy, friendly and living their lives to the max. Horses, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, chickens, turkeys, parrots, dogs and even owls are all over the property.

Colette says that it was like being a kid again, collecting freshly laid eggs, horseback riding or walking down a path to find this engineering feat of a watermill. This watermill is completely driven by water and is just made of pipes and wood. It provides fresh water for the whole farm.

So while the little parrot settled into his temporary new home (above) and got to know some of the other parrots, Colette wandered around Rock Farm.

This is the next stage for parrot rehabilitation. Once their cut wings grow back - and sadly that doesn't always happen - they can relearn to fly in this luxury aviary with six full sized trees.

But there are plenty of other trees at Rock Farm. Here are some bananas and a Breadfruit tree in the forefront.

Here is a close up of a Breadfruit growing on a tree. They are thinly sliced and fried like crisps.

Colette went horseback riding and while there are no embarrassing pictures of her on horseback, you can see what a wonderful place Rock Farm is for horses.

These are locally known as 'stingless bees' although I understand that they can sting. They were just hanging around and doing their bee thing.

There isn't a place at Rock Farm where there aren't any animals. This cute grotto is a happy place for ducks and chickens.

And there are chickens everywhere. They even came upstairs and would hang out on the balcony with the people and dogs.

Of course none of our blogs are complete without a dog picture. Here are two of the pack of six that prowl Rock Farm. Bad guys beware. Good guys watch out - you might get licked to death.

Colette had the opportunity to get some lessons from the Bird Rescue Belize people in how to groom a Cockatoo. This extremely endangered but magnificent Moluccan Cockatoo certainly enjoyed the attention. These birds are not native to Belize and this bird had been brought into the country by someone who had no idea how to care for it. As a result, he has been so lucky to end up with Nikki and Jerry who run Belize Bird Rescue, but they make it plainly clear that they are not pet bird keepers and that it breaks their heart that this bird can never be returned to the wild, nor will he ever meet others of his kind.

There were just so many things that reminded Colette why she loves the jungle in Belize so much. Flowers like these were all over the Rock Farm property, just growing wild.

You couldn't turn a corner without finding another beautiful tropical flower. When you see them in flower arrangements in the USA and Europe it is hard to imagine that they just grow wild some places. Belize is one of those places and there is a great flower story coming up later in this blog.

Here is the orange orchard at Rock Farm. It was such a beautiful place, Colette didn't really want to leave.

But this owl, which had recently been rehabilitated by Belize Bird Rescue, did indeed want to leave. He is now free flying on the property and will soon be heading back off into the wild.

Owls move so quickly and quietly it is a real challenge to get a picture of them flying, but Colette just managed to capture this one as he flew away to freedom.

Colette did have to return home and she misses San Pedro like crazy when she is away. But before she did, she went to visit our lovely friend Chap, who runs Junglewalk books in Belmopan. It really is the cutest little bookshop, run by the cutest guy. Love ya Chap.

Meanwhile, Maya was at home getting our garden started. It may look a bit bleak in this picture but those are baby palm trees that you can see growing. Some of them will provide us with coconuts when they get bigger.

Knowing that the garden is Maya's baby, Colette went and bought her the plant that you can see above. It is a pink Bromeliad. The picture above is of it where we placed it up a tree, where they grow. They are, in fact, air plants of sorts. It will grow onto the side of the tree but take no nutrients from it. Colette bought this at a great roadside restaurant on mainland Belize called Cheers http://www.cheersrestaurant.bz/. They sell all sorts of beautiful orchids and bromeliads. They promised Colette that this one is salt tolerant and will do well on the island.

Here is a close up of its magnificent flower. You can just see the little smaller purple flowers that are starting to sprout. When Colette brought it home we heard a strange croaking coming from it. We discovered a little stow away tree frog that still sits in it now and chirps loudly every night. A bit sad really because no one ever chirps back.

Maya works really hard in the garden every day, which is pretty evident if you look at her arms. She deserves some rest and relaxation with Buddica. But Colette decided to try to get some action in a completely new style (for her anyway).

Those of you who know her will be shocked, but believe it or not, Colette tried windsurfing. Here she is is trying to get up on the board. Yes that is her in the brown bikini. She no longer has that blonde hair.

Now she is getting the hang of standing up. That is difficult for Colette when she is sober and standing on land. This is a challenge.

And thar she goes. She is actually standing and moving. She didn't do too badly and really had a great time. She got this lesson compliment of Sailsports Belize http://www.sailsportsbelize.com/

Thanks for that. Maya is going to give it a go next time.

While all this was going on, ACES, http://www.freewebs.com/ppinpg/the American Crocodile Endangered Sanctuary, from mainland Belize had been busy preparing 'Debbie', a crocodile recently rescued from San Pedro, for release into their sanctuary habitat. When Debbie was captured in a pond, about 200 meters from our house, she was found to have suffered a number of injuries at the hand of humans including a bullet hole, spear wounds and broken ridges. She was also harbouring a nasty bacterial infection. Marisa Tellez, the zoologist working with ACES, makes it clear that the American Crocodile has the most powerful immune system on the planet. If Debbie is suffering from an infection from the water, then the human community needs to start worrying about what is in that water.


Debbie settled into her new home without any serious fights with the others, much to everyone's relief. Debbie was lucky. Two other crocs from San Pedro have died in recent weeks. One was clearly killed by poachers and had its head cut off. The other ACES had attempted to rescue after locals had captured it but a hook that someone might have tried to catch him with had caused internal injuries to the croc and he died.

But it isn't all bad news for the animals. Colette helped out at this SAGA fund raiser in Central Park, San Pedro. The charity raised a wonderful $2500BZD. Congratulations to everyone.

So, lots of thank yous from us to Jerry and Nikki at Bird Rescue Belize for being lovely people and for welcoming Colette into their home and family. Thank yous to ACES for doing work that isn't hugely popular because Crocs aren't very pretty, but very important. Thank yous to everyone that helped raise money for SAGA, http://ambergriscaye.com/sagasociety/