Belize Blog – Belizeadventure.com

The Wildlife Conservation Society, owners of nearby Middle Caye and the Glover’s Reef Research Station has just published a new on-line Picture Guide to the Organisms of Glover’s Reef Atoll. They are posted on the Glover’s Reef Marine Reserve web site and can be downloaded free and used by anyone.

These are designed to assist interested individuals in quick recognition of organisms they may encounter on the islands and in the waters of Glover’s Reef Atoll. Guides have been completed for land plants, sea grasses, land crabs, birds, reptiles, marine mammals and stony corals. Under development are guides to octocorals, fishes and other marine species groups.

Also available is a List of Species known to occur at Glover’s Reef Atoll.

I just heard from the folks out on the island and a few days ago an inland bird showed up out there! In the rail family, the Purple Gallinule is not known to fly long distances. I don’t know if it got blown out there or what! I am so bummed out that I missed it! Here’s a photo of the bird on the island.

We have a birding register in our dining hall. Sometimes months go by and no one enters anything in it, but we have quite an impressive record going back to 1999. Last week I made a cumulative list and found we have collectively seen 82 species on this little island.

The complete list:

American Redstart, Anhinga, Baltimore Oriole, Barn Swallow, Bay Breasted Warbler, Belted Kingfisher, Black And White Warbler, Black Bellied Plover, Black Catbird, Black Crowned Night Heron, Black Neck Stilt, Black Throated Green Warbler, Blue Grosbeak, Blue Winged Warbler, Boat Billed Heron, Brown Booby, Brown Pelican, Canada Warbler, Caspian Tern, Cattle Egret, Cedar Waxwing, Cliff Swallow, Common Grackle, Common Nighthawk, Common Yellow Throat, Double Crested Cormorant, Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Wood Pewee, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Great Tailed Grackle, Green Breasted Mango, Green Heron, Grey Catbird, Groove Billed Ani, Hooded Warbler, Indigo Bunting, Least Flycatcher, Lesser Nighthawk, Little Blue Heron, Magnificent Frigatebird, Magnificent Hummingbird, Magnolia Warbler, Mangrove Swallow, Mangrove Warbler, Northern Perula, Northern Waterthrush, Olivaceous Cormorant, Orchard Oriole, Osprey, Ovenbird, Palm Warbler, Palm Warbler, Pectoral Sandpiper, Peregrine Falcon, Prairie Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Rose Breasted Grosbeak, Royal Tern, Ruby Throated Hummingbird, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Scarlet Tanager, Snowy Egret, Solitary Vireo, Spotted Sandpiper, Summer Tanager, Swainson’s Warbler, Tri-Colored Heron, Tropical Mockingbird, Veery, Virginia Warbler, White Crowned Pigeon, White Fronted Pidgeon, Willet, Yellow Bellied Elenia, Yellow Bellied Sapsucker, Yellow Billed Cuckoo, Yellow Crowned Night Heron, Yellow Rumped Warbler, Yellow Throated Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Yucatan Vireo.

(Click on each photo to see the full image)