TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Eleven) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. JABIRU STORK SIGHTING January is the time of year when the jabiru stork begins refurbishing last year's nursery in preparation for this year's brood. No mean feat; constructed of large sticks intertwining, the jabiru nest is a platform as many as 8 feet across! It perches high in a tall, often dead, usually lone tree within a pine ridge or above the jungle bush. This over exposure of its whereabouts made this otherwise shy bird an easy target in the pre-protection days when the jabiru was a commodity in the markets of Belize. Luckily today Belize boasts the healthiest breeding population of these storks within its eight country habitat (Central American and Mexico), although destruction of some nesting and feeding areas have inevitably occurred. The largest flying bird in the Americas, the jabiru is four and a half to five feet in height with a wingspread of nine feet. In Spanish it is known as el re de ellos, or "king of them all". In Belize it is demoted to filly mingo, or even to turk! Aside from the obviousness of its out-size, its appearance is also unmistakable. Its plumage is all white, its head all black - including the heavy-duty bill; these are connected by a loose-skinned black neck bordered below by a bright red band, comprising a simple but tasteful ensemble - all things considered. No one ever implied that the jabiru is just a pretty face! The in-mature jabiru is an appropriate brownish gray. These storks feed in wetlands, around swamps and ponds, sometimes flying several miles in search of a favored food. There are many to choose among: fish, frogs, and snails, reptiles and small mammals. Snakes seem to be high on the list of yummy things to eat, perhaps because of the appetite which is worked up in the process of preparation. The jabiru will take a 6' snake and shake it, throw it up into the air and catch it, thrash it and bash it and finally tear it to pieces, which it then eats. Jabirus come in solitary pairs which share the duties of parenthood but, when the nestling season is over, they fly north with their young (2-4) to join up with the flocks of southern Mexico.
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TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Ten) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. MANATEE SIGHTING You may not think that the manatee, is something you would encounter on your walk in the jungle, but if your jungle walk follows the sea, then you may very well encounter manatees playing in the rivers and estuaries. The manatee, cruises the coastal waters from Florida to northern Brazil. It moves along at a leisurely pace, browsing for food, walking the bottom on its oarlike flippers while uprooting sea grasses, or galumphing through the shallows searching for floating plant life. Every four or five minutes its snout must emerge to take in a deep breath and at most, it will average six miles per hour, not allowing for resting or for horsing around. The manatee's closest living relative is the elephant. Males are called bulls and the females are called cows. Manatee make random squeaks and chirps white submerged, with no real sense of rhythm. Only between mother and child do their sounds appear to be communicative. Manatee can tip the scales between 400 and 1,300 lbs., all of it pudgy, and they have no neck whatsoever. The tail is fat like a spatulate, the muzzle folds over the mouth, and the skin is gray or brown, covered with fine wrinkles and short, upigmented hairs. The manatee have special appeal for us humans. It is gentle and shy, and is near-sighted. It is rarely aggressive - only the bumping of bulls in competition for the attention of a female and often playful, including quite a bit of indiscriminate kissing. When it becomes accustomed to the company of human beings, the manatee will include these creatures in its games. Manatees group and regroup. The only long-term association they make is between cow and calf, which lasts up to two years; the younster suckles underwater, from teats beneath the mother's flippers. Manatees breed throughout the year. Gestation takes up to 400 days, can you believe it! The average lifespan is not known, although it is recorded that one manatee in captivity lived to the age of twenty-three. Manatees are strict vegetarians, and in return are not a food source for other animals - except man. They have been hunted for their hides, their oil, and their flesh. Here in Belize it is widely and mistakenly held that as meat it has special properties, and that it includes a variety of flavors. Also, the bones are used for jewelry making. However, through the Belize Zoo's nationwide educational campaign, it is hoped that the continued illegal killing of this endangered species will soon cease. An even greater danger to the manatee's survival is involuntary slaughter by the propeller blades of motor boats. Although its hearing is abnormally sensitive, and in an emergency it is able to gear up to 15 m.p.h., still the manatee does not seem to recognize the sound of impeding doom. Other threats to its life are cold snaps, and the careless use of herbicides. And just for the record, the water hyacinth, is the manatee's favorite food! TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Nine) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. TAPIR SIGHTING Belize's national animal (or mammal), is the Baird's tapir. Locally known as the "mountain cow", but in fact this "cow" is content to live in just about any type of terrain, from bamboo thicket to mangrove swamp to rain forest, as long as a plentiful source of water is nearby. Despite its adaptability, the tapir is high on the list of the world's endangered species. Only in Belize does this shy creature still feel really at home. The tapir is the largest of all land animals indigenous to Central America. An adult weighs up to 650 lbs., its bulky body upholstered in a skin measuring between one to three centimeters thick. Still this behemoth is able to sneak quietly away on its tiptoes, or to run off boisterously on its short little legs - as fast as a man! Speaking of feet, these are specially designed for walking through mud holes, splaying out for maximum foothold in the muck and bunching up for easy extraction. The tapir has a long, flexible upper lip, which it uses for foraging and for shoveling food into its mouth. Its teeth include heavy-duty molars for crunching leaves and twigs and for crushing seed casements which require as much as 500 lbs of pressure! Another way it deals with seeds is to swallow them whole and then digest them so slowly that they germinate in the process. Fruits and vegetables are also enjoyed; the belief held by some in Belize that these herbivores will attack cattle is totally unfounded. Although it eyesight is deficient, the tapir's hearing and sense of smell are acute. Tapirs do not tend to congregate and they usually forage - day and or night - alone. A single offspring is born, ill-disguised as a fawn: brown, with white stripes and spots, which it does not lose until it is about half a year old. It will stay with its mother for another half year, by which time it will have accumulated a formidable bulk of its own. Except when a mother is protecting her youngster, tapirs tend to be wary rather than aggressive, avoiding confrontation by taking off in the other direction. In captivity they can be friendly and affectionate, as is April, the Belize Zoo's beloved tapir; every year, April's birthday is celebrated at the zoo by the children of Belie who bring her gifts of carrots and bananas. TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Eight) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. SPIDER MONKEY SIGHTING The spider monkey is known for its long linky limbs, and can be found all over the jungles of Belize. Recently our family went to the Lamanai Maya Ruins and they are literally in almost every tree. It's easy to understand how this monkey got its name. Its long, slim, limbs have inspired the common name, which in Spanish is, mono arana. With the assistance of its prehensile tail, the lanky arms and legs allow these happy little acrobats to swing through the trees, using the Belize forest as their very own private jungle gym. If you are lucky enough to come upon them in the wild (within a short period of time), the word will get around that there is a stranger about, and one by one - these monkeys will dissolve through a magical hole in the jungle and disappear. However, if you wait patiently, within half an hour (or so), they will most likely begin to reappear and to take up where they left off. If they ever decide to get down to serious business, these monkeys are able to travel at amazingly high speeds, using the style known as brachiating. Brachiating is the progressive from one hold (branch or vine) to another by alternate hand grips - including the tail, which is able to support the monkey's full weight. They are fastidious fruit eaters, only about 20% of their diet consist of leaves, which they take from the uppermost branches. They act as important seed dispersers, as most seeds pass whole through their digestive systems, and back out to the ground to germinate amid their bodily waste. Diurnal (or daytime) active spider monkeys tend to travel in troops, normally of about 20, which divide into smaller uni-sex groups. The adult and juvenile males going one way and the females and their dependent off-spring going another. At night they pair off in the sleeping trees, apparently choosing their partners by the whim of the moment. The troop appears to maintain a range between themselves, marked by chemical scents. The males do this, by spreading chest gland secretions on to leaves and branches. Certain calls also establish occupancy, and barking is used in repelling invaders or predators. Long, loud calls are used to coordinate troop movements. Other forms of communication include very versatile facial expressions and definitive body postures. The newborn spider monkey spends its first three months in the constant company of its mother, initially carried close to the chest, but very shortly it soon begins to ride on her back. It continues to suckle for about a year, although it starts to forage for leaves and fruit, at around 3 months of age. The gestation period for spider monkeys is 225 days, with only one offspring born at a time. As there are two or three years between progeny, the population is very slow to recover from any sort poaching, or sport killing. As in the case of the yellow fever epidemic of the 50's, which killed off a large proportion of Belizean spider monkeys. Although their numbers have increased, they continue to be considered an endangered species here in Belize. Aside from natural predators, human encroachment of their habitat is a serious threat to their survival - as is the misguided fad of keeping them as pets. If you are tempted to take in one of these adorable babies as a member of your household, think twice. Not only is it illegal, but they are messy and mischievous; worse, as it reaches maturity your cute little pet might suddenly turn vicious in the frustration of its unnatural life, and by then it will be too late to reintroduce him into the wild. TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Seven) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. FER-DE-LANCE SIGHTING This is Belize's most poisonous snake. You won't be seeing me pick up one of these babies. So enjoy this one from afar! These snakes are noted for their defined triangle markings of black and brown. An adult Fer-de-lance can have as many as thirty triangles along its back. Their undercarriage is typically cream or light yellow as is the throat, and beneath the jaw. In Belize, the Fer-de-lance is ubiquitous, which means that it is as much at home in your backyard as it is in an abandoned agouti burrow in the rain forest or a rotten log beside a stream. Unfortunately, it loves rats fattened on household garbage and is not in the least shy about going into a village in pursuit of its favorite dinner passion. If you should by chance come upon one of these, it would be wise to walk away, as quickly and as quietly as you can. Avoid any possibilities of an intimate encounter with these bad boys. Fer-de-lance snakes, usually do not go out of their way to pursue its prey, but instead liters about in the underbrush waiting for a likely victim - perhaps a bird or an opossum - happens to come within easy striking range. Then, from either a coiled or an extended position, it attacks, viciously and repeatedly, with its two front fangs. Unlike their cold and calculating parents, young Fer-de-lance snakes can be hot-headed; armed with venom from the day they were born alive. One Fer-de-lance can have up to 75 babies, I about dropped a jaw when I learned this. To make matters worse, until they reach three feet in length - which is two feet more than they started out with - their yellow-tipped tails, and every tree becomes a jungle gym. The Fer-de-lance (French) has an arrow shaped head and if you look this guy in the eye, you will see that he has what are called, vertical, elliptical pupils. Between his eyes he has nostrils, like facial pits which is a sensory organ - so sensitive to heat, that he can detect a one degree C. change in temperature. The Fer-de-lance has a large mouth with two hollow, retractable fangs which, in proportion to its size, are the largest of any snake's fangs around. As with most snakes, it uses its flickering tongue to smell. So remember, the next time you want to take your "Walk in the Jungle", to be sure and wear boots or any good shoe that has toe, foot and ankle protection. If you do encounter a fer-de-lance, back away slowly and avoid any contact. If you are bitten, seek immediate medical attention. TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Seven) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. JAGUAR SIGHTING This animal gives me goose-bumps! Now I didn't exactly come across one of these on my "Walk Through the Jungle", but how can I not write about this amazing animal? This Central American "Big Cat", is the third largest cat in the world. The jaguar is so special to the Belize people, that the government has taken over 155 square miles of land and set it aside as a jaguar sanctuary, to preserve the "Big Cat" of Belize. They can weigh as much as 300 lbs, some weigh less, but they are awesome nonetheless. A jaguar has massive shoulders, and huge forepaws, with claws to grasp anything they set their little (or should I say....large) heart upon. Their jaws can crush any skull, so these "Big Cats" deserve your respect. The truth is, jaguars are non-aggressive towards humans unless provoked, or until they have been attacked by man in a more outright manner. Some jaguars have been found raiding livestock, but also remember, what man has done in the past few years by depleting the jaguar's natural habitat for food, with deforestation. This is when our government stepped in and said, "No More!" and the Cockscomb Jaguar Sanctuary National Park was established in 1986. The jaguar spends much of the day snoozing on a bed of leaves, or sunning itself on a log or ledge. It may get around to making an occasional ground scrape or the odd tree scratch to serve as boundary markets, delineating its territory. Although ranges may partially overlap, they generally are not shared. To the male jaguar, his hundred or so kilometers of jungle - is his kingdom, whereas the female may choose to change her castle - and with it, her mate. Females begin breeding at about three years. Gestation is approximately three months. A female jaguar will normally have about two cubs to a litter. If they manage to survive, the mother will remain caring for her cubs going into the following year. Jaguars become active at night, stalking the peccary by preference but, if none are available, they will settle for agoutis, monkeys, deer, birds, even lizards and fish. The kill is accomplished by a bite at the neck. The jaguar is still hunted - illegally - for its beautiful yellow-brown or buff colored coat, which looks like an artist painted on it, elegant black spots, rosettes and butterflies. The greatest danger to the jaguar, however, is human encroachment on its home territory. As the forests of its range (northern Mexico to Argentina) recede, its life is in jeopardy, even when prey is still available, jaguars do not appear to be highly adaptable to enforced change. Hopefully, here in Belize there is a future for the jaguar, with the establishment of the world's first Jaguar Preserve in the Cockscomb Forest Reserve. A public awareness of the jaguar's plight will assure not only that its inherent rights will be respected but that the glory of its existence will be appreciated for many years to come. TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Six) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. HUMMINGBIRD SIGHTING My Grandpa Smith loves hummingbirds. He spends hours watching and feeding them at the family cabin. He has become quite the hummingbird caretaker of the Colorado mountains. It seems like every hummingbird in the world shows up at his front door for a sip of his sugar juice and then from his cabin, they migrate down to Belize. Grandpa Smith has multiple feeders like the one to the left, going all day long at the cabin. There are times, when he has to stop several times A DAY! and mix up more sugar juice, for these little guys. He now buys his sugar in large sacks, at Costco and Super Buy. GRANDPA SMITH'S HUMMINGBIRD ENERGY DRINK: The Official "Smith Recipe" Four parts water to one part white sugar. (For example, 1/4 cup of sugar stirred into 1 cup of water.) Tap or well water is preferred; do not use distilled as it takes out too many naturally occurring minerals. If you use a water softener, you may want to use partial or totally filtered water; softeners may add too many minerals and salts to the water. Room Temperature Method: Use very warm water (not hot) right out of the tap. Some brisk stirring is all that is required to dissolve the sugar. Let it cool a bit before setting out a feeder if the sugar water is hot to the touch. Sugar solution can be made ahead and kept up to a week in the refrigerator. Discard any sugar solution that has turned cloudy or contains black mold, no matter how "fresh" the solution is. A tip: Only fill your feeders with enough sugar solution to last, at the most, two or three days. There is no sense in throwing most of the sugar water away when it goes bad before the hummingbirds drink all or most of it. Winter Sugar Solutions: If you feed hummingbirds during below-freezing temperatures (yes, you can do this without preventing their migration: see the Winter Feeding FAQ page), raising the concentration of the sugar solution to 3 parts water: one part sugar can usually prevent the feeder from freezing up at temperatures around and below 25�F. BELIZE HUMMINGBIRDS This diminutive little hummingbird, is absolutely fabulous. Often covered in iridescent features, and an astounding mode of locomotion, is certainly one of Belize's special treats. These tiny birds, some only being 2" inches tall, have a metabolic rate which is astronomically high; they must feed throughout the day, from dawn to dusk. A female hummingbird under the additional stress of caring for her young must take in more than her body weight worth of nectar each day, with a supplement of insects for extra energy. When in action, the wings of a hummingbird beat madly about 50-80 flicks per second! In a figure 8 movement whereby the tilt of the wing is continually adjusted so that each stroke, both back and forth, forces the air down - and the bird up. Not only are hummingbirds able to hover "motionless" in midair, but they rise on the wing rather than push off as do most other birds, and they can fly backwards as well as forwards - at up to 71 m.p.h.! Can you do that? All hummingbirds feed on nectar, and are important pollinators. Some hummingbirds have long, curved bills, while others have shorter and straighter bills. Most of the hummingbirds in Belize, have the longer bill. As they poke their beaks down these petal-formed tubes to get at the nectar at the base, pollen from the stamens sticks (on the flower) attache to their chin feathers and then to the next flower. The more pollen they collect, the more flowers they pollinate, and then my sister Christina has more flowers, she has to write about. And so it goes. The hummingbird does not exactly drink, they sip their nectar. Instead, it has a long, extensible tongue which forms grooves up its sides through which the nectar is drawn by capillary action. Although I have see dozens of hummingbirds dining together at the same time, hummingbirds are naturally territorial about their food sources and a male can become quite aggressive about maintaining the privacy of his patch. We've often seen a fight or two at grandpa's cabin, over who is going to get to drink next. Belize officially claims only 22 of the over 300 species of hummingbirds as her own, but who knows how many other hummingbirds cross our air space each day? Although as a genus they range far and wide, most species very definitely have tropical dispositions. Don Hatch had a couple of really nice photo's that I included for you. Hope he doesn't mind. CHECK THIS OUT! HEY, mom check this out! Other animals as well, like to sneak drinks from hummingbird feeders. Maybe this is the reason grandpa's cabin attracted the bats? TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Five) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. BAT SIGHTINGS Have you ever found yourself sitting outside right about sunset? Well I did just that, the other night and all these bats came out. This entire country is made up of underground limestone caves, and in each cave are thousands, if not millions of bats. So really, you could call Belize, a country full of bats. Not all bats "suck blood" as we have been lead to believe. Some (most) bats, eat bugs, fruit, and some even eat fish. In Belize, the order for bats is Chiroptera, meaning hand-wing, and these are the only flying mammals in the skies. They are very intelligent creatures, gentle and shy. Their acrobatic ability is made possible by a sophisticated sonar system which allows them to do high speed loop-to-loops, within inch of your head. A freaky as it feels, they are mysterious creatures, and with the word mysterious, comes the word curious. These are very inquisitive animals. In fact, some of the larger fruit bats, such as the "flying fox", do not have sonar - nor the large ears or enlarged gorilla nostrils (as I call them) which are standard equipment for these little echo-sonar creatures. Bats vary in size from having a 6' wingspan, down to as small as my thumb. They are generally gregarious, meaning very sociable, this is why they like to fly around your head. They often fly wing-tip to wing-tip in fanciful formation, and their social lives are full of ritual which may include very elaborate courtships. Normally only one baby bat is born at a time, and only once a year. Many bats migrate, and some even hibernate. Fruit bats, are major seed-dispensers, passing on the good news of avocado, guava, mango, breadfruit, plantain, cashew and the like - as they eat. Their guano (aka - poop) acts as a quality fertilizer. Not to mention that one bats can eat over 3,000 bugs (or mosquitoes) in one single night! So you want to keep these babies around! Our family has a very funny story, that I cannot resist telling here, all centered around bats. The story goes something like this.......... Several years back, when I was a baby (about 2 years old), mom and dad lived in grandpa Smith's cabin in the Colorado mountains, along the Santa de Cristo mountain range. This mountain range, has alot of 14,000 foot mountains. We lived in a cabin at the base of one of these mountains, about 9-10,000 feet high in elevation. My dad owned a large graphics business and would sometimes get called away to do a big job . One year his company was selected to do all the graphics for the Boston Red Sox's Game in their Boston Stadium. Mom would often stay home to watch over things, along with me & our German Shepherd, named "Matty." One day while dad was away, mom decided to do a little cleaning outside and heard a squeezing noise as she walked by. Thinking to herself, "Oh, no Birds!" Up inside the siding of grandpa''s cabin. She didn't want bird roosting in there, because of the mess they make. So she went down to the local hardware store, explained the problem to the clerk and asked for his suggestion on what to do. He told her to go back home, use a stick, and try and get the birds (up in there), to fly away. Try and locate the nest (if any) and relocate it. Then take a can of this spray foam and fill the cracks, so the birds can't come back . So mom bought 2-3 cans, and back to the cabin she went. Next day mom started her project. She poked around trying to get any birds to fly out, nothing! She then banged on the siding to make some noise, hoping to scare them and get them to leave. Thinking that she had accomplished the task, she tried to peek up though the cracks in the siding (though dark in there) to see if she could see a nest, but nothing. She then went and got her ladder, her can of spray foam and decided to commence the task of sealing up grandpa's house. She positioned the ladder just right and proceeded to climb up 4-5 steps. She pulled the plug on the can and the foam started pouring out. She quickly scrambled to get the foam into the cracks - but low and behold, all of a sudden, something whist by her head, startling her so bad, she back stepped and fell off the ladder. In hitting the ground, the nozzle on the can broke, and the contents of the can exploded into her hands. Recovering from a soar elbow and foam now all in her hands, she looks up, only to see bats flying in the air above her head. There must have been 20-30 bats, she said. Then all of a sudden, they started dropping to the ground like bat bombs all around her. Each one flapping his wings frantically and making this awful sound. She quickly ran to get me, and scooped me up into her arms with her elbows, only to realize (by the smell), that I had messed my pants. She quickly grabs the dogs collar and leads us both into the garage for safety. Once in the garage, she tried everything to get the foam off her hands (soap, water, keroseen, paint thinner, nail polish remover), nothing worked. So she puts on a pair of yellow kitchen rubber gloves and changed my diaper. Now the rubber gloves won't come off, stuck to her hands from the sticky foam. Long story short, mom cuts the rubber gloves off with scissors, while she is frantically screaming for the neighbor to come help her. The neighbor comes running with a shovel in hand. Ready to bang someone or something over the head for upsetting mom. Upon investigation, the neighbor realizes that the bats have the sticky foam on their wings and this is why they flew up into the air and then started dropping like bat bombs to the ground. Mom began to cry, feeling somehow responsible for the entire event. Determined that this was not going to happen again, mom and the neighbor begin investigating grandpa's cabin. Only to realize that the entire cabin, was nothing more than a very large bat house with hundreds, maybe even thousands of bats living within the rafters outside. "I am not living with bats, exclaimed Mom!" So she gets on the internet and starts reading about how to get rid of bats. Finding some article that said............bats hate snakes. Mom throws me into the car and off we go, headed for the nearest Walmart. She walks into the store - straight for the toy section. Of course you can imagine what I was thinking. The clerk asks, 'Can I help you?" Mom informs the clerk, that she is on a quest to buy every rubber (4 foot) snake they have in stock. I think we ended up buying 15-20 of these snakes that day. We get back home and mom nails these snakes all over the outside of the cabin. Thinking to herself, this way....when the bats fly back at dawn, they will then see the snakes and decided to rest or make their home somewhere else. Several days later, my dad comes home from his business trip and as he's pulling up into the driveway, he sees our house (the house that he lives in), covered in snakes. Of course not realizing that they are all rubber snakes, you can just imagine what happened next. Several years back, mom tried to give away the rubber snakes, but my older sister stopped her. "Mom, we have to keep these rubber snakes in the family." The story is too funny. Hope you enjoyed the story as much as I do. We laugh about this story to this day, and I love hearing my mom tell the story over and over. If you've spend any time at all with our family (round a campfire or long road trip) you've heard this story several times. TRENT'S WALK IN THE BELIZEAN JUNGLE (Part Four) Is brought to you by "Grand Belizean Estates" the next place to call home. PELICAN SIGHTINGS Check this out. These birds are found all over Belize, especially in and around the waterfront dock areas. The boats are in and the pelicans are here. This happens every time a boat full of fisherman comes in, with their catch for the day. As the fisherman unload the fish, a small group of pelicans starts to emerge. As the fisherman start to clean their fish, they toss the fish guts and scrapes, into the water and the pelicans go crazy. Each bird hoping to get one morsel of raw fish all to himself. The brown pelican is a large bird with a big bill (which may account for the fact), that once in flight it is quite graceful, but it tends to crash on the water when landing. Takeoff is even more hilarious, as you watch (you will see) a great flapping of their wings, and the splat of webbed feet trying to gain momentum, as they try to get a lift - with the next trade wind that rolls by. An adult (3-5 years) female brown pelican weights 2-5 kg; the male is even heavier and its wingspan longer. Generally they are silvery or brown on the top, with a darker undercarriage, with either a black or white neck (as you see in this picture). They have a gular pouch that is situated beneath their bill. At rest, the brown pelican pants rapidly through its slightly-open beak; this causes the pouch to flutter, which in turns blows air over the blood vessels of its thin skin and acts as a cooling technique. In tropical areas (such as Belize), their nesting season may be ongoing all year long. Incubation takes about 30 days and caring for the chicks is a duty shared by both mother and father. In order to eat, the young birds poke their beaks down their parents throats, causing the parent to regurgitate their semi-digested fish. Hope you are enjoying my walk in the jungle series...............there is still lots more to come. You see me here, with my certificate of completion for my "ASL" American Sign Language Class. Last week, I had the privilege of taking an American Sign Language Class here in Belize. It was incredible and I learned so much. During this week, I was able to develop some great friendships, with others interested in the same thing I am. We spent the entire week role playing and actively learning all aspects of sign language. In the pictures below, you will see pictures our classroom. We learned by question and answer, doing presentations, following DVD examples, and role playing (as you see Fonzie, my dad's friend & work associate) doing below. All of this, helped me to have a new appreciation for what it means to be deaf. I have several friends here on the island that are deaf, and I want to be able to communicate with them better. Here are some pictures of yesterday - this was graduation day for me You can see my sister Lauren watching me graduate. I have lots to learn in the weeks and months to come. Afterwards, we had a big blow out party with all our friends. Dad and Dennie broke out the BBQ grill, and did hamburgers and hot dogs for the whole group, mom made 2 of her famous chocolate cakes (family recipe right from my grandma Smith). Stephanie decorated all the platters, served up the beans and we laughed, swam in the pool and watched more videos on the deaf culture. There was only one word that summed up this past week? AWESOME! AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE IN BELIZE
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Trenton Turley
Hi, my name is Trenton S. Turley. I've been living in Belize now for 11 years. Hope you enjoy reading my many blog posts. I write about things, that are passionate to me.
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