the clinic and falcons

Tuesday CASA had some visitors! Two wildlife rehabbers on vacation from the states came by and dropped off a lot of donations and some literature. They got some free lunch and got a quick tour. It was nice to see some Americans, oddly enough. Now they're enjoying themselves on Caye Caulker... lucky.

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures of the clinic! Above is CASA. On the right is the clinic, the thatched roof building is the rehabilitation building with the cages, and Jack's enclosure is on the far left. My attempt at uploading more photos failed so you'll have to check out Facebook. I've posted a picture of the entrance to the clinic, the examination room, the office / surgery, and the ICU. If you've been viewing my pictures on Facebook, I've taken too many pictures and had to start a new album. You can view the old one here and the new one here.

Sunday I tagged along again with the Peregrine Fund and headed out to Santa Familia and in to the jungle. The first site was a massive sinkhole (and I mean massive) but there were no Orange-Breasted Falcons to be found. We hiked a bit further to a second sinkhole that was a bit smaller than the first. A falcon was spotted relatively quickly perched on one of the trees that seemed to be growing out of the cliffside. After bit of preening and a quick nap, a second falcon appeared, flew around the sinkhole, and headed off to hunt. The PF needed to get to Mountain Pine Ridge to do some more monitoring before it got late so we set off back to San Ignacio. On this excursion, I learned about the exciting Poison Wood. It's a species of tree, similar to poison oak, that causes a rash if you come in contact with it. Fortunately, I haven't had any experience with it yet. Although, I seem to have some sort of weird resistance to poison ivy (I've practically waded through it before with no reaction) so maybe it's the same with poison wood? At least if I develop a rash after hiking I might have some idea of what it's from.

FYI: I am now two hours behind all of you East Coast Americans... which essentially makes me on Mountain Time. I think. I will miss the longer days... the hours of daylight are pretty consistent year-round here.

Tomorrow I head to the zoo for my weekly adventure. It was also suggested that I go to "Old Belize" which is a large museum dedicated to the history of Belize. Apparently there's a lot of other stuff there too (a pool?). It's only about half an hour to 45 minutes from the zoo so I might as well. It's going to be a long day, but it'll be good to get off site since I've mostly been twiddling my thumbs all week. No complaints though since I know two months from now I will have my hands completely full with bird babies.

Until next week...