CouesWhitetail

Yes we did Sundevil....several of them in different locations....one was pretty big and would come out of its hiding hole to lunch at peoples legs when they swam nearby.

I haven't had a chance to post about our vacation to Belize last December. This was a first for us and a great 7 days of relaxation and adventure. My husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to go to Belize with another couple from our church in Dec 2013. We spent about four days on the beach and three in the jungle. WOW, what a great trip! It couldn't have been any better! This was our first time for a carribean vacation and we loved it. Snorkeling was the main activity for our beach side of the trip and I was able to use my gopro camera for underwater footage....I boiled it down to this video....watch it in HD if you can! http://youtu.be/DDxxvSf8jww The water was so warm and we saw a great variety of marine life. The rental that we stayed had kayaks free for us to use and we could paddle out about 15 mins to tie up to a buoy at the reef. Belize has the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world! For those that can’t watch the video, here are some pics. within minutes of arrival at our condo we were enjoying fresh cocconut water and shortly after the national beer of Belize in a hammock on the dock out in the carribean. Nice!! During our time in the jungle we wanted to do a lot of birding and we got to see around 50-60 species of birds that we had never seen before. Cool stuff We stayed at a remote jungle lodge and they had three days of flooding while we were there! The drive into the lodge was exciting as we essentially had to drive through a couple waterfall pouring over the road. The first afternoon we were essentially stuck in the cabin listening to the rain pour down. We figure it must have rained 15-20 inches during that afternoon and night. Wow!! Unfortunately I haven't had time to make a video of the jungle portion of our trip, but I posted a few pics from there. Great time seeing Mayan ruins, caves and lots of birds.

Thanks for those that reported the post to me, sorry it took so long to respond, I was out with friends. I have edited the comment. As always, I will ask everyone to please be respectful when debating issues. Surely you are all capable of making your point without derogatory comments like those.

Devin, I was recently told by Covert that the cameras should be set on Low to avoid tons of photos. However, I think it's the heat of arizona that causes the real problem. Do you notice more of your "tons of pics of nothing" during the hotter times of the year? The cameras work by using a combination of heat detection and motion detection. I think our hot AZ weather makes the heat detection thing go bonkers and take tons of photos. It seems that they work fine at night, right? It's just during the hot days that you have tons of pics? Covert also suggests pointing the camera North whenever possible to help with this problem.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday Jason!! Love the pic you posted Keven!

Glad to hear they worked quickly to resolve the issue.

Randy Epperson sent me this pic yesterday....nice sticker on the tailgate who is this?

Wow! Those fish are gorgeous!

Sounds interesting!

One of the birds I was dying to see was a Red-capped Manakin....and I was surprised I actually got to see one at the lodge in the jungle. Unfortunately it wasn't the mating season for the bird and it wasn't doing it's Moonwalk Dance. But a few years ago I saw this video and have wanted to see this bird every since! but here is a video to show you why I love this bird! check out the biologist describing the dance too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6FlSaTkzB8

That guy is HUGE! Thanks for not running it over! That's awesome, thanks for sharing the video. It's been quite awhile since I have seen one.

LOL!! no, we never made it to wet willies.....not sure I would drink that either!

That bar he is at is out over the ocean...it was basically across the street from the airport where we were to catch our flight to the jungle. We had about 20 to 30 mins to kill and we had really been wanting to try Conch Ceviche....the lady at the airport said this bar had the best and so we ran over there in the rain through some back alleys and ordered some, had a quick drink and ran back to the airport with our Ceviche....it was UNBELIEVEABLY GOOD! Wow, so glad we made that happen. It was to die for.

nope, didn't have the opportunity...LOL!

We made the tacos ourselves at the condo with fresh shrimp and fish from the local market! We grilled the fish and shrimp with some cajun type spices, cooked up the rice, and the store staff makes the tortillas...they were excellent! Lime/mayonaise from the local store for the sauce. We ate those most every day for lunch after coming back from snorkeling!

Yes, one of the most deadly...it was the Fer de Lance

We took a flight from Ambergris Caye to Maya Flats airport to get to our jungle lodge. We were the only people besides the pilots in that small plane! You can see the plane in the photos above.

For the beach portion of our trip we stayed on Ambergris Caye (an island off the coast of belize). We stayed at Coccotal Inn and Cabanas. We (2 couples) rented the upstairs of a two story place and had full kitchen so we could cook our own meals and save some money that way. There were also some excellent restaurants that we tried that were just a few minutes walk along the beach from our condo. We went during the "low" season when rates are cheapest, but just before the "high" season when rates jump up. Seemed a perfect time to go to save some money and still have a great vacation. For more info on the Coccotal, visit http://cocotalbelize.com/ I highly recommend them. They had great customer service and a fine location. You could borrow bikes and bike into town to get food, or they will stop at grocery store after picking you up from airport. Free Kayaks to use whenever you want and we used them several times a day. For the Jungle portion of the trip we were stayed at Blackrock Lodge http://www.blackrocklodge.com , which I also highly recommend if you want to stay at a remote jungle lodge. They can arrange all kinds of trips for you from the lodge for mayan ruins (we wanted to go to Tikal but it rained so much that we couldn't go and there was another cave we wanted to tour but couldn't get to due to rain). But we did some local ruins and a newly opened cave and it was awesome. The cave is called Chechem Ha and it was amazing with giant pots throughout.

According to AGFD, first year hens in Arizona don't lay eggs (unlike in other parts of the country). So they don't start laying until their second year. Neat find! Last time I found some newborn turkey poults I was able to get some nice pics because they just hide perfectly still and don't move once the momma has walked off putting/alarm calling. Thanks for posting the pic!

Yes, elegant trogon...neat pic! They are far more common down south than most people think. We saw nine the other morning in the Pajaritos in one canyon.

Great pics, thanks for sharing!

I am dreaming of Belize again too!!

I have a friend who makes the best mesquite cookies! I love them. We made mesquite syrup from the beans last year...it was excellent.

The soaptree yuccas are flowering now in southern AZ and I decided to pick some flowers the other day on the way home from the Huachucas. I have eaten the flowers raw in the past and they are a bit like cabbage, perhaps more bitter. So I wanted to try something new with them and saw that some people recommend dipping the petals in tempura batter and frying them. So that's what I did. Some people suggest you should eat only the petals of the flower because some people find they get a scratchy feeling in their throat if they eat the flower reproductive parts (probably due to allergic reaction to the pollen). Anyway, I separated the petals off the flowers, rinsed them off and then dipped them in tempura batter and fried them. The first batch I did as individual petals and I don't recommend doing them this way for a couple reasons. One is that it's labor intensive and two is that you lose the flavor of the petals. So I got smarter and tried dipping large groups of petals together so that there was more petal per batter ratio. It worked pretty well, but the petal flavor is still very subtle and if you really want to taste them, you might try some raw in your salad. Other people online suggested treating them like artichoke hearts and marinating them in oil and then putting in salads. I think next time I might try adding some curry to the tempura batter and see how that is. pics: pic of single petals after frying pic of clusters of petals after frying, definitely prefer clusters of petals.

I have never really been a big fan of bear meat, but this looks good!