ecospirit

Judy took us to Cockscomb, home of the world’s first Jaguar Reserve. We spent one night at the preserve, in a clearing of the forest with rustic shacks and eery models of the early Jaguar cages.
An old Ford truck used by Alan Rabinowitz, the original creator of the jaguar reserve, hovered in the background, mowed up to the frame and wheels, thick with high weeds. I noted that it was not quite as old a model as the one with which I built my house, then retired to the forest at a junkman’s place, where nobody cleared the vines and forest debris. (Yes, I too am fading into history.) Judy had herself been part of the team which re-introduced howler monkeys to the area after it was rescued from orange plantations. We learned that there were now four howler families persisting in the area.

We were less able to see birds here than in la Milpa or Crooked Tree, both because the vegetation was so dense, and because Roni had left us. But the wildness was invigorating. We tubed down the Stann Creek River, during which I endured numerous chigger bites. A treat was going a little further upstream to
see a Boatbilled heron which Dorothy had spotted on a hike that morning. All day long the melodious black birds sang at the primitive site, their varied, liquid songs reminding me of the woodthrush which arrives here at my Southern mountain place every April (local Audabon folks tell me it likely winters in Belize.) A bus full of high school kids from Oakland roared in around 10 pm. As thirty souls set up camp in the dark, the electricity from solar panels failed. But I’m now a country boy, and peeing in the dark is normal.