Birding with the Experts #HogsAbroad in Belize

My name is Kelsey Marr and I am a honors Biochemistry major at the University of Arkansas! I am a pre-med student and participated in the Coastal Caribbean Biology program in Belize during May Intersession. While I am not a biology major, I was able to obtain a biology minor with this program!

Belize was incredible and jam packed with activities such as going to the Belize zoo, five am bird walks, seeing black howler monkeys in their natural habitat, snorkeling, and seeing Mayan ruins. We drove around the middle part of the country in a week with going from Belize City to Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary to San Ignacio near the Guatemala border back out to the island of Caye Caulker.

My favorite part of the program would be watching Dr. Kannan, the University of Arkansas Fort Smith faculty leader, watching for birds while driving around Belize. There were two fifteen passenger vans packed with 25 students, 2 TAs, 1 faculty leader, and 2 Belize tour guides driving down the Belize dirt roads for about four hours everyday. Dr. Kannan would watch the road and if he saw a bird, he would yell very excitedly to pull over the van, jump over students with binoculars in hand to get out, and document the bird he was looking at with his recorder. This happened quite often, especially on the way to and from Crooked Tree at the beginning of the trip.

The most impressive bird he saw while driving was the Potoo bird. It looks exactly like a tree and he saw this bird from the road! Even with binoculars, it was difficult to make sure you were actually seeing the bird and not just the tree so it was staggering how he was able to see it from the road!

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Kelsey spent the May intersession 2018 in Belize with our U of A Faculty-Led: Coastal Caribbean Biology program with the help of our our Office of Study Abroad Scholarship and scholarships through the Fulbright College Honors Program and the Honors College.

Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad! Start your search at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/