A Week on Glover’s Reef Atoll

I don’t know what I expected from a sandy spit of coral thirty miles off the coast of Belize, but it wasn’t this! This lush thirteen-and-a-half-acre island is a vibrant, flourishing, diverse patch of nature. What a week!

Atoll: A ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Most of the approximately 440 atolls in the world are in the Pacific Ocean. Atolls are formed by the sinking of a volcanic island around which a coral fringing reef has formed. Over eons, the volcanic island erodes and subsides completely beneath the ocean. Eventually, the reef and the small coral islets on top of it are all that is left of the original island, and a lagoon has taken the place of the former volcano. 

The western half of the caye is an undeveloped palm forest bisected by nature trails. Every time I walk these paths, I see something new that fascinates me.

Hermit crabs are everywhere, constantly crossing the trails hauling their shells on their backs. At my approach, they recoil into their mobile homes with varying degrees of success.

They outgrow the snail shells that they’ve commandeered and have to make do until they find a bigger, more suitable one. Whenever I notice a large, empty whelk snail shell, I pick it up and carry it with me until I see the right-sized crab in a too-small shell. I place the empty shell next to the crab and step away. The grateful animal will inspect the gift and then quickly make a move.

The locals say that hermit crabs are barometers of the weather; when it’s going to rain, they go up (with a perplexing ability to climb!), and when it’s going to be windy, they dig in and disappear.

I also see lizards on every walk. The anoles live in the trees and understory, basking in every bit of sunlight. Adorable tiny brown anoles, the length of my thumbnail, with adorable teensy feet and a tail equal to the length of their bodies, must’ve hatched yesterday!

The island’s iguanas, mostly spiny-tailed iguanas with a rare green-tailed iguana, are out on the south rock walls, even on gray days. Once I spot one, the others materialize from their camouflage in striking numbers!

When the sun is out, and they’ve charged their batteries, they are along the trails and in the bushes and trees, too.One iguana didn’t flinch as I approached. He was like, “I own this trail, go find your own.” I obliged.

Magnificent frigatebirds flock over the caye, resting on the wind, going nowhere. Great-tailed grackles’ constant chatter fills the air.

A couple of brown pelicans rest on the caye and fish these waters, as do a pair of resident osprey.

Each morning, about twenty minutes before the first rays of sun begin to push back the night, the osprey start calling back and forth in a high-pitched volley reminiscent of raucous gulls. We called them the island roosters for the way they celebrate the start of each new day. Ospreys are adept fish eagles, always announcing their fishing successes and perching on their same favorite branch to pick apart their meal. (Such a courtesy to photographers!).

A green heron hunts a conch pile left by migrant fishermen. Ruddy turnstones walk the sargassum piles, feasting on tiny arthropods. A yellow-crowned night-heron has been regularly spotted in the mangroves near here, but has eluded me all week.

As I’m heading to look for songbirds in the brilliant orange scarlet cordia blooms, a white-crowned pigeon streaks past me, followed instantly by a merlin in hot pursuit. Just a flash and they were gone. Later, I would watch a pair of merlins soaring, dipping, diving, veering like fighter jets they are. 

Years ago, a previous landowner purchased a few gibnuts, large, native, ground-dwelling rodents with dots and stripes on their sides, at a local meat market and set them free on the caye. They’ve since established a breeding population here. I set out to try to find one of these nocturnal, exotic guinea pigs. I noticed what I thought might be gibnut tracks and excitedly went to share my discovery with a fellow traveler. His face fell when I described the track pattern as being similar to a rabbit’s. “There’s a rabbit on the island,” he reluctantly responded, not wanting to stifle my enthusiasm. What?!? Yeah, the same story as the gibnut. Three domestic rabbits from a meat market were neutered and set free here. One remains.

Like cats respond to “Here kitty, kitty, kitty” or “pspsspspss”, rabbits respond to a speedy, high-pitched “bunny-bunny-bunny!” And so it was the next day when I saw a black and white rabbit resting under a deck. I called, and out he hopped!

Towards the end of the week, I did find several gibnut tracks, but unfortunately, never the animal itself, despite some nighttime exploring with my headlamp.

On the last day, an early trail walk finally revealed hummingbirds. Green-breasted mango hummingbirds! A male feeding at the scarlet cordia and a female with a dramatic white belly cut by a stark black stripe flitting around the buttonwood. I’ve never seen these birds before. Black and white on a hummingbird is so exotic!

The yellow-crowned night heron eluded me on the caye all week. Serendipitously, when we docked back on the mainland, there in the marina, perched out on a palm branch, sat a yellow-crowned night heron!

Other scenes from around Long Caye.

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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