Birding has been great at Lower Dover Jungle Lodge lately. The Wild Grape trees that line our jungle hotel grounds are prime habitat for all kinds of birds, especially when the trees are fruiting. Recently, two birds stopped by to eat it’s seeds while we were bird watching on the 100 jungle acres in Belize.
The olive and yellow bird is a female White-Collared Manakin. The other bird is one of two subspecies of Yellow-Throated Warblers found in Belize, Dendroica dominica. We know these birds in the picture are not the same species because of their different shaped bills.
H. Lee Jones describes the female White-Collared Manakin as olive with a yellowish body in his book, Birds of Belize. Jones helps birders differentiate the male Yellow Throated Warbler between subspecies by noting the yellow fore-half of the supercilium of the subspecies seen. The other subspecies, Dendroica albilora is without yellow on the supercilium (above the eye).
Click on the image above for a close up to see the yellow over the Warbler’s eye.