Although this great white heron is a water bird, it spends much of the day on a tree. Here it is keeping its eye focused on our boat as we transit the Canyon de Rio Dulce (from El Golfete to village of Livingston, Izabal, Guatemala, Central America). So trees are important to help birds (and trees are important to protect our planet)
Trees are needed by birds as a place to perch, place to find edible food, place to make nests to raise their families.
Trees are needed by vines to allow vines and lianas to get high to reach sunlight.
Tree limbs are helpful supports for orchids, bromeliads, ferns, and arboreal cactus vines (no terrestrial cacti are native in Municipio de Livingston rain forests: only cacti that climb trees).
Tree roots are often above ground since “ground” is limestone karst geology (so not much soil).
Tree bark comes in every color and structure you can imagine; tree trunks are hosts to mushrooms, lichens, ferns, vines, and lots of other plants.
Even though the Neotropical rain forests of the nature reserves of Livingston are not in New Hampshire (USA) or Canada, the leaves change colors: bright reds, copper-reds, yellows (all year long a different tree has their leaves change colors). So you can visit this part of Guatemala any month of the year and you will experience different colors.
So we at FLAAR (USA) and FLAAR Mesoamerica are devoting more field trips and library research on the native trees of Guatemala. We have just added a new web page on trees (and the complete report will be ready in April)
Although this great white heron is a water bird, it spends much of the day on a tree. Here it is keeping its eye focused on our boat as we transit the Canyon de Rio Dulce (from El Golfete to village of Livingston, Izabal, Guatemala, Central America). So trees are important to help birds (and trees are important to protect our planet)
Posted Mar. 25, 2020
