Night birding in Belize: A surreal visit with a bird like no other.

In search of owls and nightjars, we ended up finding the strangest bird in the tropics.

By Anders Gyllenhaal

It was hard to make sense of what we saw in the first sweep of the flashlight. The oversized eyes glowed almost neon, and the face looked more like a cartoon character than a bird.

We swerved off the road and rushed back for a second look.

It wasn’t easy spotting a Northern Potoo on the dark night we went birding in Belize. But when we found him again, the secretive, usually invisible bird just sat there, staring back as if as curious about us as we were about him.

His splotchy plumage melted into the post where he perched. Only those bright yellow eyes confirmed what we were seeing.

The potoo is built to disappear. By day, it freezes in place, blending perfectly into broken branches and weathered posts. At dusk, it awakens — perching motionless, watching for insects, its huge eyes made for night vision.

Surrounded by surprises

One of the highlights of our recent trip to Belize came on our last night when we went looking for owls, nightjars, pauraques — anything stirring after dark.

At first, it felt a little hopeless. We drove slowly along a dirt road through farmland and marshes in the country’s interior, seeing little beyond the reach of our headlights.

Then the night came alive. Pauraques began appearing in the road, flitting just ahead of us, chasing mosquitos drawn into the warm air. One moment they were invisible; the next, they flashed into view and vanished again.

Gradually, our eyes adjusted. With the help of our guide, Eric Tut, we began to see the landscape transform.

Shining eyes gave everything away. From deep in the brush and high in the trees, tiny reflections of light revealed a hidden world — a whole cast of nocturnal hunters out searching for their next meal.

This Barn owl was barely peeking from behind the trunk of a tree where he sat, but its eyes shone just enough. We stopped and played a game of hide-and-seek as it flexed its talons and glanced here and there.

That owl is expected here. The next was not.

When a Burrowing Owl appeared at the edge of a marsh, Eric’s reaction said everything.

“Get his picture! Get the picture!” he whispered, already halfway out of the vehicle.

The sighting was so unusual that an eBird reviewer later insisted on photographic proof it had been there.

That wasn’t easy to get. The owl moved constantly through the grasses, appearing and disappearing as Eric’s light struggled to hold it.

Finally, it paused. Just long enough for a good look and its portrait.

It’s a small owl, long-legged, bright-eyed — a bird we had never seen before, and might never see again.

How they see in the dark

The wonders of birds never fail to astound us. But at night, they feel almost supernatural.

Nocturnal birds are built to gather the faintest traces of light. Their large eyes work like ultra-sensitive cameras, packed with light-detecting cells that allow them to see in near darkness. Many species also rely on highly acute hearing, combining both senses to navigate and hunt with precision.

One of the most striking owls we found was a Mottled Owl, a medium-sized species ranging from Mexico to Argentina. Ours sat quietly on a roadside post, its vertical markings and dark eyes giving it a calm, watchful presence.

The highlight of the night, though, was the Northern Potoo.

We were lucky enough to come across two of them. Both allowed us good looks at one of the strangest birds in the tropics.

From the front, it’s all eyes — wide, glowing, unreal. From the side, its true shape emerges: tall and thin, with long tail feathers stretching well below its perch.

We lingered only briefly, not wanting to disturb the bird. In those few moments, the potoo kept scanning the darkness, swinging its gaze back and forth in search of insects, moths and beetles.

We finally moved on. But the image we carried with us — and later, the photograph we came home with — were favorites of the trip: A glimpse into a wild, busy world we rarely see.