Offering a bit of a respite from the hotter lowlands, Mountain Pine Ridge is one of the most heavily visited reserves.

It's a landscape of rolling pine forest spread over smooth granite hillsides, a slightly bizarre area with battalions of uniform pine sporadically dissected by fire breaks and broadleaf gallery forest. Established in 1944, the reserve has been logged on a carefully managed basis ever since. Acorn Woodpeckers are busy around D'Silva Forest Station causing great aggravation by hammering buildings, guttering and telegraph poles. Their habit of storing acorns in tree stumps will be familiar to visitors from North America, but for some reason, the Belizean ones do it as well, even though there's no harsh winter to survive. Other reserve specialties include the Rufous-capped Warbler, Crossbill, Pine Siskin, Stigeon Owl and Eastern Bluebird. Raptors cruise the valleys of the Pine Ridge, and it's the most likely place in Belize to see Orange breasted Falcons.

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