Birds in the Caribbean
Just returned from my cruise to Bermuda, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Puerto Rico. Not only was it the best vacation I've ever taken, but I managed to add 28 new species to my life list.
Some birds were seen from my balcony on the trip down or back, while others were natives to the islands themselves. I even managed to get some photos of the more common birds and added them to my gallery. It's amazing and funny how exciting it is to get new species and then laugh at how common they are to that area when you see them a hundred more times before the trip is over. For example, seeing my first Bananaquit was great...before I realized that they would show up in every piece of vegetation for the remainder of the trip!
It was amazing seeing the Masked and Brown Boobies dive for flying fish right outside my balcony while the ship cruised towards the Virgin Islands. Later, they hunted just feet from swimmers at the beaches.
My list of new lifers:
- Greater Shearwater
- Wilson's Storm-Petrel
- Parasitic Jaeger
- White-tailed Tropicbird
- Red-billed Tropicbird
- Masked Booby
- Brown Booby
- Magnificent Frigatebird
- Sooty Tern
- Sandwich Tern
- Brown Noddy
- Bananaquit
- Antillean Mango
- Antillean Crested Hummingbird
- Green-throated Carib
- Lesser Antillean Bullfinch
- Common Ground-Dove
- White-winged Dove
- Zenaida Dove
- Scaly-naped Pigeon
- Black-whiskered Vireo
- Puerto Rican Tanager
- Black Swift
- Caribbean Martin
- Greater Antillean Grackle
- Cattle Egret
- Pearly-eyed Thrasher
- Gray Kingbird