Welcome to Birdquest
JAMAICA, HISPANIOLA & PUERTO RICO
Wednesday 18th March - Sunday 5th April 2009
Mark Van Beirs
Fantastic looks at several ultra rare Ridgway’s Hawks, a fabulous encounter with a ghostly Ashy-faced Owl, lengthy in depth studies of a cracking La Selle Thrush, great looks at a gleaming White-tailed Tropicbird, many adorable Red-billed Streamertails, eye-ball to eye-ball views of a Puerto Rican Nightjar, a pair of very well-behaving Bay-breasted Cuckoos and dainty Elfin Woods Warblers at minimum range were some of the highlights of our eighth tour to these Caribbean islands. We observed most of the Jamaican, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rican single island endemics and saw the majority of the possible multi-island endemics. Add to that a great selection of waterbirds, waders and warblers and the unique Caribbean atmosphere and one soon realizes why this is one of my favourite tours. However, we often had to work hard to get to grips with some of the specialties, making for some ridiculously early starts. The weather was generally quite atypical, with regular downpours and often overcast skies. A great bonus of this tour is the chance to add two restricted range bird families to the tally: the gorgeous Todies (Todidae - of which we saw four out of five) and the bizarre Palmchat, the only member of its family. A total of 206 species were recorded on this tour, including no fewer than 25 species, which are mentioned by BirdLife International in “Threatened Birds of the World”.
