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Caribbean birding trip!

Derek Matthews All Messages By This Member #98 We have just finished a 3-week trip to three of the Caribbean Islands we haven't visited before: Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. ? All 5 of our target birds in T&C were tricky with just single views of most of them despite birding hard and scouring Providenciales, Middle and North Caicos Islands. Cuban Crow was a crazy birding moment as we hunted high and low for this bird which we knew was very scarce and we couldn’t find it anywhere. We stopped at one location for American Flamingo and as we got out of the car we heard the crow call, it landed on a post right in front of us, stayed there for about 2 minutes for fantastic views and then flew off and that was it, we never heard or saw another one the whole time we were there! ? We finished our 10 days in Dominican Republic with some really good birds – one highlight for sure was Bay-breasted Cuckoo which is very shy and difficult to see. We heard it first and then crept through the bush with our guide on our hands and knees for about an hour until we finally found it and got great views. There are times when we think we must be completely mad and then times like this when it’s all worth it! This was also the day we got 3 Quail-Doves – White-fronted, Key West and Ruddy Quail-Dove – any day you get three Quail-Doves is a pretty special birding day! Other highlights were Eastern Chat-Tanager, Greater Antillean Elaenia, Hispaniola Siskin, Hispaniolan Crossbill and Bicknell’s Thrush. It was also nice to see all the NA warblers on their winter grounds down there: Northern Parula, Yellow, Cape May (lots), Myrtle, Black-throated Blue, Pine (lots), Prairie (lots), Palm, Black-and-white, American Redstart (lots), Ovenbird (lots) and Northern and Louisiana Waterthrush. We finished the third leg of our Caribbean trip in Puerto Rico. We thought PR would be the best part of the trip for birds but actually had more species and more life birds in Dominican Republic. Highlights in PR were Adelaide’s and Elfin woods Warbler, Green-throated Carib, PR Flycatcher, PR Vireo and PR Tody which gave us the last of the world’s 5 Tody species endemic to the Caribbean islands. Total new species for the trip was 64 – trip reports for all 3 islands with photos are on the website at https://worldbirdtraveler.com/ - click on Caribbean! Derek Matthews VARC ?
Daniel Bastaja All Messages By This Member #100 Congrats Derek! 64 lifers on a single trip is fantastic, especially considering how many you and Carol already have on your life list. Nice! I look forward to reading the trip report. :) Daniel Bastaja danielbastaja@... toggle quoted message Show quoted text On Feb 26, 2020, at 1:21 AM, Derek Matthews <Derek@...> wrote: We have just finished a 3-week trip to three of the Caribbean Islands we haven't visited before: Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. All 5 of our target birds in T&C were tricky with just single views of most of them despite birding hard and scouring Providenciales, Middle and North Caicos Islands. Cuban Crow was a crazy birding moment as we hunted high and low for this bird which we knew was very scarce and we couldn’t find it anywhere. We stopped at one location for American Flamingo and as we got out of the car we heard the crow call, it landed on a post right in front of us, stayed there for about 2 minutes for fantastic views and then flew off and that was it, we never heard or saw another one the whole time we were there! We finished our 10 days in Dominican Republic with some really good birds – one highlight for sure was Bay-breasted Cuckoo which is very shy and difficult to see. We heard it first and then crept through the bush with our guide on our hands and knees for about an hour until we finally found it and got great views. There are times when we think we must be completely mad and then times like this when it’s all worth it! This was also the day we got 3 Quail-Doves – White-fronted, Key West and Ruddy Quail-Dove – any day you get three Quail-Doves is a pretty special birding day! Other highlights were Eastern Chat-Tanager, Greater Antillean Elaenia, Hispaniola Siskin, Hispaniolan Crossbill and Bicknell’s Thrush. It was also nice to see all the NA warblers on their winter grounds down there: Northern Parula, Yellow, Cape May (lots), Myrtle, Black-throated Blue, Pine (lots), Prairie (lots), Palm, Black-and-white, American Redstart (lots), Ovenbird (lots) and Northern and Louisiana Waterthrush. We finished the third leg of our Caribbean trip in Puerto Rico. We thought PR would be the best part of the trip for birds but actually had more species and more life birds in Dominican Republic. Highlights in PR were Adelaide’s and Elfin woods Warbler, Green-throated Carib, PR Flycatcher, PR Vireo and PR Tody which gave us the last of the world’s 5 Tody species endemic to the Caribbean islands. Total new species for the trip was 64 – trip reports for all 3 islands with photos are on the website at - click on Caribbean! Derek Matthews VARC

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