Headed out at first light (roughly 06:45am) and drove along the Rabo de Gato Trail in our minibus for a few kilometres to a place where 2 Belgian birders had found a Bay-breasted Cuckoo yesterday. This was our most-wanted bird and knowing how difficult this species is to see in a normal year, let alone during this drought, we were ultra-keen to find it. Sure enough at the designated GPS spot I played the call once and up popped the cuckoo onto a bare branch some way off in the forest. Wow! It remained there for maybe a minute before dropping back down and out of sight. Amazing! So we continued walking further along the trail and stumbled across a wet area of forest caused by a leaking pipe. Whilst here, a guy came and started a generator to operate a water pump and the water started flowing and the large pipe had numerous leaks, one of which was designed to create what was in effect a stream. This area held numerous Key West Quail-Doves (maybe 4 or 5 pairs) and after much searching a White-fronted Quail-Dove, just walking along the forest floor some 40 yards away. Naturally there was panic as we all tried to secure this perfect tickable views, but we all did and there were high fives all round.
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| Key West Quail-Dove |
This damper section of forest was also to the liking of maybe half a dozen Ovenbirds, as well as Hispaniolan Lizard Cuckoo, Black-crowned Palm Tanager and Greater Antillean Bullfinch. And back at the bus there were 3 Hispaniolan Amazons hanging around in the surrounding trees.
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| Black-crowned Palm Tanager |
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| Broad-billed Tody |
Hispaniolan Parrot
Returning to Villa Barrancoli for a late breakfast we had really nice views of a Hispaniolan Mango feeding on the flowers around the breakfast area. A male Hispaniolan Emerald also put in an appearance and we’d see it a few more times before we’d leave tomorrow as well. So after breakfast I decided to take a chance and go over to Lago Enrequillo for some Hispaniolan Palm Crows reported recently. Boy it was hot. So hot! At the first location we drew a blank so we decided to find a track down to the water and luckily one such path took us to a goat farm where I randomly played the call and several Palm Crows flew in and landed close by.
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| Hispaniolan Palm Crow |
After watching them for a bit we drove further along and found another track down to the water where we walked through a patch of tall thorn scrub and it seemed there had been a fall of warblers with Ovenbird, Northern Parulas everywhere, Black-throated Blue, Palm, Common Yellowthroat and American Redstart. Along the shoreline were a few shorebirds such as Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, and a group of Least Sandpipers. Numerous dead trees out in the water were being used as perches for Western Osprey, and both Tricoloured and Great Blue Herons.
Upon return to Villa Barrancoli we saw the Hispaniolan Emerald again before driving back to the same wet area of forest from this morning but drew a blank on any quail-doves but did hear the Bay-breasted Cuckoo. So not a bad day so far. Later this evening we went out after the poorwill and nightjar but despite hearing numerous Hispaniolan Nightjars we just couldn’t locate one in the dense thorn scrub.
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