With everyone arriving a day early we had a really nice rest this morning, not leaving the hotel until after I had picked up the rental van and returning to the hotel at 10am. It wasn’t the best hotel in the world but it served a purpose, but what was good (and you have to be a birder to appreciate this) was we were only 1.9kms away from a Green-throated Carib stakeout that had been producing superlative looks at this tricky species for the past few weeks. It wouldn’t still be there, would it? Oh yes baby it was! No sooner had we exited the minibus we were watching a pair feeding amidst a large flowering tree right next to our parked vehicle. We enjoyed repeated views of this cracking hummer (and is there ever such a thing as a bad hummer?), which seemed to be doing a circuit of the surrounding area and returning to its favourite tree every ten minutes or so. We also saw our first Puerto Rican Spindalis, Red-legged Thrush and tried hard to ignore the ubiquitous Greater Antillean Grackles all around us.
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| Green-throated Carib |
Leaving here we drove around 30 minutes to El Yunque, arriving at the worst time of day, and it showed as we struggled to get on anything for a while. Eventually, Puerto Rican Loggerhead Kingbirds were admitted to our fledgeling island list, along with Grey Kingbirds, a single Northern Parula and a Magnificent Frigatebird. Oh I forgot to mention the driveby flock of Caribbean Martins seen by a few of us as we drove along the motorway en-route - but they'd be a daily sighting from now on. A very brief Puerto Rican Mango (split from Antillean Mango allegedly) didn’t make it onto our lists due to the ultra brief sighting, although I did note it had a black belly and the mantle seemed to be a light gold colour in the sun….
So giving this up as a bad lot we drove down and visited a nice little restaurant where we spent way too much time, no doubt due to the cold beer being consumed by my group! However, it was worthwhile for our first sighting of Puerto Rican Oriole and Puerto Rican Woodpecker, some showy Zenaida Doves, along with a group of Smooth-billed Anis. This little lot really gave us an adrenaline surge so we headed over to Las Croabas where our search for Antillean Crested Hummingbird drew a blank, but we did have Venezualian Troupial, another oriole and woodpecker, as well as Common Ground Dove.
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| Puerto Rican Woodpecker |
By now it was 4.30pm and we drove the two hours to Cambalache Forest, but our journey was prolonged by a long tailback just the other side of San Juan but during the drive we did see a Western Osprey and a flock of Cave Swallows. Arriving at dusk, it was too late for any other birding apart from a stab at Puerto Rican Owl, which was our aim anyway. We heard two individuals but try as we might the forest was just too dense, despite getting rather close on one occasion. Oh well, we’d save that one for later! Our digs for the night were a little quirky but the restaurant did us proud with a very nice meal and we were tucked up in bed by 10.00pm ready for a big day tomorrow.
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