The Caribbean and Jamaica

 

On November, 24th, on board the Viking Mars heading south from Ft. Lauderdale toward Cuba, we saw a Royal Tern flying alongside the ship before it dove and caught a flying fish. That was our fist “high seas” birding experience.

 

 

The next day (11/25) with the Cuban coast in the distance, we saw a Brown Booby soaring alongside the ship.

 

 

We arrived in Jamaica at Port Falmouth in rain but the drizzle stooped before we disembarked. We took a bus along the north coast heading west to Rose Hall, an 18^th century plantation manor with a storied past. Instead of taking the tour of the inside, we birded just to the east of the manse in a small wood with flowering shrubs, palm, and other tropical hardwoods.

 

The first bird we heard and saw was the endemic Jamaican Woodpecker.

 

 

Second was the exciting find of the Jamaican national bird, the Red-billed Streamer Tail. It posed so cooperatively on top of a tall flowering shrub.

 

 

This little wood yielded migratory Palm Warblers and Northern Parula, and here for a winter’s stay before heading north in spring to our home state. (Northern Parula below.)

 

 

 

New birds to us revealed themselves one after another. It was incredible despite the heavy overcast and the brief time we would have there.

 

White-chinned Thrush

Yellow-shouldered Grassquit

Olive-throated Parakeet

Bananaquit

White-crowned Pigeon

Loggerhead Kingbird

Caribbean Dove

We returned to the Port of Falmouth and our ship where mostly sea and water birds put on a show.

 

 Royal Terns and Brown Pelican

 

Laughing Gull (non-breeding)

Magnificent Frigatebird

Merlin

Royal Tern

White-winged Dove

On November 27th we awoke southwest of Jamaica heading toward Panama somewhere in the Western Caribbean. From our balcony we saw Brown Booby catch a flying fish.

 

And another life bird, the Masked Booby!