September in Review - Part 1

Thirty birds in three months! Can I do it? My biggest supporter, my wife, thinks I can, but if I needed thirty birds in one month she would still feel that I could do it. Hmm! For the month of September I posted five (5) birds moving my count to 70 species. I also added two (2) new species to my year and life count both of which now stand at 79 species.

Thirty Birds in three months

If this was a marathon, we would view this as the home stretch.  It seems like a lot of birds to find. I am still 90% sure that I will see and be able to photograph the following before yearend:

1. Peregrine Falcon  Falco peregrines
2. Merlin  Falco columbarius
3. American Coot  Fulica Americana
4. Caribbean Coot   Fulica caribaea
5. Hudsonian Godwit  Limosa haemastica
6. Buff-breasted Sandpiper Tryngites subruficollis
7. Yellow-billed Cuckoo Coccyzus americanus
8. West Indian Whistling Duck  Dendrocygna arborea
9. Blackpoll Warbler  Setophaga striata
10. Roseate Tern  Sterna dougallii

I will be hope for a lot more outside of this list.

Photograph of the Month

In the month of September I spent two afternoons at the Woodbourne Shorebird Rescue totaling about 3 hours. In those three hours I recorded 33 species of birds.  My photo of the month was taken on my first afternoon at WSR. It is of a 1^st Year Laughing Gull circling the main pond in search of food.  

10,000 Page views

A year ago, if someone had said to me that in less than a year of sharing my hobby and love for birds and birding in the blogosphere, that I would see persons from over 15 countries in the world reading my content, I would have said no way. I would also not have envisioned that in less than 1 year that my page would have been visited by over 10,000 viewers. Well that is what happened in the month of September. I would like to say thank you to all who visited this blog and I hope that it helps you to know more about the Birds of Barbados and to a lesser extent the Birds of the Caribbean.

Equipment Upgrade

No I don’t now own an L series lens or a Canon 1DX but I am accepting donations (lol). My trusty Canon Rebel XT, code name Candace, has been relegated to second shoot thanks to the all most “new”, addition to my gear bag, a Canon Rebel T3, codename Candis. Its upgrades over the XT include an increase in megapixels from 8 to 12mp; a higher ISO range, a larger LCD display with live views and best of all, it offers video.

On to October

October will be a very important month; I must reach my goal of 10 species to stay on course. The good news is that the official 2013 hunting season will end on October 15^th thus opening up more locations for birding.  Ducks will also be arriving very soon along with the Warblers.  So it’s on to October!  Please stay tuned to the continuing saga of the 100 Barbados Birds Challenge.

Part 2 of this post shows some of the birds I photographed throughout the month of september.