Trip to St. Philip

January 26
For the last weekend in the month of January, I decided to concentrate my birding activity in the eastern parish of St. Philip.  I left home about 6 am.  It was still dark and cold outside.  The plan was to stay out for about 3 hours and to be home by 9am.  The locations I had planned to visit were WRS, Conga Road, King George V Park, Golden Grove and finally Bayfield Pond.

While on the road, I decided to check on the ducks at Chancery Lane.  I got there at 6:21am.  On the cliff looking over the swamp at Chancery Lane I was able to confirm that the Northern Pintails, American Wigeons and Blue-winged Teals were still there.   It has been over a month now that these ducks were at this location.  From Chancery Lane I headed to my first planned stop, WSR.

On my way to WSR I passed a gap called Factory Road.  I was very surprised to see there, over eighty (80) Eurasian Collard Doves on the power lines.  Maybe someone had recently been feeding them. 

WSR

 Woodbourne Shorebird Rescue (WSR) is one of my favorite places for birding on the island.  I got there at 6:50am and scanned over the ponds.  The pond in front of the observation hut had seven (7) Black-bellied Ducks, a couple of Moorhens, oh sorry “Common Gallinules” and my second Sora for the year.   My interest though, was in the south pond where an adult Yellow- crowned Night Heron was spotted weeks before.   A Yellow–crowned Night Heron would be a lifer for me.  As I reached the pond I saw instead, a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron moving about in the trees over the pond.  My visit was cut short by the rain and as I left WRS in the rain and headed to Conga Road I was hoping that the rain would be over.

Congo Road

As I turned into Congo Road I was greeted by a flock of small yellow birds, Grassland Yellow Finches. These birds were busy feeding in the agricultural land next to the swamp.  Also noticeable were large numbers of Least Sandpipers.  Other birds seen at Conga Road were Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, Greater Yellowlegs and Great and Snowy Egrets, but again that visit was cut short by the rain.  So it was on to my next stop, King George V Memorial Park.

King George V Memorial Park

This public park is not really known for birding, but I have found that when the trees within the park are flowering, it is a great location to photograph Hummingbirds, Bananaquits and Carpenter Bees.  With the rain still threatening I set about photographing the visitors to the tree.   An Antillean Crested Humming bird hovering to a flower was a great photo-op.  For the final time the rain came heavily which ended my trip to the parish of St. Philip prematurely.  I will have to do this one again sometime next month when the weather is better.

  
 Here is the list of birds recorded on that day.

Common Name	Scientific Names
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck	Dendrocygna autumnalis
Blue-winged Teal	Anas discors
American Wigeon	Anas americana
Northern Pintail	Anas acuta
Common Gallinule (Moorhen)	Gallinula galeata
Sora	Porzana carolina
Black-crowned Night-Heron	Nycticorax nycticorax
Little Blue Heron	Egretta caerulea
Green Heron	Butorides virescens
Snowy Egret	Egretta thula
Cattle Egret	Bubulcus ibis
Great Egret	Ardea alba
Black-bellied Plover	Pluvialis squatarola
Semipalmated Plover	Charadrius semipalmatus
Spotted Sandpiper	Actitis macularius
Stilt Sandpiper	Calidris himantopus
Least Sandpiper	Calidris minutilla
Semipalmated Sandpiper	Calidris pusilla
Wilson's Snipe	Gallinago delicata
Zenaida Dove	Zenaida aurita
Eurasian Collared-Dove	Streptopelia decaocto
Common Ground-Dove	Columbina passerina
Antillean Crested Hummingbird	Orthorhyncus cristatus
Bananaquit	Coereba flaveola
Gray Kingbird	Tyrannus dominicensis
Shiny Cowbird	Molothrus bonariensis
Carib Grackle	Quiscalus lugubris

 

Below are photographs from the St. Philip trip