Long Pond

Long Pond is located on the East Coast of the island in the parish of St. Andrew along the famous Ermy Bourne Highway commonly known as the East Coast Road.  It is situated about 6km from Bathsheba, the home of the world famous surfers paradise The Soup Bowl.

Long Pond is a shallow brackish water lagoon separated from the sea at low tide by a sand bank.  It is an important stop over for wintering birds such as Sandpipers, Plovers and Herons.   You may also see Belted Kingfishers “Ceryle alcyon” and the resident Osprey “Pandion haliaetus”, who I’m told, takes up residence in a Casuarina tree “Casuarina equisetifolia” on the south bank of the lagoon.

The flora

The most dominant grass around the pond is Crab grass “Sporobolus virginicus”. Woods made up mainly of Casuarina tree “Casuarina equisetifolia” are on the south bank and Coconut trees on the north both provides perfect habitat for Passerines birds.

Long Pond and the two other brackish water wetlands, Graeme Hall and Chancery lane play and important part of the island ecosystem and should be protected.

Click Here for Google Map and Earth images of Long Pond

See pictures from Long Pond Below..

Long Pond

From the north bank looking south- east

Sunset over Long Pond

Looking East from the South Bank

Semipalmated Plover at Long Pond

Sanderling at long Pong

Chancery Lane

Chancery Lane

Chancery Lane is located 14km east of Bridgetown and 1km south of the Grantley Adams International Airport.  As with Graeme Hall and Long Pond, Chancery Lane is a brackish water swamp.  The flora is made up of halophytic vegetation.  It is the one place on the island that you will be sure to see the Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia).

Click Here for Google Map and Earth images

Here are some resent photos from Chancery Lane:

Chancery Lane during the wet season

Flora around the swamp

Wader at Chancery Lane during the dry season

Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres) at Chancery Lane

Snowy Egret (Egretta thula)



Chancery is one place on the island your sure to see the Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia)



3 Hours 5 Locations 16 Species = Great Afternoon

After a hard days work I decided to relax by going birding and it was rewarding.  I saw 10+ species of bird and visited five (5) different locations. At one of the location, a shooting pond, shorebirds were caged up from the just concluded hunting season, one of the tricks  hunters use to lure bird into firing range.   How sad these poor birds look. In the cages were Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus), Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres) and Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) that I was able to identify. Here is list of the bird I saw and some photos

Bird	Latin Name	Number
Great Blue Heron	Ardea herodias	1
Little Blue Heron	Egretta caerulea	4
Green Heron	Butorides virescens	5
Great Egret	Ardea alba	2
Cattle Egret	Bubulcus ibis	20+
Snowy Egrets	Egretta thula	1
Common Moorhen	Gallinula chloropus	10
Wilson’s Snipe	Gallinago delicata	4
Spotted Sandpipers	Tringa erythropus	3
Semipalmated Plover	Charadrius semipalmatus	3
Belted Kingfisher	Megaceryle alcyon	1
Gray Kingbirds	Tyrannus dominicensis	3
Black-Faced Grassquit	Tiaris bicolor	2
Carib Grackle	Quiscalus lugubris	10
Green-throated Carib Eulampis holosericeus	Eulampis holosericeus	1
Sora	Porzana carolina	1
Yellow Warbler	Setophaga petechia	1



Blue Heron in Flight

Black-Faced Grassquit

Spotted Sandpiper

Green Heron and Snipe



Cattlesand a Snowy Egret

Common Moorhen

Caged Birds at ahooting swamp



Barbados Wetlands - Graeme Hall

Throughout the year Barbados plays host to tens of thousands of migrating birds on their way to and from breeding grounds.  For the next two months, before the start of the challenge, I’ll highlight some of the premier birding locations on the island starting with the wetlands.

Wetlands
Barbados has very few natural wetlands but these are supplemented by a number of man made ponds and shallow swamps used for irrigation, in agricultural purposes, and for attracting, mainly shorebirds, for shooting as sport. 

The three most significant wetlands are found at Graeme Hall and Chancery Lane swamps both located on the South Coast and Long Pond on the East Coast of the island.

Graeme Hall Swamp

Graeme Hall Swamp is located 5km east of the capital city, Bridgetown, in the parish of Christ Church.  It is a mangrove swamp where white (Laguncularia racemosa) and red (Rhizophora mangle) mangroves strive in the brackish water of the swamp.  This ecosystem supports flora, fauna and other forms of life but with our main focus on birds, Cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis) are in abundance there, along with a number of Herons, Osprey etc.  For more information on Graeme Hall Swamp now called Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary please click here ; For Google Map click here.

Here are some Photos taken at Graeme Hall Swamp:

Sign at the entrance to The Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary

Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis)

                                                                                                                                                                                       

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

Intro

You may ask yourself “Photographing 100 Birds species in one year, how hard can that be?”  According to Wikipedia the birds found in Barbados includes a total of 214 species, of which only one (1) is endemic -that is found only on Barbados and five (5) have been introduced by humans.  However 147 of that 214, are listed as rare or accidental, which means they may or may not come to the island in any given year. Now let’s do the math - 214 species minus 147 rare or accidental leave me with 67 species that I should see for sure. I will now have to find a further 33 species of birds from the rare and accidental group to make up my target 100 bird count.  The biggest challenge I will face will be time.  To begin, I have a wife and two children, ages 7 and 3.  I work from Monday to Friday and my weekends, because of important commitments are super busy and did I say I have a wife and two children.  Therefore I will have about 4 Hours tops on weekends if at all.  Equipment will also be a challenge.  I would have liked to have a Canon 4D iii 0r 1D with a telephoto lens up 600mm+ that would be nice but I do have my trusted Canon Rebel with a Sigma 28 – 300mm f/3.5 hoping to add a converter to get up to no less than 550mm but it should be fun.

I’ll be going for quality first then documentary second:  I am going for quality first and documentary second- that is I will only post quality shots when I can but I will post lower quality shots for the purpose of identification.

All pictures posted are copyrighted and can be made available for purchased by contacting me at 100birdsbarbados@gmail.com