2017 Photographic Big Year 43-46: A New Bird for Barbados

My first lifer for 2017 and a new bird for Barbados was the highlight of week 12.  Last week I posted about an unidentified bird.  This bird was first seen by Dr. John Webster at a Christ Church Swamp about two weeks ago and by myself on March 18^th. I posted images of the bird in question on the website www.birdforum.net and straight away got a responds from Michael “Nutcracker” Frankis, of Newcastle, UK, that the images was without a doubt a female (43)Tufted Duck.  Dr. Webster also sent images to noted ornithologist and birders around the world who all agreed that it was in deed a Tufted Duck.  The males of this Eurasian diving duck is black on the head, neck, breast with a white flank while the females are brown all over. Both genders has yellow eyes and a tuft of feathers on back of the head. Tufted can be found breeding along the high and middle latitudes from Iceland eastward to Siberia and winters farther south in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Significant numbers reach North America in fall migration and spend the winter, mostly along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and now also Barbados, West Indies 👍.  This bird increased my life count for Barbados to 128, for the West Indies 145, Life count 242 and year count to 63 species.

The other birds for my big year album: (44)Belted Kingfisher, (45)Lesser Yellowleg and (46) Grassland Yellowfinch moving my tally to 46 birds. 

 See 2017 Photographic Big Year images here.

43 -Tufted Duck - Aythya fuligula- New bird for Barbados and a lifer

44 - Belted Kingfisher - Megaceryle alcyon

45 - Lesser Yellowlegs - Tringa flavipes

46 - Grassland Yellow-Finch - Sicalis luteola

 See 2017 Photographic Big Year images here.

2017 Photographic Big Year 40 - 42

The promise of a lifer and a new bird for the island brought the quartet of local birders, myself included, out birding together on Saturday 18th. I cannot remember the last time we were all out birding together.  While the debate continues on the identification of the bird, this excursion provided me with a “year bird”, moving my tally for the year to 62 species.  It also provided me with one of the images for week 11, that of a flock of (42)Ring-necked Ducks. The other birds for week11 are (40)Bananaquit and (41)Caribbean Elaenia.

See 2017 Photographic Big Year images here.

    

40 - Bananaquit - Coereba flaveola

41 - Caribbean Elaenia - Elaenia martinica

42 - Ring-necked Duck - Aythya collaris

2017 Photographic Big Year 37- 39

At the end of the 10^th week of the year my tally of bird species, for my 2017 big year, stood at 39 up from 36 species the previous week.  The new birds added: (37) Sora, (38) Common Ground Dove and (39) Scaly-naped Pigeon. 

You can see the images display below.

See 2017 Photographic Big Year images here.

37- Sora - Porzana carolina

38 - Common Ground-Dove - Columbina passerina

39 - Scaly-naped Pigeon - Patagioenas squamosa

 See 2017 Photographic Big Year images here.