Rare Birds Update: End of May

You would have noted that an update for April was never posted, this is because of the lockdown that was in place because of COVID-19 that kept everyone at home and hence no rare birds were recorded.  Those restrictions were slackened, to a point that allowed for limited birding during the month of May.  The local birders, as if  making up for the lost time, submitted 52 completed checklists, with over 50 species to ebird including a few rare birds.  Most of the long-stay rare birds like the Ruffs (Calidris pugnax) that were present in March moved on sometime during the lockdown.

Here are the rare birds sightings for the month: 
*continuing Bird(s) (Birds from last month)

St. Lucy

Glossy Ibis in full flight

• Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)* This bird is enjoying the Bajan hospitality it was with us since August 2019.

St. Andrew

• American Coot ((White Shielded) Fulica Americana)* the once Caribbean Coot  (Fulica caribaea) is making its mark in this parish and is now being seen at two locations, 4 at The Walkers Reserve and one at Bawdens. The likelihood of breeding is very high.
  
• American Coot ((Red Shielded) Fulica Americana) the rarer of the two American Coot was seen in the same pond at Bawdens mentioned above.  I suspect these pair are preparing to nest.

St. Philip

LB Dowitcher for the back of John Webster's camera 

• Long-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus) one bird with two Short-billed Dowotichers seen by John Webster on the 30^th. Separating the two Dowitchers is always difficult so I reached out to Guillermo Rodriguez Lazaro of the blog Sub-alpine birding, who wrote a post on identifying dowitchers using the Underwing pattern, he confirmed that one of the birds was indeed a Long-billed Dowitcher.

Christ Church

• Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) was seen at Oistins on 25^th which is rare for the time of year. We normally see Common Terns around the middle of August.

We saw two birds last month that were not rare birds but rare looking birds.

• Bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) seen at Walkers, St. George. Unlike our regular Bananaquit, which has yellow underparts, this bird shows a yellow breast down to half the belly, the other half greyish which gradually graded into a white rear underpart. This is the 3^rd time I have seen this bananaquit or one like it but I checked my new Birds of The West Indies by Kirwan, Levesque, Oberle, and Sharpe to see if any of the Caribbean subspecies matched this plumage type but none do.
  
• Green Heron (Butorides virescens) seen at Redland, St. John which showed an uncharacteristic   white belly instead of the customary greyish one.  This may be a simple case of leucism but it gave the bird a unique look.

That is it for the month of May as we roll on into June. Please stay safe, practice physical distancing, and continue to enjoy your birding.

Feel free to contact me, Julian Moore(100birdsbarbados@gmail.com), John Webster (barbadosbirds@gmail.com), or Ed Massiah (ebmassiah@hotmail.com) to report any rare bird sightings, or if you need assistance identifying a bird we would be happy to help.