Wind, Sahara Dust and Good Birding

It was a weekend of wind, Sahara dust, and birds, rare birds.  The strong easterly winds enticed the birders to get out birding, with the promise of rarities and we were not disappointed.  On Saturday morning, my son and I made the rounds on the south coast. Our first stop at The Oistins Fish Market gave us our first rare bird for the weekend.

Brown Pelican @ Oistins
image by Jason Moore

A lone Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), that was sitting on a buoy far out to sea. We made two more stops first at Inch Marlow, where the beach was littered with Sargassum Seaweed, generating that oh too familiar nasty smell of rotting seaweed.  This attracted lots of flies, which inturned attracted Caribbean Martins (Progne dominice), which feeds on flying insects.  We next visited Chancery Lane but the swamp was dry and just a few common birds were there.  Ed Massiah went to St. Philip but saw nothing of interest.  In the afternoon John Webster went north, to The Animal Flower Cave, St. Lucy, and reported two Red-billed Tropicbirds (Phaethon aethereus).

Fulvous Whistling-Duck @ Mount Gay

On Sunday I visited two locations in the north, The Mount Gay Rum Distillery Pond and North Point.  At the distillery pond along with 50 plus  Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) was a rare Fulvous Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna bicolor) and on the cliff at North Point two more rare birds, a flyover from a Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) and a Collared Plover (Charadrius collaris).

Collared Plover @ North Point

This tiny quick moving plover is becoming a yearly visitor to the island.  To round off a weekend of birding, John shared a photo with us of a bird photographed on the west coast.  The bird had a yellow head, white underparts and a brownish-grayish upperpart.  The bird identification app iBird Pro identified it as a Black-throated Green Warbler, which is rare for the island, but even more so extremely rare for this time of year.

It was a good weekend of birding even with the Sahara dust about. Please stay safe friends, and enjoy your birding. 

More images from the weekend

Roseate Tern 

Carib Grackle

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck

Hermit Crab in snail shell - bird :)