The Barbados birds and Birding Report - June

June is normally a slow birding month.  Most of the migratory birds are on their breeding grounds in North America and they are one or two birds to look out for, but this June was extra slow.  But the last couple of days in the month was pretty excited. But before getting into the rarities and other stuff I would like to congratulate Dr. John Webster and his lovely wife Sonia who won the award for the best smile in the Birds Caribbean Global Big Day Awards 2020. I just want to add, if it was a photo of John alone he would not have won the award.  

Birds for the Month

In June, birders on the island recorded 52 species, including four first for the year and a few rare birds.  The four first were a Fulvous Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna bicolor), Roseate Tern (Sterna dougallii), Collared Plover (Charadrius collaris) and a surprise appearance by a Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens). At the end of June 89 species of birds were recorded on the island.

Rare Birds by Parish   * denotes a continuing Bird(s) (Birds from last month)

St. Lucy

• Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)* This bird is has been around since August 2019.

  

  Fulvous Whistling-Duck

• Fulvous Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna bicolor) – seen on the 14^th at the Mount Gay Distillery Pond with Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) by Mr. L. Larsen. This bird is expected at this time of year.

  

  Collared Plover

• Collared Plover (Charadrius collaris) – this tiny plover was seen on the cliff above River Bay on the 28^th.

  

  Brown Pelican

• Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) was seen on the 28th at River Bay

St. Andrew

American Coot (White Shielded)

• American Coot ((White Shielded) Fulica Americana)*, 4 at The Walkers Reserve, with a pair actively involved in nest building,  and one at Bawdens, an aggressive male paired with a Red shielded female.
• American Coot ((Red Shielded) Fulica Americana) the rarer of the two American Coot on island. One bird is at Walkers Reserve and the other is paired with a White Shielded at Bawdens as mentioned above.  

St. Peter

• Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens) – this is for sure the bird of the month. Photographed in a private residence on the St. Peter coastline. It is rare to see migratory warblers at this time of year with only one June-July record for this species in the West Indies, from St.  Barthélemy on June 2, 2019.

St. Philip

• Long-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus)* one bird seen with two Short-billed Dowotichers by John Webster on May 30th. 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. The bird hanged around for a few days and then moved on.

  

  Grey Heron

• Gray Heron (Ardea cinerea) was seen in the cow pasture at Golden Grove.

  

  White-tailed Tropicbird

• White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus) The first report for the year was on February 4^th by Quincy Clarke. Seen on June 1^st at Green Point.

Christ Church

Brown Pelican

• Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) seen at Oistins, sitting on a buoy way out to sea.

St. Michael

• Pearly-eyed Thrasher (Margarops fuscatus) – a photo and a short video of this bird drinking water were posted on Facebook on the 17^th  for identification.  It is the second reported sighting of this species for the year.   

June ended with an increase in birding activity. It no doubts will continue as we approach the business end of the year, the start of the southern migration.