Puerto Rico & the bird on plate 13 (1 Viewer)

It all started with a book…

Some eons ago (okay, maybe 20 years or so), I received, as a gift, a copy of Warblers of the Americas: An Identification Guide by Curson, Beadle, and Quinn. I had already been birding in for a few years at that time, and so was more-or-less familiar with the brilliance and variety of that family or birds; southern Ontario, with its intersecting flyways, is one of best places in the world to look for warblers. Nonetheless, this book was a revelation – pages-full of unheard-of tropical genera (Basileuterus, Myioborus), and Caribbean Island endemics. The heavens opened, a choir sang, a disembodied voice whispered in my ear “Peter … I foresee much travel in your future …”

(‘Is this the book that launched 1,000 trips?’ … well, a couple of dozen, at least. Potentially. If I can ever afford them.)
Specifically, it was plate #13 (by Mr. Quinn) of Warblers of the Americas that launched this particular trip. At the bottom of that plate, a rather monochromatic little bird is depicted - the Elfin-woods Warbler. I love obscure birds like this; not only is it confined to a single island, it is further confined to a particular forest-type (no points for guessing which) on said island. Most intriguing of all, it was only discovered (by ornithologists, at least) in 1972! That was about 470 years after European settlement, in case you’re wondering … and (I think) this makes it the only new world warbler discovered within my lifetime.

Now, I doubt I will ever encounter an undiscovered bird species myself; but finding one of these would be only a few decades late for the party. I really, really wanted to see one. So, although the avifauna is not very diverse (at least, by neo-tropical standards), Puerto Rico has long been in the back of my mind as a destination; and, this past holiday season, I finally got around to it.

Not incidentally, there are a further fifteen or sixteen* endemics on Puerto Rico, including another warbler species, Adelaide’s. (This species only became an endemic after a split, which occurred relatively recently, after W. o. t. A. was published.) Anyway, we certainly weren’t going to turn up our noses at any of these birds while we were there!

Peter C.

*The number of endemics partially depends on whose list you follow, but in this case, it also depends on how one defines “Puerto Rico.” A couple of the Puerto Rican endemics, so-called, actually also occur on the US Virgin islands, but are still considered endemics on most peoples’ checklists.

Puerto Rico "Day 0" - Some Practical Matters:

... also known as, "the boring part - logistics and stuff."

The Team:
That would be me, plus my fellow explorer and faithful sidekick DMM; we’ve been on more of these excursions than I can easily calculate. (Of course, in her version of the story, I’m the sidekick). Herself is the first essential of every birding trip – not least because, when it comes to the really important stuff (like life birds), she has this uncanny knack for seeing the things I miss. I still think my hearing’s better, though.

The Plan:
We had a week available for this expedition, pretty much evenly straddling New Year’s day, 2014. The Plan was to divide out time around three “stations”, which we’d use as bases. This (we hoped) would maximize our chances at as many of the endemics as possible, while keeping the amount of time we’d have to spend driving around to a minimum.

• First, three nights at Casita del Lago, a self-catering cottage in the central hills of Puerto Rico, just outside of the town of Utuado. This site was chosen to be convenient to the Maricao State Forest for Elfin-woods and some other endemics.
• One night at the Copamarina, a resort on the south coast. This was the nearest place we could find (with space still available) to the dry forest at Guanica, which was supposed to be the place for Puerto Rican Nightjar; also good for Adelaide’s Warbler, and some of the other endemics. (Oh, and for the very convenient snorkelling right offshore).
• Finally, three nights at Cieba Country Inn. Cieba is a small town near Puerto Rico’s east coast, and the idea here was to be near the Caribbean National Forest. This site the only spot where one might have an (admittedly remote) shot at the Puerto Rican Parrot, one of the most endangered birds in the Hemisphere. The CNF would also serve as a back-up highland spot for Elfin-woods Warbler. Another good thing about this area was that it was only about 20 min. from the seaside reserve at Fajardo, where we hoped to do some more snorkelling, and perhaps pick up some seabirds.

The flight:
We got a WestJet 737 direct from Toronto to San Juan. I liked this flight for three reasons.
1. It was non-stop.
2. At $913 pp, it was relatively cheap, given that we were travelling at peak season.
3. The timing was right in the “Goldilocks zone.” The departure (0950) was late enough in the morning to allow us to drive straight from home without difficulty, and the arrival at SJU early enough (in theory) to allow us to reach Utuado the same day without have to muddle around in the dark.

The car:
Did a lot of research on getting around in Puerto Rico on Tripadvisor; the consensus was, you really need a car there, as public transport is virtually non-existent. On the plus side, roads were said to be mostly in very good condition, so I could go with a “normal” compact car.

We ended up with a white Toyota Yaris, which was quite small and boxy, but suited are minimal needs fine. We rented from Avis, and paid in advance online (which felt a little dicey, but the daily rate was significantly lower that way. It all worked out very well in the end.

Resources:

• Birds of the West Indies, by H. Raffaele et al., was our choice of field guide. Picked this up just before departure; for years, I had stuck it out with the old J. Bond field guide, but this time, decided to go with a new book with reasonably plates. Another big plus of this book was that it actually depicts all the birds of regular occurrence, not excluding the many North American migrants.
• Even though it’s getting a bit “old in the tooth” I highly recommend Where to Watch Birds in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean (Wheatley, N. and Brewer D.) for a trip like this. Without it, we would have been at a loss as to where in Puerto Rico to go.

Some other useful stuff we took:

• An iPod Touch: I collected some examples of songs or calls for each of the Puerto Rican endemics on here; just picked up what I needed from Xeno-canto. Very handy for reference (I don’t do playback), especially for some cryptic species like Puerto Rican Vireo.
• My newly-acquired Nikon ED50 travel scope: This is the first time I’ve gone out of the country since I bought this, and man, is it ever compact! Really good to have it along, although as it turned out, we didn’t use it often; we simply didn’t visit many localities with distant birds (such as Cabo Rojo). If you’re just going in for forest birding, you could get by fine without one.
• The Stanley “Fat Max”: This is a very compact and powerful hand-held LED floodlight (an excellent Christmas gift!) I’ve taken regular D-cell flashlights along for night birding in the past, but this, although not much bigger, was an order of magnitude better. The device also came with a car charger, which was extremely convenient.
• In addition to the default camera (a Sony Alpha), we also took along D.’s practically brand new Olympus TG-2 waterproof compact. For a non-specialist camera, this took remarkably good underwater shots.

Image: Map showing locations of hotels; (1) La Casita del Lago (2) Copamarina Beach Resort (3) Ceiba Country Inn.

Loving the style of this report Peter, and looking forward to more, as very keen to find out how 'doable' Puerto Roco currently is on a short independent trip. Especially as my partner's keen to go somewhere where there is also good snorkelling. All details will be greedily absorbed :t:

Puerto Rico Day1 - Canada-SJ-Utuado

Arrived at Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport, San Juan. Baggage pick-up, etc., went quite uneventfully. It felt a bit weird, really, because we were, strictly speaking, still in North America – although Puerto Rico certainly doesn’t look like it! Only slightly remarkable thing about this airport was its robust lack of birds – usually there’s some sort of swallow or something flying around on the apron; not here, not so much as a sparrow. Quite disappointing - usually, if it’s a brand-new location, we get something good before we even get our luggage. In this case, we didn’t see our first birds, a small group of Greater Antillean Grackles, until we had left the terminal.

Thanks to dubious weather back home, we had touched down at about 1600 - about 50 min. later than scheduled. This made a difference to us, since I our first accommodation (near Utuado) was well up into the central mountains, and I really wasn’t keen on driving on unfamiliar mountain roads in the dark. Ergo, no time to dilly-dally (or bird, really) on the way.
The sense of urgency was compounded somewhat by a minor problem we had - finding the car I’d reserved. Right across the access road from Arrivals, in a new building, we did find a cluster of rental agency desks – but ours (Avis) was not among them; turns out it’s still located out in the car park, some distance away. And signage is not good there; if we hadn’t seen their shuttle come along, we’d have had no idea how to find them! (Avis is likely moving in with the rest soon, though, so I doubt if this will be a problem for much longer.)

Once we picked up our vehicle, I started to feel a bit better – we could actually start making some progress. San Juan’s road system is a bit of a “plate of spaghetti”, but at least Puerto Rico does have freeways, and quite good navigational signage compared to some places I’ve been. In no time at all, it seemed, we were on a good, fast toll road west (PR #22). Just west of Manatí, we crossed a small river, and saw numerous swallows foraging over it – but not time to stop, must press on! - but I suspect that they were Cave Swallows, since we were getting close to “Karst Country” at this point.

At Arecibo, we turned onto the southbound cross-island highway, #10. One of our hosts in Puerto Rico called it “the most expensive road per mile ever built in the U.S.” and now having driven it, I can see why! It runs through some very hilly country, and for quite a bit of its length, it looks like the phrase “go around” simply did not exist in the engineers’ vocabularies – huge, straight cuts, as if made by some sort of cosmic axe, go right through these hills. (Quite in contrast, we were to discover, to just about every other road on this island.) It’s almost a destination in itself, that road…

We arrived at the Casita just after 1800 without getting lost very often, so that was good. Turned out to be a very small place, just a bedroom with a tiny kitchen and bath appended to it, but you couldn’t beat the privacy! I also appreciated the very wild-looking river just a few dozen metres from our door. However, we had taken neither food nor drink since getting off the plane, so - after dropping our bags - we hurried across the road to the Hotel Casa Grande, which had a kitchen with a good reputation (I highly recommend the pumpkin soup). While seated on the outdoor patio waiting to order, we heard a sort of wavering trill, sounded much like a screech-owl - hmmm. Since there is only one species of “forest” owl in Puerto Rico, we knew this could only be a Puerto Rican Screech-owl; if we could find it, that would be endemic #1 of our trip!

I rushed back across the road for our light (the FatMax). We looked for this bird several times , both during and after dinner – people must have thought we were kind of kooky, wandering out into the grounds, between courses (but what else is new?) We were even sure that we had it narrowed down to one particular tree – but could not find it. I wasn’t worried – well, we’ve got three nights here (I said to myself) there’s lots of time to find one later.

(That sound you hear in the background is the birding gods, snickering at human folly).

1) Greater Antillean Grackle
2) Rock Pigeon

Images: Route on Day 1; a reticent Grackle; Home-sweet-casita

Larry Sweetland said:

Loving the style of this report Peter, and looking forward to more, as very keen to find out how 'doable' Puerto Roco currently is on a short independent trip. Especially as my partner's keen to go somewhere where there is also good snorkelling. All details will be greedily absorbed :t:

Click to expand...

Thanks Larry - much detail to follow, because I don't know the meaning of the word "brief" (or "terse" or "compact" or ...). Will post more tomorrow.

Puerto Rico Day2 - Utuado, Cueva Ventana, Arecibo

Even if it had no other positive attributes, La Casita del Lago certainly had one thing going for it – it was an excellent place to sleep! Normally, I have real trouble adjusting to new places on vacations – not here, I slept like unto the proverbial baby (i.e. a lot better than a real one!) Much credit must go to the lulling effect of that rocky river just 20 m. from our front door.

Since we'd had a rather high-tension day yesterday, today was to be a day of low-impact birding - no long ambitious drives in the mountains (plenty of time for that later). The local secondary highway we were on looked like it went through some reasonably-good habitat, so we decided to just walk along that to get familiar with the local birdlife; it seemed to be very sparsely travelled, so it was not bad for birding.) First bird of the morning was actually seen before we even got the road - an Osprey flying up the river. (Is there anywhere these are not? Antarctica, I suppose.) Walking down the road, we ran across a bunch of noisy, gregarious flycatchers, right off the bat - they were Loggerhead Kingbirds, a species we haven't seen in years, since an old trip to Cuba. There were also a number of Gray Flycatchers dashing about - less gregarious, but equally noisy.

As I said, the forest looked good, lush and green - but was more than a little quiet, birdwise. After the Kingbirds, we walked several hundred metres before encountering even one more bird. Then ¡ding ding ding! jackpot, D. found us the first proper endemic, Puerto Rican Tody. Very "out there" sort of bird - hunts like a tiny flycatcher, but is brightly-coloured like a hummingbird, albeit in pastels rather than metallic glitter. We both thought it looked a bit unreal - more like a cartoonist's caricature of a bird (huge big head & beak, tiny body and tail) than an actual bird.

A bit past the tody, the roadside opened up into something like pasture with scraggly trees. Way, way up a slope above us, a hummingbird perched on a bare branch - damn, just the kind of thing I'd brought the scope for, and it was back in the cabana. Oh well, with the bins we could just discern that it was solid green underneath, and had a forked tail; which, around here, was enough to call it as endemic #2, the Puerto Rican Emerald. Also saw our first "regular" raptors, Red-tailed Hawks, soaring high above the valley at this point as well as some large, dark and distant pigeons (not the Rock kind) which remained unidentified. But the good habitat was definitely running out, so we headed back home. Along the trip back, added a few more species – White-winged Doves, a couple of Pearly-eyed Thrashers, and the usual host of Bananaquits.

During a recuperative stop for tea on the "front porch" of our cabin we were visited by a couple of American Kestrels, perching in the bamboo. We talked about what to do with the afternoon - having lost most of the morning already, and settled on going to "Cueva de la Ventana" a very tourist-y site just back down the road a bit towards Arecibo. This is a cave that opens out on a sheer cliff overlooking the valley of the Rio Grande de la Arecibo. (Do a search on "cave" and "Puerto Rico" you'll probably see a photo of this.) This was less than an hour from la Casita, so we figured we could do this, and shop for food on the way, in Utuado.

As we were passing through town, we stopped for some lunch at a pizzeria, and admired the grackles in the parking lot. I had not had time to look at them properly before - despite the fact that they are superficially very much like our own Common species at home, I found them to be quite a different bird on closer inspection - really quite a bit smaller, and positively gracile compared to their northern cousins.Headed out onto #10, and drove about half-way back to the coast (~30km from our lodging) to the “Window Cave.” Just as well that we were heading to a cave, as the afternoon was turning to drizzle. (To be fair, this was almost the only daytime rain of the whole trip – we were incredibly lucky with the weather, all week; mostly, it just rained overnight, or while we were in transit somewhere).

It’s U.S. $10 each to get in, which I would say this is quite a lot for the privilege of taking a long walk to a nice view. Well, they do issue hard-hats an flashlights to all visitors, but at that price (we joked) they should provide sedan chairs! The cave itself had some bats hanging about (don’t know the species) and Cave Swallow nests, but no actual Cave Swallows – perhaps it was not the right time of year? We did encounter one interesting bit of the local wildlife, which one of the guides right in there was pointing it out with the beam of his light – a very large arachnid, the guabá or tailless whip scorpion (Daemon variegatus). Huge. Fortunately, it was cowering deep in a crevice this time - even in caves, they’re largely nocturnal. Although not at all dangerous (unlike real spiders and scorpions, they are not at all venomous) this is definitely not the sort of thing you’d want to find in your bath one day. And good luck trying to shoo it down the plug-hole.

The visit was not a complete loss for birds, however; as we left, we came across a small yellow bird plucking fruits from a tree next to the parking lot – turned out to be an immature Antillean Euphonia, new one for me! Helpfully, it was soon joined by an adult female for confirmation…

Since the drive to the cave had taken less time than I thought it would, we decided to continue on to the Observatory at Arecibo, the world’s largest radio dish. It was a bit of a winding drive to get there – the observatory is well of the town, in the forested karst hills to the south of the town. It is all the more awe-inspiring for that – the three gigantic concrete support towers for the 900-ton (!!!) receiver platform rise out of the green jungle like something out of a Star Wars movie (one of the good ones). When you get there, you have to leave you cars at the bottom of a hill, and climb to the visitor’s centre – the equivalent of 500 stairs, we were told. Apparently, the astronomers don’t like people’s leaky car electronics anywhere near their instruments. Well worth the visit (I’ve always wanted to see the largest of something), and if you’re interested, there’s quite a lot of interpretation of the science behind it all, in visitor’s centre.

Heard a Puerto Rican Vireo during the walk up (confirmed by referring to my trusty iPod). It was singing from deep in the trees, though, so we could not see it.

3. Osprey
4. Loggerhead Kingbird
5. Gray Kingbird
6. Puerto Rican Tody*
7. White-winged Dove
8. Puerto Rican Emerald*
9. Red-tailed Hawk
10. Pearly-eyed Thrasher
11. Black-faced Grassquit
12. American Kestrel
13. Snowy Egret
14. Northern Mockingbird
15. Common Ground-dove
16. Antillean Euphonia


*Puerto Rican endemic

Images: Habitat at Casita del Lago; the mouth (or ‘window’) of Cueva Ventana; an enormous concrete pylon looming over us at the Arecibo Observatory; I tried to take a picture of the reflector, but this girl kept getting in the way; an Antillean Euphonia.

Day 3 - La Casita to Maricao State Forest (& back)

Having given ourselves a day off to recover, it was time to get down to business, and find some warblers. Following the advice of Wheatley (& other places) we headed out first thing in the morning, to the Maricao (pronounced, approximately, 'merry-cow') state forest. This is located in the west end of Puerto Rico’s cordillera central, and is, we were told, THE centre of the world population of the Elfin-woods Warbler.

Not having much of an idea how long it would take to get there, we got ready to go about an hour before dawn – which comes rather late in that part of the world. On the first part of the trip, we made a rather unfortunate discovery – our road map lies. It showed the route south from Utuado as a nice big divided highway (just like the one we’d come down from Arecibo along.) This was ah, rather speculative – one might go as far as to say wildly optimistic. In reality, the big highway shown on the map is not anything like complete yet - only a few km. south of town, we were dumped unceremoniously onto a local highway winding its way along the a river valley.
In any case, the many blind curves, and the fact that a thin mist was coating everything with a fine veneer of moisture, made the first part of the journey rather tedious. Eventually, however, we made the road we really wanted, the Panoramic Road; this is a scenic route that traverses the Cordillera Central along a knife edge at the "divide", sticking mostly to the highest elevations. It still winds a bit, but at least one can see where one is going - actually there are some very nice views along there. The road changes number several times along the way (we had a bit of difficulty with this) but as long as you can find a "Ruta Panoramica" sign, you will get to the Maricao forest eventually.

The drive only seemed to take forever, as it turned out - we were on the reserve just before 0900. The weather gods were definitely smiling upon us today - the early mist cleared away completely almost as soon as we started along the Panoramica, and we arrived at Maricao under an absolutely brilliant blue sky. Pulling out our "Wheatly" scans, we discovered that we had already passed the first two recommended pull-offs - but that was all right, since the best spots were ahead of us. Our first stop was at km. 14, the Torre de Piedra ("Stone Tower") - as well as the look-out, this place also has the advantage of having a good parking area.

It was very exciting - Warblers were at hand! I was thinking - but first, I wanted to know what to listen for. So, first thing I did, upon getting out of the car, was to pull out my handy iPod touch - and immediately fall into fits of cursing, because the damn thing had, apparently, been quietly playing all night (I didn't know that the thing doesn't have a "sleep" mode). It was, of course, very nearly out of power by now. While I swore and fiddled with the thing, D. took a much better approach - she raised her binoculars, and started scanning the nearby trees.

"Wait... I think I've got one" was the first thing she said.

"WHAAAT?" said I .(Only, I did it a little quieter than that. I hope.).

But sure enough, there, on a twig sticking out the side of a tree, only about 20 m. away, was an adult EWWA. (There's a moral here somewhere, and I think it's something like "when in doubt, don't get wrapped up with your hardware" - or words to that effect.) D. had found our holy grail within about 30 s. of arrival. It did not stick around for an extended view (never mind a photograph), but the sight of that lovely slate gray and white face pattern was enough for me (rare? elusive? ha!).

With Mr. Big Target out of the way, we could relax and start looking around. The warbler was evidently part of a mixed foraging flock, because soon the endemics were falling like ninepins. Right across the highway, (bam!) a Puerto Rican Spindalis; next to that, an Emerald (we'd already ID'd one yesterday, but - this one was actually green, instead of just a silhouette with a forky tail); then, back on our side, a pair of (thump, rumble!) Puerto Rican Tanagers (very dull, for a tanager, but nicer than depicted in the field guide); then (bam! tumble...) a Puerto Rican Bullfinch lower down in the same tree. That was five endemics, four of them new to us, in (at most) five minutes - probably the highest lifer/second rate I've had since my first day birding at Pelee.

There was a sort of loggia around the base of the tower, so for a while, we sat in its shade, pulled out the scope, and just watched birds go by. But it seemed like the flock had mostly moved on, because this was not very productive. We did see one "trip" bird, a Northern Parula, and the some more of ubiquitous Grey Kingbirds, but nothing else of interest.

So, we decided to walk along the highway a bit, to a set of tall radio towers we could see, a little less than a km. ahead (Wheatley also mentions this area as being good for the warbler). We didn't see much at the towers themselves - only a few Turkey Vultures and lots of Banaquits - but the walk was worth it for the Puerto Rican Woodpecker (bam!) that came across on the way. A very pretty bird, it seemed to be in the process of excavating a hole in a hydro pole. On our return to the car, we proved that that first Elfin-woods Warbler had not just been a fluke - we found two more individuals, one of them in the distinct plumage of an immature.

Though we had already found almost all the endemics we could expect here, we made another stop in F. E. Maricao, at km. 16. There is a driveway here (also mentioned in Wheatley) heading down to some Forestry Service buildings. We were a bit wary of driving into this place, so we parked out at the entrance, but really shouldn't have been - it was definitely set up for public use. There were some benches spaced along the driveway (which were pretty good for settling into and looking for birds). It seemed like camping is available, and there are picnic shelters and a real w/c (whoo-hoo!) with running water and everything. This was another top spot for birds, too – right where we parked, Puerto Rican Vireo and Black-and-white Warbler appeared in a tree above our heads. Then, walking up the drive, we had basically all the birds we'd seen up at the stone tower - Tanager, Spindalis, Bullfinch, and Tody, plus a Black-throated Blue Warbler. Best of all, we were visited by a whole flock of Puerto Rican Orioles, a bird I really was surprised to see in the highlands. Overall, excepting the crucial absence of Elfin-woods Warbler, this was probably a better locality than the Stone Tower.

What an amazing forest - we'd seen seven (7) new endemics in about 1.5 hours...

One species that we hadn't found yet was the Green Mango. Wheatley mentions a nearby hotel as a possible site for them, the Hacienda Juanita. This being just a few km. to the other side of the town of Maricao, it was a very easy little side trip. Unfortunately, we arrived to find that it was also very closed; the only living things to be seen were a security guard and his dog. This was too bad, since I would imagine that this was the most convenient place to stay around the State forest; we certainly did not find anything else nearby.

We drove back via the towns of Las Marias and Lares. This looks like a less direct route than the one we'd taken this morning, and was certainly a lot less scenic, but was considerably faster; if you find yourself staying in Utuado someday, I'd recommend using this route.

One final birding story of the day - that evening, the Puerto Rican Screech-owl was on our side of the road. It called frequently from a tree near the river, occasionally ending its call with a eerie maniacal laugh (remarkably reminiscent of Laughing Kookaburra!). We hunted around for it for about an hour, but still, no joy.

17. House Sparrow
18. Cattle Egret
19. Elfin-woods Warbler*
20. Puerto Rican Spindalis*
21. Puerto Rican Tanager*
22. Puerto Rican Bullfinch*
23. Northern Parula
24. Puerto Rican Woodpecker*
25. Turkey Vulture
26. Puerto Rican Vireo*
27. Black-and-white Warbler
28. Black-throated Blue Warbler
29. Puerto Rican Oriole*
30. Common Gallinule

Images: The route; two views from the beautiful Ruta Panoramica; back end of a Tody at the Maricao picnic area (only photo we ever got...); front end of a Black-throated Blue Warbler, same tree.

Fine report, good pictures, Peter. Looking forward to more!

Steve

glad you saw the warbler Peter, and looking forward to more :t:

Hamhed said:

Fine report, good pictures, Peter. Looking forward to more!Steve

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Thanks Steve; and thanks especially for the word on the photos ... I thought they were rather poor, really, but then ... I suppose that's just because I'm comparing to the actual landscape (or whatever) and no 2-D snap can really live up to that!

Larry Sweetland said:

glad you saw the warbler Peter, and looking forward to more :t:

Click to expand...

Whew. Me too.

It was a mix of relief that we got it, and disappointment with the brevity of the sighting. (I like to "savour" birds like that ... if that's not too culinary an image!). The view of the immature was fine, but it's really not the same thing.

P.C.

Sorry to hear about Hazienda Juanita, where we stayed on my first visit to PR.

The Loggerhead Kingbird can easily turn out to be a future split, and the same goes for the Euphonia. In that context, that might be a young male, it looks a bit well marked for a female.

Niels

njlarsen said:

The Loggerhead Kingbird can easily turn out to be a future split, and the same goes for the Euphonia. In that context, that might be a young male, it looks a bit well marked for a female.
Niels

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That's interesting, Niels. "Split where?"is, of course, the question I would have to ask, but I can investigate that later....

You have, however, caught me making une grande tromperie; that Euphonia in post #6, is indeed, a male - and a very nice one too. That's because I actually took that photo the following day, in Maricao. He's just there to represent the two birds we saw at Cueva Ventana, the previous day. (I couldn't get a photo of them, it would have been nothing but sticks in the drizzle...) It was a big deal, that lifer, because I'd previously missed it on two different islands.

Oh, the embarassment.

:egghead:

Day 4: Utuado – Copamarina Beach Resort

Today was our day to switch habitats – from the temperate moist forests of the Cordillera Central to the very much drier climes of the south coast.

However, before leaving, we went for one more walk from the Casita. There was a set of nature trails in back of the Hotel Casa Grande, just across the road, so we decided we should take advantage of those. It turned out, there is not a bad network up there – they would have been worth more exploration, if we had just had more time for it. As it was, we only went for a short walk so we didn’t see much – mostly just more todies and euphonias.

On our way out to the main road, we had a look into the nearby Lago Caonillas. We had passed this way about five times over the last two days, but this was the first time we’d had a chance to stop. This time, we took the time to set up the scope, and stare out at some distant black dots out there – which resolved themselves into Pied-billed Grebes. Otherwise, the lake seemed quite barren of (surface) life. But this stop was fortuitous in another way; as we were scanning the water, we heard a series of unfamiliar ‘whoops’ coming from the tall stands of bamboo behind us – some sort of dove, perhaps? Since we’d arrived in Utuado, we’d been seeing large, dark pigeon-shapes flying around up high – but had to leave them unidentified, since I certainly wasn’t about to try to do them based on profile alone. Here, however, it seemed that one or two were perched, and right by the road too! After a few minutes, we were able to locate one, and even got it in the scope – Scaly-naped Pigeon.

Then, it was back out through the ‘downtown’ of Utuado one last time, and out to the main highway south towards Ponce. This road was even more hairy then yesterday, because in addition to the unrelenting twistiness, it had also been slicked down by an early-morning drizzle. Past the town of Adjuntas, however, the road became a lot more agreeable, largely due to its actually being finished (i.e., twinned) along that section. The south coast of Puerto Rico is, as I have suggested, quite different in climate from where we had been. It is, I would imagine, in the ‘rain shadow’ of the central hills, because the forest type changes dramatically, becoming sparser, semi-deciduous, with some cacti interspersed amongst the trees.

Again today, I found it difficult to judge transit times on this small island – with the result that we arrived at our new stop-over, the Copamarina Beach Resort, around noon. This was much, much too early for check-in, which was at 1500. I asked anyway, but nothing doing, no room were ready. (Oh, well, the previous evening had been New Year’s, I suppose the staff were still recovering…) So, with all our baggage still aboard "the Box," we drove a bit west to the small coastal town of La Parguera. As Maricao is to the Elfin-woods Warbler, this town is to another endangered Puerto Rican endemic, the Yellow-shouldered Blackbird. Wheatly & Brewer even goes so far as to direct one to a particular hotel, the Villa Parador, which the blackbirds are said to visit “to feed on scraps.” Turns out that this hotel is right in the middle of a busy, very commercialized, and very loud town. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere near this hotel for an icterid of any kind to come in and roost, never mind a rare one! There was a little public square to the next to the hotel, but it was filled with the strains of the latest in the hip-hop hit parade (coming over the PA system, no less!).

La Parguera had a bit of a “quayside” walk along its waterfront, which took us past the docks of the various tour boat companies (the main local attraction being a nearby bioluminescent bay), so we wandered along that for a while, peering hopefully into what fragments of mangrove still stood. We did find three new birds- all exotics - Eurasian collared-dove, Nutmeg Mannikin, and Indian Siverbill, but no blackbirds, of any sort. I was not impressed with this town (but I must concede, mid-afternoon was far from the ideal time to be birding here).We still had an hour or so to go before the hotel would let us into our room, so we did some exploring on our way back to Guánica. Our map showed an area marked as wetland just inland from the coast road a bit, and had a small lake (Lago Guánica) in the midst of it. A refuge for a rare species of Aegolius blackbird? Maybe! We followed a couple of very minor back roads leading towards this lake, but they did not quite go were we were hoping they would. There didn't seem to be any wetlands, as such, and the lake (we could just see a little bit of water) was behind a sturdy and high chain-link fence, for some reason. (Also, for anybody following - I should note that here, once again, our map lied. A couple of the roads around Lago Guánica that are shown to go through are actually dead ends; we had to back our way out at one point, because one of them was too narrow to turn around. And it isn't like there's anything particularly good down them anyway.) At the point where we could see some water, we scoped through the fence, and spotted Little Blue and Tricolored Herons, and Common Gallinules. I was disappointed we couldn’t get any closer than this, because this was the first such habitat we'd seen in Puerto Rico - I had hopes that we might come across Yellow-breasted Crake somewhere on this trip. What we certainly did not find here, was any trace of Yellow-shouldered Blackbirds. (I found out later, they're actually a mangrove specialist, so not likely to be found here anyway.) As we slowly drove along, D. did spot one quite spectacular bird, a vibrant orange and black passerine; but it turned out to be a Venezuelan Tropial – ho, hum, just another boring exotic!

We arrived back at the Copamarina at about 1530; room still not ready (I am getting a bad feeling about this place...) so we shuffled off to the in-house café for a restorative ice cream while we waited. After we finally got our key, we basically collapsed into our room for a siesta. There wouldn't going to be much going on, birdwise, in a dry forest in the afternoon, I reasoned. And anyway, the Puerto Rican Nightjars we would be going after would be having a siesta now as well...

That evening before dinner, we made the very short trip from the hotel to the Guánica S.F. main entrance road. This is at the end of the highway PR-334, just on the eastern edge of town - took all of fifteen minutes to get there. However, the gates along this road are locked sometime in the late afternoon, so the only way in is to walk. In a way, this is unfortunate, because I had been given the impression that the "good" habitat for nightjars was some distance into the forest. On the positive side, being forced to walk also meant being forced to do some last-minute evening birding - which was pretty good, as it happened.

There was a still a good amount of song coming out of the trees as we started up the hill at about 1815 – and this was great, because one of the singers turned out to be our first Adelaide’s Warbler! Once we'd learned to recognise the tune, it became apparent that it was coming in from all directions – Adelaide’s seems to be a very common bird here. I also caught a glimpse (but very brief) of a small, plain flycatcher – Lesser Antillean Pewee? Couldn’t be sure, really, that it was even a pewee at all. But there was no ambiguity about the Puerto Rican Lizard-cuckoo that we saw next – a great huge thing, and crashing around in the canopy (which is quite low here, I should probably add) the way it did, it was easily found, and gave us really good views. Then just as the daylight had almost run out, a big flycatcher perched on a treetop; fairly non-descript, but clearly a Myiarchus, so could only be a Puerto Rican Flycatcher (thank goodness this particular island’s only got one species!)

So – without really meaning to, we had already cleaned up three of the species I thought we’d be spending tomorrow morning looking for! All well and good, having three birds in hand (as it were) – but we were here for nightjars. So, onward we went, up the hill into the forest. As the twilight deepened, the bird activity dropped off, pretty sharpish; nonetheless, the walk was very pleasant. The night was comfortably warm, and the driveway up into the bosque very well-maintained, so we didn’t have to worry about tripping over anything, or stubbing our toes. We found we could walk much of the way without lights, relying on just ambient light (even though there was virtually no moon) to keep to the road.

As we climbed higher, we began to notice something else; the air became filled with an extraordinary floral scent – somewhere between honeysuckle and lavender, but less assertively sweet that either, so we didn’t tire of it. Wonderful. Interesingly, we hadn't noticed any particular odour when we first arrived, so could only guess that it must be produced by some exclusively night-flowering plant.

We were hoping to get as far as the visitor’s centre, where we knew to expect some hiking trails. After what seemed like several hundred metres of walking, the road went around a big switchback, and then began to level out – at which point, we heard our first Puerto Rican Nightjar. (This is a one of the easiest bird calls on the island to identify, for a North American at least. It sounds just like a Whip-poor-will that has forgotten most of the words – all it can say is ‘whip-whip-whip-whip.’) However, this individual was quite far off to our right, well into the forest, so we continued on. Every so often, we would stop, and I would use the Fat Max to scan the road ahead for eye-shine (works for paraques...), but we were not rewarded. After what seemed like a lot of walking, we finally reached a pair of stone markers indicating the entrance to the park ‘proper’, but still no sign of trails. So, we decided to head back down, partly because we thought it would do no good to go on, but also partly because I had foolishly made a dinner reservation for eight o’clock at the “nice” restaurant back at the hotel (and, being polite Canadians, we didn’t want to let down our end of the implied social contact. Ha! what fools we were…).

On the way down, we did hear another two Puerto Rican Nightjars - but didn’t encounter any out in the open. One of them sounded like it was very close indeed, I thought it must have been only 10-20 m. from the road. But the forest here was much denser than I expected, so our very powerful spotlight was of no use; all it did was show us very brightly-lit branches to a depth of about 2 metres. The bird might as well have been a mile away.

So reluctantly, we headed back, empty-handed. I’m afraid I hadn’t planned this little expedition very well, we really needed to have allowed a lot more time for it. Still, given the diurnal birds we’d seen earlier, we hardy had reason to complain!

31. Pied-billed Grebe
32. Scaly-naped Pigeon
33. Brown Pelican
34. Indian Silverbill
35. Nutmeg Mannikin
36. Eurasian Collared-dove
37. Smooth-billed Ani
38. Venezuelan Tropial
39. Tricolored Heron
40. Little Blue Heron
41. Adelaide’s Warbler*
42. Puerto Rican Lizard-cuckoo*
43. Puerto Rican Flycatcher*


*Puerto Rican endemic species

Images: A lizard (one of many we saw, of all shapes and sizes) outside the Casita; the route to Guánica; the Bahia Ballena, just east of our hotel – note the clear, clean air, utterly uncontaminated by birds; the Copamarina Beach Resort.

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=158562&highlight=loggerhead+kingbird for the kingbird, and the Euphonia the rumor has it that the lesser antillean population is a different species from those in Greater Antilled including PR

Niels

Day 5: Copamarina Beach Resort – Guanica Forest – Cieba

I was awoken in the pre-dawn darkness by an unexpectedly familiar series of calls – a Killdeer, out on the Copamarina’s lawn. Shouldn’t really have been a surprise to hear this old friend from home (it’s about number 3 on my life list), but it was.

The pressure is most distinctly 'off' today, as we’d seen almost all the expected birds already, in about a half-hour yesterday evening. So today would be mostly about the marine aspect of the vacation – i.e., snorkelling in search gooey bits & pieces of fauna in the seagrass off shore. However, we did get out for one early-morning walk into the dry forest. We had read in Wheatley & Brewer that there are some other trails into it, which we could reach via the the very same road that our hotel was on (PR-333). These trails start (or end, depending…) just a couple of km. to the east, where PR-333 dead-ends, just to the east of Bahia Ballena. We got there just a bit after sunrise, and began by going out on the rocks overlooking the beach and scanning the bay.

The complete absence of birds out to sea came as a bit of a disappointment – I think our grand total amounted to a solitary Brown Pelican. I had been hoping, maybe, for an exciting tropical tern of some kind (Puerto Rico hosts several that I “need”, although not right here, evidently). The thorny scrub just inshore wasn’t bad though, the bushes holding some small groups of Adelaide’s Warblers. (I get the distinct impression that these must be a much more “generalist” insectivore than any of our warbler species at home – they were just so (relatively) numerous. Common as chickadees…) While scouting the edge of the bush for a promising-looking trail-head, we came across a flat piece of ground with a small marshy pond in the midst of it. Finally, somewhere with a few water birds! There was a selection of herons – Green Yellow-crowned Night, and Great Egret – plus a few shorebirds, including L. Yellowlegs and Black-necked Stilt.

After a few minutes, we found the trail-head for what I believe was the Guitarra trail, which headed due north into the hills of the G.S.F. This was pretty good trail, except for the large number of small but really annoying mosquitoes that swarmed about it. It was a genuine conundrum – how was it that, here in the driest place we had visited on this island, the mosquitoes were at their densest. However, it was good for more birds, including a particularly confiding Adelaide’s (see photo, attached below), and our first well-seen Puerto Rican Flycatcher. The best part about it was that, after going through a band of dense scrub near the coast, it climbs up to a good area of genuine dry forest, with an open understory – just the kind of habitat we’d been hoping to find on our hike the previous evening. If I went back to this area another time for the nightjar, this is the place I’d head to first.

Spent the rest of the morning snorkelling on a small mangrove island, Cayo Aurora (a.k.a. Gilligan’s Island – yecch!) which just a short boat trip from the Copamaria resort. The snorkelling isn’t bad there, provided you understand the it’s an area of white sand and sea grass – don’t expect coral-reef-level diversity. We did nonetheless see some cool stuff, including a nifty-looking blue-green anemone, and a distant (very wary) barracuda. Only drawback we found was that the water was so shallow here, it was often impossible to swim! Only birds we noticed were Ruddy Turnstones, and a few Royal Terns from the boat over on the way over.

By the time our hour of swimming was up, and we had been shuttled back to shore, it was already time to pack up and check out. We left the Copamarina just slightly before noon, and headed first for the Guánica S.F. main entrance. Drove up the same route we had walked yesterday (measured it – just about exactly one mile). And then, continued on the to the parking lot by the visitor’s centre, which is the hub for a good number of various hiking trails. After a short picnic lunch, we went on a short hike down one of these; not much hope of finding a nightjar at this point, but there was some potential for finding a Green Mango - this being one of the few other endemics still outstanding for us. We did not, in the end, find a Mango, but did get a nice Puerto Rican Emerald – plus a really cool (as yet unidentified) large moth sp.

After that, we drove the longest leg of the whole trip, from Guánica to Ceiba by was of Caguas and Humacao (passing through a small town with the intriguing name of Junco!) This is a fast, but very non-scenic way to do this – there is a southern route, I believe that meanders along closer to the coast, but this looks like it probably would have taken much longer. As it was, taking the fast toll roads got us to the Ceiba Country Inn (CCI) with a couple of hours of daylight to spare - which was a relaxing change from our usual mode of travel.

There is, over here in this corner of Puerto Rico, another one of those ‘bioluminescent’ bays. It is a protected area, within a park called Los Cabos de San Juan; One of the reasons we had booked three nights at Cebia was to give us (so we thought) plenty of opportunity to go see it. However, the only way to visit this (we discovered) was with a guided tour, by kayak or electric boat – the organisms have to protected from petroleum. So we had to get onto one of these. The owners of the CCI told us that there’s a certain beach, right near the resort town of Fajardo, from whence these tours depart. They even provided us with a useful sort of street map on how to get to it from their place. No problem, we thought, we’ll wander over there just before dusk , see what we can find … Ha! what little innocents we were. This place was an absolute zoo – crowds of holiday-makers, stacked n layers deep, all around the punters selling trips; those who had got them were lined up, waiting for their paddles and life-vests. When we finally did get through to talk to a couple of tour reps., the told us they were booked solid, not just for tonight, but for the next three nights as well! If we really wanted, we could book a spot for next Tuesday … two days after leaving Puerto Rico. Who would have guessed, that a bunch of glowing plankton would be so popular?

Somewhat disappointed, we consoled ourselves with a good meal out, and then return to the Inn. Immediately upon getting out of the car, we heard a now-familiar song – seems this hotel had a resident Puerto Rican Screech-owl, too. (Another birder was staying at the CCI – he’d got this one all agitated by placing Eastern S-O from his iPhone.) Once again, we took out the big light - and once again, thought we had it narrowed down to one or two trees – but nope, just couldn’t locate it.

44. Lesser Yellowlegs
45. Green Heron
46. Yellow-crowned Night-heron
47. Great Egret
48. Black-necked Stilt
49. Killdeer
50. Royal Tern
51. Ruddy Turnstone

Images: Hiking in the dry forest; a very cooperative Adelaide’s Warbler; fish off Cayo Aurora (note the excellent lighting conditions at 6 inches' depth); moth at Guanica S.F.; the route to Ceiba Country Inn.

Good report, thanks again for posting, Peter.

Day 6: Caribbean National Forest (South Route)

First thing this morning, we were off on our (quixotic?) quest for the legendary Puerto Rican Parrot – by all accounts, one of the most endangered birds in the western hemisphere. From the best information we had (at the time) the entire wild population of this species is confined to a large tract of the Caribbean National Forest - also known informally as “El Yunque” after its highest peak. The tract which they lived in was off-limits to causal visits, we had been told; the only chance (and a very slim one at that) was to see one or a small party of them wandering off on a foraging trip over the accessible part of the forest.

According to our map, there were two ways into the C.N.F. – via either the north or south ends of PR-191, a very minor secondary road that traverses the park. We chose to start with the south end, because access to this was slightly closer to Ceiba. The road was not difficult to find, and once one gets on it, getting to the park is quite straightforward – all you have to do is follow the way that goes up – and up, and…

El Yunque and its surrounding peaks stand out so much, we could almost see them from the balcony the CCI; we could certainly see it for miles, as we drove towards it. And what we saw was not encouraging – all the mountains were completely wreathed in thick, grey clouds. Well, we said to ourselves, it is billed as “North America’s only tropical rainforest” (although it is not, strictly speaking, in N.A. at all!) – so we more or less resigned ourselves to getting wet. However, when we actually got there, it was all bright sunshine glistening from every surface - the rain had just stopped, and it stayed dry for the rest of the morning.We saw numerous Zenaida doves – quite strikingly coloured – on our way there the park, but no other birds of note. Arriving at the entrance, we got a bit of a shock – a gate, distinctly closed, blocked the way. A big, permanent sign beside the gate read “Rio Sabana Recreation Area: Open weekends and holidays, closed September for maintenance.” Just what, we wondered aloud, was going on here? Does this mean the whole area is going to be closed today? (It was a Friday). I was really aiming to get to the visitor’s centre, for some info. (any info.) about the parrots, but it was many km. away, over the ridge – we certainly weren’t going to be able to walk there. But it was turning out to be a beautiful morning, so we elected to go for bird hike up here anyway. As we walked along this road, we really began to wonder about this road - was it ever used? Because there seemed to be a heck of a lot of build-up of palm fronds and other detritus on it. Also, it seemed more than a little odd to us that, at 0800, we were the only ones here.... just what was going on?

But whatever the situation, I can say one thing for sure about this road - it is a great place for birding! For one thing, you get pretty good sight lines, thanks of the nice big gap created by the road cut – but without the corresponding annoyance of having to watch for traffic. And, as it happened, there were endemics galore along here - tanagers, spindalises (spindalii?), bullfinches and emeralds. Also, we found a few new ‘trip’ birds for the trip in among them, including Antillean Crested Hummingbird, Red-legged Thrush, and an American Redstart. A waterthrush of some variety was working the kerbs (which, in the wake of the recent showers, were vaguely like its natural habitat) but we did not see it well enough to determine the species.

After about three-quarter hours' blissful solitude, we finally encountered some other people - a large party of twenty or so, coming up the road behind us. It seemed like a big Puerto Rico family out with their children and their two friendly (but rather large!) dogs - so that dispersed the birds for a bit. But they soon passed us by, on their way I don't know where. And the point is, these were almost the only people we encountered up there, all morning!

We continued on up the closed road as far as the Rio Sabana picnic area (which, we discovered later, one can still drive up to – but, as the sign at the gate said, only on weekends. This may explain why the road seems so little used, although it is obviously still maintained) On our way, there was one final bit of a surprise for us. We noticed a largish hummingbird darting around in the top of a stand of bamboo. Hmmm… it seemed to me to be all dark green – which was promising; also seemed to have a long, decurved bill (i.e. a bill that did NOT belong to a Puerto Rico Emerald), which was even more promising. But this still didn’t prove that it was NOT a Green-throated Carib, needed to see the underside for that. Then, it flew away – returned – perched; facing away, the bastard. Finally- took to the air again, hovered, turned around, perched again –and yes! it had an all-green gorget and belly. This was the elusive (for us, anyway), much-sought-after Green Mango - and our 13th Puerto Rican endemic.

(Based on my, admittedly limited, experience, this southern approach to "El Yunque" is the next best thing in Puerto Rico to the Maricao S.F. - if you only had one or two days here (I mean, on the island altogether), this would be the site I'd recommend.)

Upon our return to CCI, we asked one of the owners there about this road #191 we just tried to drive along. “Oh” he said, “that’s been blocked by landslides … it’s been closed for years! Since about 1977 or so…” This was a rather disconcerting thing to learn, since it meant that our map (which clearly showed the road going right through the park) was at least 37 years out of date. No wonder…

In the afternoon, we went up to the Cabezas de San Juan for snorkelling. One of the guide books mentions there’s fairly good marine life at a beach called Playa Escondida, out along the north shore of this park. It is a bit of a walk to get there (2 km, maybe?), but it does get one away from all the crowds. As at Cayo Aurora, it was really shallow here – made it a bit of a challenge to get out far enough to swim (while wearing flippers!); not much in the way of tropical fish here, but we did find a very nice sea urchin (as big as a volleyball) and DMM was thrilled by the funky polychaetes (bristle worms, to you and me). Because we had to leave our stuff on shore while we swam, I didn’t take the binoculars on this trip. Nonetheless, we did manage to add Brown Booby and Belted Kingfisher on the walk out to Playa Escondida. Also, I should note that the wooded part of Las Cabezas de San Juan seemed to have a good population of Adelaide’s Warblers – we didn’t see any but could hear them singing at regular intervals.

52. Zenaida Dove
53. Antillean Crested Hummingbird
54. American Redstart
55. Green Mango*
56. Red-legged Thrush
57. Brown Booby
58. Belted Kingfisher

*Puerto Rican Endemic

Images: The southern route into the C.N.F.; the view from the CCI balcony (the Caribbean is just visible, out there somewhere); along the road to Rio Sabana R.A.; a big urchin; a cool marine worm.

Day 7: Caribbean National Forest (North side)

After a slightly demoralising day yesterday, didn’t exactly leap out of bed today – slept in ‘til almost 0700. Part of my excuse was the frogs kept us up late…So, having slept in, we hung around a CCI long enough to take advantage of the included (and excellent!) breakfast. In the end, it didn’t matter one wit that we didn’t get off to an early start, as the Caribbean National Forest visitor’s centre (El Portal) doesn’t open until 0900 anyway. Getting there, and, we hoped, finding some information about Parrots was our first goal of the day. Anyway, even with lazing about for a sit-down breakfast, and the drive time over to C.N.F. entrance gate (north end this time), we were still in the park well before opening time.

Fortunately, this gate is open daily after 0730, so we were able to drive up. We went up as high as we could by car -the trail head for the Mt. Britton hiking trail. Past there, apparently, the road is closed, and has been for some years, due to landslides. There are some trails up here, but we were reluctant to go anywhere too far; we wanted to be at El Portal soon after it opened, just in case there was someone there with a key bit of parrot-finding advice. We parked as the El Colorado parking area, where there is, supposedly, a sort of secondary information booth - it actually turned out to be more of a gift shop.

While waiting for 0900 to come around, we wandered around trails up there a bit. Two things stood out in contrast to yesterday’s expedition – (1) there were hardly any birds here, and (2) there were a lot more people – even at 0830 in the morning. I couldn’t help but wonder if (1) and (2) are related - this end of the park being more convenient to San Juan, and therefore all those big cruise ships; maybe all those feet tramping through have a deleterious effect on the bird life here. Whatever is going on, it is not having any obvious effect on the habitat, at least on the surface - the forest here is just as rich and green as it had been in the south, to my eye! (see attached photo). One small group was being taken on a guided walk by a young lady in a USFW uniform. They had arrived on a mini-bus, and their driver (seemingly for no other reason than that he had nothing better to do) came over to us and started offering us free advice; which trails were best for birds, and so on. He brought tour groups up here regularly, he said. I asked him the only question on my mind at the moment – to which his not very useful reply was, “the best way to see a Puerto Rican Parrot is in a picture.”
Gee, thanks.

After a bit of hiking, finding almost no birds of any species whatsoever, we drove the 7.5 km back down hill to the El Portal facility (entry fee, $4 each). It was a very fancy place – modernist architecture, a big, soaring roof, a sort of canopy walkway entry way, tons of displays … and virtually no interpretive staff! I couldn’t believe it – here they are, sitting on one of the richest bits of wildlife habitat in the eastern U.S. – home to an endemic bird, no less! - and they can’t be bothered to hire any people to talk about it. What a appalling misallocation of resources; they spent all this money on a (literally) dumb mass of concrete, instead of having any people around who can communicate about it.

There was one lonely old guy sitting at the front desk, answering questions and dispensing maps; I did ask him, very politely, if he might know anything about locations for Puerto Rican Parrot. He gave us a fairly lengthy reply - about how few there are, how seldom seen, etc.; but all I think it amounted to was, that he didn’t know anything about them. So, in a complete absence of information, we drove back up the mountain again, parking to the Sierra Palma picnic area this time. Our Wheatley & Brewer book did suggest that some of the more recent Parrot sightings had been there – although these were certainly infrequent, and mostly long past. But you can get some not-bad criollo food there, so we stayed there for lunch – although the atmosphere is spoiled somewhat by the endless roar of the restaurant’s diesel generator!

59. Louisiana Waterthrush
60. Spotted Sandpiper


Images: A coquí outside our window; the Northern route into the C.N.F.; La Coca falls (before the crowds arrived); a beautiful forest stream in “El Yunque”; a Gray Kingbird, doing what they do best (i.e., making a racket), at CCI.

Day 8: Ceiba Country Inn–San Juan–Home

Just a sort of denouement to the report. Sunday was our departure day from Puerto Rico, but as our flight was not scheduled until late in the afternoon, and, as we were within an hour’s drive of the airport, we could afford the time to check out two more areas on the way out of the country.

1) The recently decommissioned Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Base: My latest information from a slightly out-of-date guide book was that the area was to be turned over to the local governments, to be “repurposed” as a recreational area - thought there might be some good habitat there (military bases, I’ve found, often have the advantage of being left alone for a long time, and so are “wilder” than the surrounding hinterland). We didn’t spend a lot of time there, so we didn’t cover the area at all thoroughly, but I suspect there is some potential there.
Mostly what we saw were open, flat areas that appeared to be reverting to pasture, complete with the occasional cow. We saw lots of feral animals there (besides the cattle, I mean) – feral dogs, feral cats, and flocks of female (or immature male?) Pin-tailed Wyndahs; also a small streaky thing which we could not identify. We also visited a beach area there (almost deserted except for ourselves) which I hoped might be good for seabirds, but we saw nothing.

2) The Bosque Estatal de Piñones: This is a large, costal recreational area on Puerto Rico’s northern coast, right on the eastern outskirts of San Juan. I was hoping for some terns and/or waders along here, and we were not completely disappointed; we got to see a good number of Sandwich Terns at the swimming beach. They appeared to be playing the marine equivalent of “musical chairs” – although in their case, it was more “musical floats”. There was a long barrier rope offshore, held up by plastic floats like the ones you might see in a public swimming pool; each float had room enough for a single tern to perch. The funny thing was, there seemed to be exactly one tern too many for the number of available floats. The ‘extra’ tern (would that be - the floater?) would fly from float to float, harassing his fellows, until one of them yielded and took off. While the victorious bird settled, the newly-displaced one would start down the row – pestering the others to give up their places. As far as we saw, this went on all day - no sign of them actually flying off to do any fishing, at any rate. (Also saw our first properly-seen Magnificent Frigatebird here).
There was one other feature of De Piñones which is worth a mention – there’s a very long boardwalk/bicycle path running parallel to the shore, just inland from the beach a bit. For quite a bit of its length, it appears to run along the edge of a swamp. Wish I’d known about that – on a quiet morning, that probably would have been worth some time. (But probably not on the day we were there – a Sunday at the end of the Christmas holidays, with the whole place positively teeming with people.)

Los Piñones is practically adjacent to the airport, which was a good thing, since between the multiple intersecting freeways and the ramps closed due to construction, we end up on quite a tour of east side of San Juan. It was so frustrating, it was driving me right up the wall – we could see the airport, it was right there – but get to it? "No, you can’t get there from here…" It was like one of those surrealistic nightmares. In the end, we rushed and worried for nothing, because events at home conspired to delay our departure from SJU by a full two hours! (Anybody from eastern N.A. will likely still remember the what the first weekend in January was like.) But, despite one of the worst “weather events” Toronto Pearson has experienced during my lifetime, we did (eventually), manage to get home in one piece…

61. Pin-tailed Wyndah
62. Sandwich Tern
63. Magnificent Frigatebird

Images: Ceiba – SJU airport route; a very shy cat named Piñta, one of CCI’s many rescue animals; Sandwich Tern “musical chairs.”

nice report Peter,
cheers,
James