Mothercare to Puerto Rico (1 Viewer)

Wow, Larry, looks like DMM and I really needed to get to that Humuaco Nature Reserve while we where there; I think you got about five different "wetland"-types in one morning that we didn't see all week! And we were staying all of twenty minutes away....

This is perhaps the first time I've every seen the words "lovely" and "Killdeer" in the same sentence - all part of perspective, I know.

thanks for the comments Niels and Peter.

here's some pics.

1. Antillean Crested Hummingbird, 2. Antillean Mango, 3. Green-throated Carib, 4. Pearly-eyed Thrasher, 5. Ruddy Turnstone

Next day we had a leisurely breakfast before setting off from Tony and Bonnie's, and headed for El Yunque, the most well known of PR's protected areas of montane forest.

Although most (maybe all) of the PR montane endemics can be found at El Yunque, it looks from trip reports that they're mostly easier to see around Maricau in the west of the island. I hoped to have my first taste of some of these endemics at El Yunque, but my main target bird for this morning was better views of the more globally widespread Black Swift.

We cruised up the coast road, stopping to look at some Brown Pelicans and a lone Royal Tern, before heading for El Yunque's northern approach. The journey through the lowlands picked up (of note) a smattering of Cave Swallows in small groups, mostly by low bridges, and the occasional Caribbean Martin.

We then wound up into the hills, and stopped by an information board just past the main reserve HQ. We were now in the forest, and although it was pretty quiet I'd no sooner stepped out of the car when a movement caught my eye, and I found myself staring at one of PR's special birds. As far as I'm concerned there's nothing not to like about a PR Tody. Neat dazzling little things, no bigger than Blue Tits, but looking like a cross between a kingfisher and a jacamar. Great to watch as they dart about catching things, but easy to follow and get prolonged close looks at as they stare back at you. Although we only saw one that day, we were to discover that they're one of the commoner PR endemics, adding a bit of glitz to most of our woodland walks during our holiday.

While we were still admiring our tody, another unfamiliar call led us to a pair of PR Tanagers passing through. A modest critter by tanager standards, but quite unique nonetheless. I hoped this was to be the start of a small bird wave, but all fell silent as the tanagers parted. We got back in the car and pressed on into the park, stopping at Coca Falls lookout, where the 2 endemic PR hummingbirds are sometimes seen. There were very few flowers, a fair few tourists, and no sign of any birds except Bananaquits, and flyover White-winged Doves and Scaly-naped Pigeons.

We pressed on to Yokahu lookout, which is mentioned in the Birdwatcher's Guide as a good spot to see Black Swift from mid April. I was gutted to discover that the area to park here was closed (temporarily?). We continued up the hill and saw there was a 'window' in the forest on the left side of the road within a short distance, and a place to pull over soon after, also on the left. We stopped, and walked back down the road until we reached the 'window' from where we could scan over an extensive area of forest below. This was not only quite an impressive view, but I'd not been there 5 minutes before 2 Black Swifts appeared in the 'window', providing much closer views than the previous day, viewable both against the sky and the trees. A fair few distant pigeons and a couple of Red-tailed Hawks were also seen.

We explored further into the park for a couple of hours but saw very little except Bananaquits, Pearly-eyed Thrashers and a couple of unidentified hummingbirds chasing each other across the road at the speed of light. A loud clear song eventually led us to great views of another of the commoner PR endemics, a smart male PR Bullfinch, before we decided it was time to continue with our plan to head for the beach at Cabezas de San Juan, for some swimming and snorkelling. We saw little here birdwise except a few really smart (sorry Peter! ) adult Laughing Gulls in breeding plumage, and quite a large gang of Pin-tailed Whydahs. The snorkelling was disappointing here, but the sea nice and warm.

As it got later it was time to go chasing after my other remaining target bird for the east end of the island, Plain Pigeon. This is where we learned to have a bit more respect for the distances around here! We totally misguaged how long it would take to get to the Plain Pigeon site at Comeria. We only had a very small and basic map from the car hire place, and we ended up going the wrong way on a highway with no options to turn back for ages (and going through a toll!). When we could finally turn round we hit a traffic jam. At Caguas we realised we were too late, so we made sure we plotted a route back to Humacao where the roads flowed in both directions, to ensure that when we returned for another go tomorrow, we could at least get through Caguas to the road to Aguas Buenas (and on to the pigeon site), without getting lost.

Enjoying the read Larry. That Thrasher's a bit of a brute though, what?

James

Very apropos: Pearly-eyed Thrasher is normally a quite "wild" species. The only place I know of where it has ever had a nest under a roof was the visitor center of El Yunque. Usually, it is more likely to try to steal a nest from a PR Parrot or another hole-nesting species, and as such is one of the threats to the parrot.

Niels

Plain Pigeon

Yes, Pearly-eyed Thrashers are a bit scary for sure.

Plain Pigeon. Now if ever there's a bird name to really get birders' juices flowing, Plain Pigeon possibly isn't it. It may well be right up with Dull-colored Grassquit, with which it also shares another dubious honour.... I've looked for and dipped them both. Plain Pigeon's another bird I failed to find on Cuba, along with an unfashionable number of other birds, back in the day when trip reports came through the post from Steve Whitehouse, the internet was something I thought was the preserve of the likes of Klingons, and I was getting around birding sites on Cuba by eg hitching a lift on a tractor and the back of a passing girl's pushbike.

So I wasn't best pleased when we failed to even get to the site on our second day on PR, and was determined to see the stupid thing the next day. In the morning we did a bit of local sight seeing up the coast as far as Nuagabo Playa. This produced what ended up being the trip's only White-crowned Pigeon, one flying out over the bay at Nuagabo Playa. We also saw a couple of American Oystercatchers, watched Cave Swallows gathering round a muddy puddle, and watched the Brown Pelicans and Magnificent Frigatebirds.

We set off soon after lunch towards Plain Pigeonland. This involved going on the 30 from Humacao as far as salida 4 onto the 189. 189 into Caguas as far as the 33, then the 33 as far as the 156, which is the road that goes all the way to Comeria. If coming from San Juan you want salida 19 on the highway to get onto the 156. Once on the 156 directions in the Birdwatchers Guide and trip reports are good, with the final road on the left, the 172, being well signed.

It was great arriving at the famous base ball pitch at the school in all the gen, and finally seeing what the site looked like. Totally different to how I'd imagined it would be, as it's at the bottom of a steep forested valley. What could go wrong? All the trip reports I'd read from people coming here scored pretty easily, and the book says something like 'spend any time here and you'll certainly see the species'......

Larry Sweetland said:

It was great arriving at the famous base ball pitch at the school in all the gen, and finally seeing what the site looked like. Totally different to how I'd imagined it would be, as it's at the bottom of a steep forested valley. What could go wrong? All the trip reports I'd read from people coming here scored pretty easily, and the book says something like 'spend any time here and you'll certainly see the species'......

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I was stood at the same spot about 20 years ago. I hope you saw them - they are still fairly easy on Cuba (east of Camaguey, April 2014)!

cheers, a

more Plain Pigeon

lewis20126 said:

I was stood at the same spot about 20 years ago. I hope you saw them -

cheers, a

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I bet it was still wall-to-wall PR Parrots too back then was it Alan?

..... It was around 2pm as we aproached the site, overcast, and already we were seeing a fair few 'wild' Columbas drifting about as we closed in along the 156. I wondered if at least some of these might be Plains, as the trip reports I'd read only mentioned Plains at the site, including at least one 'itemised' report that mentioned Scalynapes at other sites but not Comeria. One non-itemised report mentioned feral Rocks but not snapes. As we turned into the home straight, something we hadn't really expected to happen happened. It started raining. Now I'm not talking about poncy pitty patty pi pit pittywitty patty stuff. Oh no. I'm talking rain the like of which I've only encountered a couple of times in my life. Rain you can't drive in. Rain you can't walk in with a big brolly and still keep anywhere near dry. Rain no bird would consider flying in. Rain you wouldn't want your optics to be in if you wanted to be able to use them for the rest of the holiday. So we sat in our car in the car park by the baseball field waiting for the rain to stop. I tried going outside a couple of times but it became very clear each time that this was pointless. Although I did manage to see a few very bedraggled looking feral Rock Doves knocking about the school. Things were looking a bit like this :-:C and this :- :-C

We sat there in the car with a very bored little boy. Finally, about 2 hours later, it finally slowed down to a heavy drizzle, and I noticed a few wild Columbas were flying about. I got out and set up the scope and held up my big brolly. There was a nice very wet male Yellow-faced Grassquit on the baseball pitch. What I did discover was that there were actually quite a lot of wild type Columbas in this valley, but what it doesn't say on the packet is that because you're in the bottom of a valley, 95% of them are flying against the sky a very long way away, they never go below the skyline, and you can't identify them even with a scope. Or I couldn't anyway. Eventually I managed to scope a couple of extremely bedraggled ones actually perched up on the hillside a long way away, but after an awful lot of straining, I had to begrudgingly admit that there was no getting round the fact that they were Scaly-naped Pigeons. Occasionally I'd get onto one in flight that went against the hillside, and I was able to conclude that, just like everywhere in PR, Scaly-naped Pigeon is the common one round here too.

To cut a long story short, by the time we had to leave the site at 5pm (Nicky had been doing all the driving and understandably didn't want to stay there any longer or drive the windy narrow road back in the rain in the dark) All I'd managed was 2 flight views of identifiable Plain Pigeons. One immediately after 2 Scaly-napes up on the hillside, and one fairly low over the Baseball Field. They were, as Alan would probably say, 'Jonny views'. So from my experience it may well be that you only have to be there for a few hours to see a Plain Pigeon, maybe even a few of them, but getting an identifiable view of one is a gamble even with a scope.

On our way back to the 156 we stopped briefly in the mounting rain by the bar half a km from the 156, as suggested in the book. Here it was looking good as there were about 6 wildies up on the wires. I had to mop my scope dry with a pair of pants, and strain to ID them (as they'd chosen exactly the only spot along one of 3 or 4 wires that was against the sky, whereas if they'd had the common decency to be against the hill, they would have been easily identifiable at 5 times the distance!). They too were eventually identifiable as Scalynapes. As was another one seen on a short walk round the bend.

So there you go. Plain Pigeon seen, but if I have an excuse to revisit Cuba, or go to Hispaniola for a better look, then Plain Pigeon could be it.

I scored a single plain pigeon in Hispaniola on a 10 day visit, and have not yet tried in PR (never went to that area in spite of being in PR twice on birding outings).

Niels

Maravilla

After our fourth night at Punta Santiago it was time to move onto our next stop. We'd book 4 nights staying at Maravilla, near Maricao. It was in the forested hills in this area of southwest PR that I hoped to really get stuck into the endemics.

Up until recently most birders visiting this area stayed at the Hacienda Juanita, but this has closed down. It is with enormous thanks to finding a 2012 trip report by Martin Reid, that I discovered the existance of Maravilla as a place to stay. His description of the place not only made me think this had to be THE place to stay in the area, but helped make us decide to come to Puerto Rico rather than anywhere else for this holiday. Indeed, upon seeing where we were to stay, Nicky exclaimed " this is the most wonderful place we've ever stayed in".

Martin's description is good enough, but I can't resist describing it here to. There's an unsealed 'driveway' that winds up for about a km through what's mostly coffee plantation to Maravilla. From where you park, there's a narrow walking track into the forest to your isolated cabin under the canopy. On the 'patio' you're totaly under the canopy, and there's a big gas-heated hot tub from where it's possible to see 13 of PR's 18 endemics, including the Screech Owl at night. We didn't quite manage that, but did see 12 of them within 3 minutes walk of the hot tub, and the 13th back down the driveway, as well as our non-endemic targets we were hoping for here. You can even have a candle-lit hot tub with the moon shining through the leaves overhead, surrounded by fireflies and the overwhelming chorus of frogs and insects, not to mention the purring and chuckling of the PR Screech Owls. There aren't even any mozzies or annoying biting insects to spoil it! If that's not somewhere to share with a non-birding partner, I don't know where is.

The only Maricau area endemic that doesn't occur at Maravilla is Elfin Woods Warbler, which lives about half an hour's drive from the hot tub.

The simple self catering cooking area is outdoors, so when we made savoury cheese-sauce pancakes, I even got to watch PR Pewee whilst tossing.

Larry Sweetland said:

I bet it was still wall-to-wall PR Parrots too back then was it Alan?

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No chance - a big dip on that one. Gutted for you on the Plain Pig views - I'd recommend a return to Cuba! Enjoying the report.

cheers, a

Larry Sweetland said:

I even got to watch PR Pewee whilst tossing.

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You're easily pleased aren't you!

cheers, a

lewis20126 said:

You're easily pleased aren't you!

cheers, a

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There's no answer to that!

lewis20126 said:

You're easily pleased aren't you!

cheers, a

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ah, but even more easily pleased would presumably be those who were prepared to run as fast as they can over miles of shingle in the pi55ing rain, to see a bird that looks pretty much the same as a PR Pewee, only with a comparatively huge population and vast range :smoke:

more about Maravilla

We packed up and took a leisurely drive via the scenic south coast route on our way westwards. A stop on a winding road in some forested hills to check out a cuckoo on a wire produced the trip's first Mangrove Cuckoo. We soon realised that we were making quite slow progress, which brought up this 'discussion' we kept having surrounding the question 'how big is Puerto Rico?' I kept maintaining it was about the size of Devon, whereas Nicky kept maintaining it was more the size of Wales, and we had a bet on it that we've only just resolved. And I won :king:. But when you stick some great big mountains in the middle of somewhere it dunnarf make a place bigger.

As we got to the Ponce area, Northern Mockingbirds began to get more numerous, as did Common Ground Doves. We also started to pick up Turkey Vultures and American Kestrels. While we were still a fair way from Maricau, and still in the lowlands it totally bucketted down with rain. A stop at a supermarket was quite a sight, as the car park was like a lake, with all the people who had done their shopping sheltering at the entrance and not heading out to their cars. The road we were to drive onwards on was like a river too.

It was getting towards tea time when we reached the km long driveway to Maravilla, but by then it had stopped raining. We stopped on a bend about half way up the track, after grounding out a couple of times, wondering if the gravel path we'd just come to on our right was one mentioned in the directions. It was very fortunate we did, because when we got out here to look around, a party of 3 Antillean Euphonias appeared. These turned out to be the only ones we saw on the whole trip.

Upon our arrival, I managed to do a bit of birding as we were unloading and settling into the cabin and being shown around by Margo. This produced a Loggerhead Kingbird, a couple of Black-whiskered Vireos, PR Bullfinches, PR Woodpeckers, PR Tanagers, and best of all a superbly peculiar Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo. There were also a couple of hummers knocking about, but I couldn't get on to them yet. As dusk fell PR Screech Owls started calling, and using my razzy new LED Lenser flashlight bought for the trip, I managed after not that long to get a great view of a perched bird in the bins a short distance from the cabin. There appeared to be two pairs of PR Screech Owls in the area around our pad.

The next day it was a relief to stay put, not drive anywhere, and just enjoy wandering about the trails at Maravilla. The stretch up from the cabin to the 'road' and beyond to the main house and vegetable garden was constantly productive, but the narrow paths winding through the forest were good too.

4 of my remaining target birds for the area were pretty easy to find. Both endemic hummers put in a few appearances, including a Green Mango that frequently visited the heliconias outside the front of the cabin, and a couple of PR Emeralds around the cabin that were mostly higher in the trees, and best watched from the open plan roof. PR Pewee was thicker on the ground than expected, with a few scattered sightings in the middle story.

The PR Vireo took more finding, even after I suspected that I was hearing two different vireo song types, and that the faster one was likey to be that species. Going on voice, PR was as numerous as Black-whiskered Vireo, but far less conspicuous. I only saw 3 of them during my stay at Maravilla.

Other endemics seen that day were PR Lizard Cuckoo, PR Screech Owl, PR Bullfinch, PR SPindalis, PR Tanager, PR Woodpecker, and PR Tody. We found a few PR Tody nest holes, and every time I walked down the path to our cabin from the road, one would belt out of it's hole and just miss my ankle.

Other birds seen included Ruddy Quail Dove (a couple were seen each day at Maravilla early in the morning or late afternoon), Red-legged Thrush (pretty common), Loggerhead and Gray Kingbirds, lots of Bananaquits, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Black-faced Grassquit, Scaly-naped Pigeon, White-winged Dove, and Zenaida Dove .

I was however unable to find PR Oriole or PR Flycatcher on that first full day, both of which had been seen here by Martin Reid during his stay.

Ronnie loved it here, whether it was being taken on walks in his backpack, having a hot tub, or simply sitting on the ground outside the cabin playing with gravel.

Larry,

Maravilla Definitely sounds like it was the place to be; would've me saved a lot of driving around if I'd stayed there instead of Utuado. What an great, laid-back way to get those endemics!

Larry Sweetland said:

As dusk fell PR Screech Owls started calling, and using my razzy new LED Lenser flashlight bought for the trip, I managed after not that long to get a great view of a perched bird in the bins a short distance from the cabin. There appeared to be two pairs of PR Screech Owls in the area around our pad.

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Grrrr... seriously gripped.

Elfin Woods Warbler

Next day, May 10th, the plan was to have a day out looking for Elfin Woods Warbler.

We had breakfast at the 'workshop' on the 'road' half way between the cabin and the house. I'd got pretty used to most of the bird sounds by then, and a loud call sent me running hopefully up the hill towards the house hoping that it might be the PR Oriole. There was a split second of excitement when it was indeed a black icterid, but unfortunately it was a Shiny Cowbird, the only one we saw up at Maravilla.

I had the window wound down as Nicky drove down the drive after breakfast, and when we were most of the way down the 'road' a loud 'Dtjek' call from up the slope on the right caused me to yell "Oooo, stop!". Then a slim oriole-sized bird shot up into a lone banana plant. I shot out the car, and there was a nervous wait before the bird appeared, it was indeed a PR Oriole, but not as I'd expected it, as it was dull olive and yellowish. I thought at the time it must be a female, but later read that the sexes look alike, so it must have been a young bird.

It took about half an hour to drive the curves up past Maricau and beyond on Rt 200 to the Elfin forest where the warbler occurs. This striking black and white species, discovered comparatively recently, is perhaps the big want of most birders visiting PR. Great name. Most visiting birders see Elfin Woods Warbler either at the Maricau forest reserve, or at other points along a short stretch of Rt 200. I figured we'd go to the reserve first, but when we saw how easy it was to pull off by the locked gate at km 16.8, I couldn't resist a quick stop.

As soon as we did, and whilst still in thew car I saw a bird in a tree just to the left of the gate. Up with the bins, and blimey, a black and white thing... then it was gone. I recalled Peter C's recent report when the first bird they got onto in this area after stopping was indeed the warbler. Had that just happened to me too? I couldn't get out of the car quickly enough, and the next thing to happen was a PR Oriole popping by. An adult this time, and this was the only other sighting of the trip. We walked through the gate and started looking into the trees to our left. Incredibly, right there creeping about in full view at eye-level was a totally zonking Elfin Woods Warbler. Superb. In spite of spending a considerable time along the track that decends from that gate later that day, and a couple of hours in the forest reserve, this was the only Elfin Woods Warbler we saw that day.

It was pretty quiet at the reserve itself, but the wind wasn't helping much. We picked up Loggerhead Kingbird, PR Lizard Cuckoo, PR Tody, PR Spindalis, PR Tanager and PR Woodpecker at the reserve before trying the track at km16.8 again. There was a spectacular view from the reserve.

Back at the track at km 16.8 we had a couple of PR Pewee, a PR Emerald, PR Bullfinch, and finally a PR Flycatcher. A very big surprise however, was fantastic views of a singing Adelaide's Warbler about 100m down the track. This was a species I wasn't expecting to see until we hit the lowlands.

Before heading back to Maravilla we visited a waterfall called Salta De Curet, which we found quite birdy. Here we saw a couple of Green Mango, PR Pewee etc.

Peter C. said:

Larry,

Maravilla Definitely sounds like it was the place to be; would've me saved a lot of driving around if I'd stayed there instead of Utuado. What an great, laid-back way to get those endemics!

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I so easily could have missed out on that place too Peter, pure luck I stumbled upon Martin Reid's trip report. Great that you got to see the bird in the plate though B

If I go back for birds in PR, this sounds like a place to stay part of the time.

it was indeed a PR Oriole, but not as I'd expected it, as it was dull olive and yellowish. I thought at the time it must be a female, but later read that the sexes look alike, so it must have been a young bird.

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I think that is correct. Juvies of the Caribbean orioles can be vary bland based on the photos I have seen.

Niels