Mothercare to Puerto Rico (1 Viewer)

Vieques

MKinHK said:

So did you get it ?

I reckon John Grisham could learn a thing or two from you about "now read on" paragraphs at the end of chapters!

Cheers
Mike

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I'd suggest to him just have two 15 minute tea beaks at work to cram it in til you have to stop!

We first laid eyes on the island of Vieques early in the trip, a distant blob of land seen out to sea off Punta Santiago. 'Hmmm, so that must be Mt Pirata then' I thought of the pointy bit. Vieques is about 40km long but very thin. Mt Pirata is in the far western end, and the place we'd booked to stay was a small beach town on the south coast, but not that far east from Mt Pirata as the dove flies. Vieques was until recently mostly an American military base, with big areas of it now turned over to natural areas (US Fish and Wildlife Service?). The island is best known as as a tourist destination because of it's bioluminescent bays, quiet beautiful beaches, and snorkelling potential.

The 2 hour ferry journey was disappointing birdwise, as I'd hoped to pick up something we hadn't seen on the trip yet. It was in fact dead except for a single Royal Tern as we pulled into port. We then got a cheap communal taxi over the hilly spine of the island to Esperanza. This was a rough and ready tropical experience on very bad roads in a very shaky old van with friendly excitable locals. It was very hot. Brilliant.

The beach bars and restaurants and town were lovely, and from our balcony at Casa de Kathy we could see Antillean Crested Hummingbirds, Green-throated Carib, Adelaide's Warbler, displaying Antillean Nighthawks, Puerto Rican Woodpecker etc. The nearby beach had settling Least Terns, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Magnificent Frigatebirds, Brown Pelicans, American Oystercatcher, Semi-palmated Sandpiper, Caribbean Martin and a few Brown Boobies settling (breeding?) on the islet opposite. It was pretty quiet down on the beach, and we found a spot where we could swim, see all these birds, and settle in the shade, sharing the area just with a family in a 4x4 a little up the beach blasting out some classy samba band with a ludicrously o.t.t. bass player, at just the right volume. It was the Caribbean, and it felt like holiday. The scrub behind the beach had the 2 hummers, Loggerhead Kingbird, Adelaide's Warbler, Common Ground, Zenaida and White-winged Doves etc.

I was looking forward to trying to work out how to start looking for quail doves whilst here, all 3 Puero Rican species being on this island...

Now I've got to go off and be in a field til monday

On the morning of May 17th I was up and out at 4.30 to have an attempt at a spot of quail dove spotting.

Even though we could actually see Mt Pirata from our balcony, the more I looked into it, the more awkward it appeared to get there from Esperanza. The only maps we could find of Vieques were rather 'anecdotal', probably copied from each other, and one even warned 'do not attempt to use this map for navigational purposes'! Hiring a taxi to get to the bottom of the mountain for dawn, and have it wait for me or pick me up, would have cost silly money. I decided instead that I'd just try and find suitable habitat nearer on the central spine of the island, be a hero, and find my own site.

I headed west out of Eperanza on foot to the radar station, and reached the very overgrown old road that heads up north across the island, just as it was getting light enough to potentially see flushed quail doves but not quite light enough to identify them. I birded up this old road for a few km. It mostly traversed rather dry scrubby woodland, but there were a couple gullies with patches of taller wetter forest.

Caribbean Elaenia was surprisingly numerous here, as was Loggerhead Kingbird and Antillean Crested Hummingbird. Other birds noted included Yellow-faced Grassquit, Mangrove Cuckoo, Adelaide's Warbler, and PR Flycatcher.

Pigeons were represented by numerous Common Ground Doves, Zenaida Doves, White-winged Doves and Scaly-naped Pigeons. I heard 2 or 3 things I thought might be quail doves, but couldn't track them down, and was far from sure I new all the sounds that the commoner pigeons were capable of making. As it warmed up, and my thoughts turned more to breakfast and the long walk back past the scary dogs I'd met earlier, I had to admit it was time to go back to Esperanza with zero hero points.

It was clear that I needed another plan. I was going to have to hire a bike. Unfortunately, my only option if I was to get to the base of the mountain for the next dawn was to hire a heavy mountain bike for 25 dollars, and keep it overnight. This felt pretty nuts considering that I figured I might not even find the track up the mountain, let alone see Bridled Quail Dove, and I was likely to just arrive back at home hot and knackered.

here's a Loggerhead Kingbird

Mt Pirata

So on the morning of May 18th I was on me bike at 4.07. An hour and a half later, at 5.37, I was very relieved to come upon a gate that I figured must surely be the gate at the bottom of the track up the mountain. The gate's not actually at the beginning of the track, I'd already had to walk up the hill some way, and was far from sure I was on the right track. It had also been light enough to potentially identify flushed quail doves for a good 10 minutes and getting warmer. A younger fitter person could I'm sure have got to this point in much quicker time, but it was a tough ride for this old man, in the dark, holding a torch to spot potholes, dogs, and roaming horses suddenly appearing right in front of me on the road a few times. I locked my bike to the gate and began walking up the track.

The Birdwatcher's Guide book mentioned that half way up the mountain was best for Bridled Quail Dove, but of course I had no idea how far that was. The only clue I had that I might have got there (and a massive thank you to GMK and his co-writers for this!), was that it says just below a point where the pylons turn sharp left uphill. I felt more and more hopeless as the first half hour of walking uphill passed. The only real excitement being provided by the occasional Zenaida Dove scuttling about at the edge of the track. Other birds seen were a good match for those I'd seen the previous morning.

At 6.09am, I hit a level section of road, and the vegetation along that stretch was taller and wetter-looking. I could see that just beyond this the pylons headed straight uphill to the left into the forest. Could this be the hotspot? At that point I then heard a very deep resounding dove call, two notes as I recall, on different pitches. Could it be it? As I got level with the calling bird I realised I was going to have to clamber in up the steep hill to my left if I was going to stand a chance of seeing what was calling. Luckily at this point the vegetation was less dense at least. As I clambered in I realsed it was impossible to pinpoint where the call was coming from, how far away, or whether it was on the ground or high in a tree. I slowly climbed further, and it did appear to be getting alarmingly close. I disturbed a Pearly-eyed Thrasher, then seconds later a flutter of a dumpy bird in a tree about 8m high and straight ahead of me caused me to quickly raise my bins. I couldn't believe my eyes when right there in front of me, in all it's brilliant white Adam Ant warpainted glory, with it's shimmering silk green shawl, pleasingly drab olive upperparts contrasting superbly with shockingly rufous primaries, was a big fat beautiful Bridled Quail Dove. And not just a flash of one flying across the road, but a great view of one sitting in a tree. This for me was bird of the trip, as although it's far from being a PR endemic, it was one of the 3 birds I thought I definitely wasn't going to see, I hope you don't mind me saying that I think I deserved this one.B

The view over the northwest of Vieques, and beyond over the sea to mainland PR, with the mist-shrouded tops of El Yunque was superb on my walk down to the bike. The ride back was pretty tiring, and I had to really race to get away from a pack of 3 particularly keen dogs at one point, but I made it back for breakfast at about 8.am.

Well done on the Quail-dove Larry, sound like an exciting moment! You don't give me any confidence that the PR Amazon is getting an easier though.

cheers, alan

lewis20126 said:

Well done on the Quail-dove Larry, sound like an exciting moment! You don't give me any confidence that the PR Amazon is getting an easier though.

cheers, alan

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Thanks Alan. Yes unfortunately I bear no recent tidings of the PR Parrot, but surely someone must have been recently and tried seeing the ones at Rio Abajo?? I just couldn't find a report.

I've noticed that I made a mistake earlier in the report. In the section headed: Elfin Woods Warbler, I refered to the road number 200, when it is in fact road 120. Hopefully this won't confuse anyone, as the site is well documented in other reports and the Birdwatcher's Guide.

We left Vieques having spent 3 nights on this lovely island, and shared a taxi back from Fajado to San Juan with a friendly family we met from the southern US. We then spent an evening and morning in old San Juan before flying back to the UK via New York.

In San Juan I wished I'd taken my bins out when sight seeing, because we did see a lone amazon parrot, and a flock of parakeets, both near El Moro, that I didn't see well enough to identify. Chances are these were Hispaniolan Parrot and Brown-throated Parakeet, as both have established populations in town. In addition we saw a few Cave Swallows, Caribbean Martins, and even a couple of Red-legged Thrushes in town, as well as Northern Mockingbirds, Greater Antillean Grackles and Gray Kingbirds.

All in all a most pleasant and successful holiday, in a friendly and easy going place. Full trip list to come.

Here's what we saw on the trip (sorry about rather not up to speed tax order), intros in brackets, lifers in bold:

1. Pied-billed Grebe
2. Brown Pelican
3. Brown Booby
4. Magnificent Frigatebird
5. Great Blue Heron
6. Green Heron
7. Little Blue Heron
8. Snowy Egret
9. Tricolored Heron
10. Great Egret
11. Western Cattle Egret
12. Black-crowned Night Heron
13. Yellow-crowned Night Heron
14. Glossy Ibis
15. West Indian Whistling Duck
16. White-cheeked Pintail
17. Ruddy Duck
18. Turkey Vulture
19. Red-tailed Hawk
20. American Kestrel
21. Western Oprey
(Helmeted Guineafowl)
22. American Purple Gallinule
23. Common Gallinule
24. American Coot
25. Caribbean Coot
26. American Osytercatcher
27. Semi-palmated Plover
28. Wilson's Plover
29. Killdeer
30. Grey Plover
31. Ruddy Turnstone
32. Black-necked Stilt
33. Spotted Sandpiper
34. Solitary Sandpiper
35. Lesser Yellowlegs
36. Semi-palmated Sandpiper
37. Laughing Gull
38. Roseate Tern
39. Least Tern
40. Royal Tern
41. Cabot's Tern
42. White-crowned Pigeon
43. Scaly-naped Pigeon
44. Plain Pigeon
(Feral Rock Dove)
(Collared Dove sp(p).)
45. Zenaida Dove
46. White-winged Dove
47. Common Ground Dove
48. Ruddy Quail Dove
49. Key West Quail Dove
50. Bridled Quail Dove
(Amazon Parrot sp.)
(parakeet sp.)
51. Mangrove Cuckoo
52. Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo
53. Smooth-billed Ani
54. Puerto Rican Screech Owl
55. Puerto Rican Nightjar
56. Antillean Nighthawk
57. Black Swift
58. Puerto Rican Emerald
59. Antillean Mango
60. Green Mango
61. Green-throated Carib
62. Antillean Crested Hummingbird
63. Puerto Rican Tody
64. Puerto Rican Woodpecker
65. Gray Kingbird
66. Loggerhead Kingbird
67. Puerto Rican Flycatcher
68. Puerto Rican Pewee
69. Caribbean Elaenia
70. Caribbean Martin
71. Cave Swallow
72. Northern Mockingbird
73. Pearly-eyed Thrasher
74. Red-legged Thrush
75. Puerto Rican Vireo
76. Black-whiskered Vireo
77. Yellow Warbler
78. Adelaide's Warbler
79. Elfin Woods Warbler
(House Sparrow)
(Pin-tailed Whydah)
(Orange-cheeked Waxbill)
(Bronze Mannikin)
(Indian Silverbill)
(Northern (?) Red Bishop)
80. Antillean Euphonia
81. Bananaquit
82. Puerto Rican Spindalis
83. Puerto Rican Tanager
84. Puerto Rican Bullfinch
85. Yellow-faced Grassquit
86. Black-faced Grassquit
87. Shiny Cowbird
88. Greater Antillean Grackle
89. Yellow-shouldered Blackbird
90. Puerto Rican Oriole
(Venezuelan Troupial)

In Old San Juan, all parakeets that I have seen well enough to Id has been Monk Parakeet. The same area used to be a hotspot for Java Sparrow (unfortunately probably easier there than by visiting their native range). The Amazon probably could have been just about anything that you can purchase.

Niels

njlarsen said:

In Old San Juan, all parakeets that I have seen well enough to Id has been Monk Parakeet. The same area used to be a hotspot for Java Sparrow (unfortunately probably easier there than by visiting their native range). The Amazon probably could have been just about anything that you can purchase.

Niels

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fair enough, the parakeets could eaily have been Monks, and the Amazona anything :t: