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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hamhed" data-source="post: 3582176" data-attributes="member: 70825">12-15   At dawn, on the Atlantic coast, we walked across the sand to the crashing surf and watched the sunrise with Bananaquits chittering over our heads in the palms.   Forty minutes later, we were in the parking lot for Bosque Estatal de Cambalache.  This location had some excellent eBird reports for many of the dry forest species.   Monk Parakeets and a pair of Scaly-naped Pigeons were seen from the side of the car.   Going through the picnic area we spied a Gray Kingbird, Puerto Rican Flycatcher, a Northern Parula and several Red-legged Thrushes.  The balance of the next three hours was partially spent trying to determine where we were on the extensive trail system.  The posted map does not show the numerous, criss-crossing mountain bike trails nor do the main trails always have signs.  Still, in our ramblings, we had numerous views of Puerto-Rican Lizard-Cuckoos, their reddish eyes giving them the appearance of enduring a terrible hangover.  Their calls made them one of the easier birds to identify without getting the bins up.  The Puerto Rican Vireos and Bullfinches were fairly numerous and also easily identified by sound as well.   Bananaquits were becoming the ubiquitous bird of the trip.  Leaving later than intended, we drove west then south to Bosque Estatal de Rio Abajo, home of the Puerto Rican Parrot breeding center.  The road from the highway is long and winding, giving us doubts about our directions.  Fortunately, we were using an app on our iPhones called Maps.me, (<a href="http://maps.me/en/home" target="_blank">http://maps.me/en/home</a>), recommended to us by Birdforum’s Opus editor, Niels Larsen.   Trusting our position shown on this app, we soldiered forward and eventually came to a gated and vacant picnic area.   After a brief stop for lunch, with almost non-existent bird activity, we drove on a short distance, sighting a Broad-winged Hawk sitting low on a limb in the forest, and parked just beyond a open gate, just downhill from a closed gate, the apparent entrance  to the aviary.  Here, and at an adjacent power line opening, we spent a bit of time, hoping for a parrot flyover.  A few distant squawks later and bored with the wait-and-see approach and the continued lack of birdlife, we found a nearby trail to walk for an additional half hour.  As we returned to the rental car, a pair of young researchers stopped and informed us that we were not supposed to park beyond the first gate though they did not appear too upset about our birding in the area.  I couldn’t resist asking about entering the aviary area for a look at the endangered parrots but the words had hardly left my mouth when the very definite and expected but polite “No” came as an answer.  The potential here was now exhausted; we knew this was our only chance for the Parrot.We had three driving options to reach our night’s destination in San Herman.  One was to continue on the cross island highway which we knew was not complete despite what our National Geographic map showed.  That would take us south through Ponce, then west.  Or, option two, to try to make our way somewhat diagonally through the mountains with the promise of shorter distance but with the potential of losing our way on the unsigned roads we were warned about.  On the advice of a contact who lived in San Juan, we tried option three which was to drive back north to Arecibo and take the highway in a big loop, counter-clockwise in a letter “C” direction.  Fast roads would make up for the longer distance was the thought process.  Also, where the road came very close to the Atlantic, was a convenient stop to check the cliff faces of Guajataca for early White-tailed Tropicbirds.  Still feeling the disappointment of Parrot failure, we drove first north then west, missing the park entrance on the first go but swung back, diving out of the intense traffic into the paved entrance road that led past an odd cement tower and shortly on to a parking lot by the ocean.  The cliffs, along with a large tunnel to nowhere, were adjacent to the short road and partially overlooked the water.  A long sandy beach separated us from a second similar cliff face.  We scanned both sky and cliffs repeatedly but, except for a few roosting pelicans, saw nothing resembling a Tropicbird.  A quick walk back and forth through the tunnel in the limestone before we were back on Highway 2 once again.  We arrived in San Herman hours later; the entire drive, minus our stop, taking 3 hours and 15 minutes, clearly the wrong choice for efficient traveling.  Traffic density near any city, especially the San Antonio vicinity and Mayaguez, was on a par with our first drive in San Juan.  No more details need be related.</blockquote>

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