The Hairy Birders: Antigua

Getting a chance to stay at a super hotel is a perk of my job and Carlisle Bay in Antigua is probably the most expensive hotel we sell!

A week was booked for the three of us and it coincided with both Jen and Sophie's birthdays so I was never going to do a lot of birding.

The hotel is located on a stunning beach which has a small mangrove and lagoon at one end.

I managed to do a circular walk which took a couple of hours and circled the edge of the mangroves and took in adjacent scrub, fields, orchards of tropical fruits and finally the last mile, road back to the hotel.

Apart from a one hour sortie to a small reserve closeby which gave me one additional bird to my list (more later) I did this walk everyday. Rather than give a day by day account I have given an overview of the birds seen.

The mangrove area had two breeding pairs of Black Necked Stilts which are the American equivalent of our Black Winged Stilts. I got great views of these.

There were two other waders seen. A pair of Wilsons Plover were seen daily and a Turnstone made once quick appearance.

The Heron sp was well represented with Snowy Egret, Great Egret, Green Heron and Little Blue Heron with a personal favourite Yellow Crowned Night Heron regularly seen.

I had a target bird which, on speaking to a Birdpal - Victor Joseph - had not been seen anywhere on the island for some time with the exception of McKinnons Salt Ponds near the capital St John.

We did hire a car for the day but there was virtually no birds al all in this area and as it was supposed to be a birthday shopping trip for the girls, gave it up as a bad job.

However, to my delight I was watching the mangrove lagoon one morning and saw a pair of birds land in the distant rear of the lagoon. Although far off and with the sun facing the 'wrong' way I identified them as West Indian Whistling Duck managing a poor but perfect for ID record shot.

Once the path left the mangroves, it passed scrub and fields - many holding a variety of tropical fruit trees including a heavily laden mango tree.

Birds seen daily were the Gray Kingbird, Carib Grackle, Shiny Ovenbird, White Crowned Pigeon and Yellow Warbler.

Hummingbirds were a bit thin on the ground with Green Throated Carib being seen twice but it never stopped long enough for a photo and Lesser Antillean Hummingbird which I grabbed a quick pose whilst it perched.

Another speciality - Carbbean Elaenia - a type of flycatcher was seen a couple of times but along with the Black Whiskered Vireo spent most of its time skuliking in the dense bushes. I did get a decent photo of the Elaenia though.

Finally my walks yielded three birds seen just once - Common Moorhen, Caribbean Coot, Osprey, Scaly Naped Pigeon and the only one I managed to photograph, the Broad Winged Hawk.

Around the resort itself there were some very common birds including Lesser Antillean Bullfinch, Black Faced Grassquit, Common Ground Dove, Zeneida Dove and Bananaquit (type of honeycreeper).

Sea watching would have been perfect for Dave as the only gull seen regularly on the island is the Laughing Gull. I never seemed to be in the right place with camera ready to get a photo which was also true of the solitary Royal Tern. I did get a distant Brown Pelican though and a hazy record shot of a soaring Magnificent Frigatebird.

The only additions to my list came by accident. On the day we hired the car, I dropped the girls back at the hotel and made my way up a steep road to a large area of rainforest. I only had an hour until dark but managed to add Pearly Eyed Thrasher to my list.

The final bird came on the journey back to the airport when I asked the taxi driver to stop (much to Jen's annoyance) when I spotted a Cattle Egret and a posing Laughing Gull in a playing field!

The only mammal seen on the whole trip was Mongoose which has somewhat taken over the island. Two Lizards were spotted though I am yet to identify them.