International Migration Bird Day (I.M.B.D.) celebration – 2015
Date: November 7, 2015. Michael Ryan
For the sixth time in seven years, a quiet celebration of the IMBD was observed. As is traditional, 2 full days were taken to see how many different species can be spotted. Maximum time is 20 hours, but the number of hours spent birdwatching is usually somewhat less.
This occasion was to be slightly different. The plan was that I would go birdwatching the morning of Wednesday September 30th, all day Thursday, October 1st, and the morning of Friday, October 2nd. Unfortunately on Thursday afternoon I got really badly blistered by an encounter with the very toxic Machineel tree, which put me out of action for over 2 weeks, so the balance of the time for IMBD occurred at the end of October!
To be honest, the bird action was not great this time around, probably affected by the extended drought we were experiencing, in addition to the real bad luck of picking probably the 2 hottest days of the year! Fortunately, the drought has now broken at the time of preparing this report.
Interestingly, some of the more common birds were not spotted this time. And there were a few disappointments! Firstly, only one 1 warbler was seen, the common Yellow warbler. This was very disappointing as several species are normally spotted! Secondly, there were no real “wow” birds or any new lifers for me, perhaps too great of an expectation! Thirdly, I did not break the record of 73 species, set last year, 2014, struggling to reach “only” 70 this year. And of course, not to mention the injury caused by the cursed Manchineel tree! I’m not going close to those trees again!
Caribbean Elaenia
Below is the list of bird species I spotted on my celebration of I.M.B. day:
- Brown Booby
- Brown Pelican
- Magnificent frigatebird
- Laughing Gull
- Royal Tern
- Least Tern
- Common Tern
- Great Blue heron
- Green Heron
- Yellow-crowned heron
- Great Egret
- Snowy Egret
- Cattle Egret
- Little Blue Heron
- Tricolored Heron
- Black-bellied Plover
- American Golden Plover
- Wilson’s Plover
- Semi-palmated Plover
- Killdeer
- Black-necked Stilt
- Greater Yellow legs
- Lesser Yellow Legs
- Spotted Sandpiper
- Semi-palmated Sandpiper
- Least sandpiper
- Western Sandpiper
- White-rumped Sandpiper
- Pectoral Sandpiper
- Stilt Sandpiper
- Sandlering
- Hudsonian Godwit
- Ruddy Turnstone
- Wilson’s Snipe
- Short-billed Sandpiper
- Common Moorhen
- Caribbean Coot
- Pied-billed Grebe
- Blue-winged Teal
- White-cheeked Pintail
- Osprey
- Red Tailed Hawk
- American Kestral
- Peregrine falcon
- Red Jungle fowl
- Zenaida Dove
- Bridled Quail Dove
- Common Ground Dove
- Scaly-naped Pigeon
- Rock Dove
- Eurasian Collard Dove
- White-winged Dove
- Antillian-crested Hummingbird
- Belted Kingfisher
- Grey Kingbird
- Lesser Antillean Flycatcher
- Stolid Flycatcher
- Caribbean Elaenia
- Barn Swallow
- Brown Trembler
- Pearly-eyed Thrasher
- Scaly-breasted Thrasher
- Black-whiskered Vireo
- Yellow Warbler
- American Redstart
- Northern Waterthrush
- Bannanaquit
- Lesser Antillean Bullfinch
- Black-faced Grassquit
- House Sparrow
Maybe next year I will have better luck!
MR