Sunday morning I walked over to the pond near the Copamarina, which once again was lively with herons, egrets, & ducks. The telephone wires along this road are good to check for Gray Kingbirds and that morning there was a large flock of
White-winged Doves. As I was about to leave another bird landed on a wire directly over my head. It was a
Venezuelan Troupial, a colorful icterid related to orioles. Another flew overhead and the bird on the wire joined it as they disappeared into a stand of trees. The troupial was to become Shari's nemesis bird on this trip. While she heard it once and caught a glimpse of one flying by, she was never able to get a good look at one, while I, somehow, managed to see 6 of them.
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Gray Kingbird
Photo: Shari Zirlin |
We drove over to La Parguera, which has a kind of unpleasant Margaritaville vibe, to look around and found virtually nothing. As we were leaving town, Shari spotted this Gray Kingbird perched on a fence. Because at first the lighting on its head made it appear all black and we weren't able to get a good look at its tail we tried to turn it into something else. But this picture pretty much put the kibosh on that fantasy.
The something else we were trying to turn it into we found about 45 minutes later on the road up through the dry forest. Above our heads on a wire, square tail and an all dark face, was our lifer
LOGGERHEAD KINGBIRD. Nothing especially rare about this bird, but we didn't see one on our last trip to the island.
Once again it was too late in the morning for really productive birding. Despite the time we did add
Mangrove Cuckoo,
Lesser Antillean Pewee, and the endemic
Adelaide's Warbler to our lists.
It was in the 90's that day; I spent the remainder of the afternoon by the pool while Shari took a siesta. We
were on
vacation.
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