Asa Wright Nature Centre 4/5-4/8--21 Life Birds

Green Honeycreeper

We arrived at Asa Wright Nature Centre on the afternoon of April 5. I hate the term "bucket list" and there are very few places I've every really wanted to go; but for probably 20 years, Asa Wright kept coming up as my most desired destination. And suddenly we were there, on the famous veranda, watching dozens of hummingbirds, honeycreepers, tanagers, and giant oropendolas at the feeders. I can't say it was a lifetime dream fulfilled, but it is as close go to one as I'm ever going to get.

We were up early the next morning. The saying about Asa Wright is that you can get 40 species on the veranda before breakfast. Perhaps. I got a little over 20, with 4 life birds. No complaints. The bird show is mesmerizing and I had to restrain myself from swatting away at the hummingbirds as they buzzed by close to my head.

White-necked Jacobin
Pete Bacinski said this would be my
favorite hummer; he was right.

It seems to be a requirement that everyone takes a walk the first morning on the Discovery trail, which is led by a Centre guide who told us all sorts of details about flora and history, that, if I were interested, I could look up for myself in 5 minutes on the Internet. But Kim managed to get us on a number of great birds, including BEARDED BELLBIRD. The trail has two manikin leks for 2 species and we manged to get both WHITE-BEARDED MANIKIN (I detect a hirsute theme here) and GOLDEN-HEADED MANIKIN with a little work. Later, the Golden-headed Manikin come up to the verbena below the veranda, which was apparently unusual and we got great views of the bird in bright light, just after a brief sunshower.

GOLDEN-HEADED MANIKIN

And then we had a real tropical shower, the only significant rain of the entire vacation.

Our Asa Wright list:

Species              Count

SCALED PIGEON  3

GRAY-FRONTED DOVE  3

OILBIRD  40

White-necked Jacobin  25

Green Hermit  1

Ruby-topaz Hummingbird  1

Green-throated Mango  5

Black-throated Mango  5

TUFTED COQUETTE  1

Long-billed Starthroat  1

White-chested Emerald  10

Copper-rumped Hummingbird  5

Guianan Trogon  1

COLLARED TROGON  1

TRINIDAD MOTMOT  1

Channel-billed Toucan  1

RED-RUMPED WOODPECKER  1

COCOA WOODCREEPER  1

STREAKED XENOPS  1

STRIPE-BREASTED SPINETAIL  1

FOREST ELAENIA  1

OCHRE-BELLIED FLYCATCHER  1

BRIGHT-RUMPED ATTILA  1

BEARDED BELLBIRD  1

WHITE-BEARDED MANAKIN  1

GOLDEN-HEADED MANAKIN  2

GOLDEN-FRONTED GREENLET  1

Rufous-breasted Wren  1

COCOA THRUSH  1

Spectacled Thrush  2

Tropical Mockingbird  1

GOLDEN-CROWNED WARBLER  1

White-lined Tanager  5

Blue-gray Tanager  2

Palm Tanager  10

Turquoise Tanager  2

BAY-HEADED TANAGER  2

Purple Honeycreeper  10

Green Honeycreeper  5

Bananaquit  10

RED-CROWNED ANT-TANAGER  1

Shiny Cowbird  1

Yellow Oriole  1

Crested Oropendola  15

Violaceous Euphonia  2 Silver-beaked Tanagers Purple Honeycreepers