Still more Bahamas birds

300!

The hotel we stayed at (Comfort Suites Paradide ISland) was also close to a little mall. (Let me take a moment here to recommend Anthony's Caribbean Bar & Grill. Delicious food and the prices are not bad for the Bahamas.) It was just a strip mall, but there were still birds in and around it. The White-Crowned Pigeon I spotted perched by the ScotiaBank was my 300th life bird.

not wary of people

The White-Crowned Pigeon is the national game bird of the Bahamas, so you'd think they'd be more wary of people; but no. Also, there's a huge statue of one on the road to the airport. I did not get a photo of that, but trust me, you want to see a ten-foot-tall pigeon.

surprise!

The street trees on the road next to the mall had a variety of birds passing through them. I was most surprised by this Loggerhead Kingbird.

vacationing warbler

I spotted Yellow-Throated Warblers in those trees as well. They were also in the trees on the hotel property and near other buildings.

support your local Woodstar

The Bahama Woodstar hummingbird was quite widespread. This one was feeding on a tree at the hotel.

So, New Providence has Rock Pigeons, of course, and we've seen the native White-Crowned Pigeon and the exotic Pied-Imperial Pigeon; but also, there were Eurasian Collard-Doves everywhere. They were practically the first bird we saw when we arrived and sat down at the hotel bar for lunch.

bar pigeon

ubiquitous

Everywhere you went, there they were. It's a little surprising that they coexist with the Rock Pigeons, they seem to have adopted the exact same niche.

turnstone and trash

One of the features of the hotel was that guests can use the beaches at the Atlantis resort. We spent a pleasant afternoon there. The beach was fairly quiet--it was in the low 70s F, so maybe a little cool for many beachgoers--and there were some birds around. The best one was this lone Ruddy Turnstone who walked the beach like he owned it.

surf 'n' turnstone

Up here, we only see Turnstones at a great distance, huddled on the rocky shores of islands in the harbor or on the East River. It was quite shocking to have one just walk right up to us.

bold turnstone

There were pigeons hanging out on the beach as well, and of course gulls. The Lesser Black-Backed Gulls were actually a life bird for me. Somehow I had never seen one in New York, although they are not unknown; in fact, I would say that was the most embarrassing hole on my life list.

gull and turnstone

There were other gulls on the beach as well, mostly Herring Gulls, occasionally trying to steal food from children. In fairness, the kids seemed to be deliberately teasing the birds. Mostly, though, they were just loafing. Like us.

gull parade

One more species I want to mention is Palm Warbler, who were pretty common in urban-type settings, behaving like House Sparrows in the mall, around the hotel, and this one on a restaurant deck at the airport.

palm sparrow

We'll definitely be going back someday.

A fine day out in New Providence, Bahamas

Elena and I went to the Bahamas in December. It was my first time there. We had a great time relaxing on the beach and all, and we also took some time for birding.

We were in New Providence (that's the island with Nassau), and we hired a local guide for a day of birding. Some online research led us to Carolyn Wardle of Bahamas Outdoors, and she was just great.

We started at eight in the morning, hitting Montague Foreshore at low tide, where we saw some nice shorebirds including the very confiding Ruddy Turnstone above and the nice Black-Bellied Plover below, and then set about hitting our target species list (which we got using the Target Species feature of eBird).

First we stopped in a residential neighborhood and found Pied Imperial-Pigeons.

It seems that a lot of people in the Nassau suburbs have aviaries, and kept these quite elegant pigeons, and some of them... well, escaped, and set up housekeeping on their own. So now if you drive through this one neighborhood, you can spot these big white pigeons up in the trees.

Nearby, we stopped outside somebody's backyard and saw Bahama Woodstars (the endemic hummingbird of the Bahamas), Smooth-Billed Anis, wintering Prairie Warblers, and Common Ground-Doves. This is the kind of thing that makes it worthwhile to have a local guide--we'd never have gone through the neighborhood on our own, much less stopped at this productive spot.

Then it was off to the Retreat Garden National Park. The Retreat is a small park that used to be the estate of a wealthy couple who willed it to the Bahamas National Trust. They had a famous collection of palm trees, and the whole grounds is great bird habitat. We started finding birds right in the parking lot, where a Cuban Pewee (Crescent-Eyed Pewee) was hanging out. It's apparently his spot, which is another thing we'd never have guessed by ourselves.

Moving through the gardens, we lot a lot of species, many of them Bahama specialties. There were more Woodstars (and Bananaquits who took advantage of the hummingbird feeders as well). We saw Red-Legged Thrush and Loggerhead Kingbirds (who didn't give us a good photo opportunity) and Le Sagra's Flycatcher (who did).

We also good great close-up looks at a very cooperative Thick-Billed Vireo.



I mean, really close looks.

Next, we headed for a youth camp in a semi-rural area, but on the way we stopped in front of a church along a major commercial street. A shop next door had bird feeders, and there, mixed with the House Sparrows...

...were Cuban Grassquits. These pretty little birds were introduced as cage birds, and escapees made their way as streetbirds quite well.

The native Black-Faced Grassquits are much shyer of people; and in fact, we never caught up with one.

By the time we got to the youth camp (also not a place we'd have found on our own), it was getting into the mid-afternoon and bird activity had slowed down. We saw more Vireos, heard a Hairy Woodpecker, and got some excellent views of Loggerhead Kingbirds.

Later, in a pretty stretch of pine-and-palm forest that had been a pine plantation, we got another fine look at a Cuban Pewee.

Our final stop was Hobby Horse Pond, a wetlands trail maintained by the huge Baha Mar resort. There were some more wintering warblers, and a great look at a pair of Smooth-Billed Anis.

A great day out.