Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

Today we spent most of the day at the hotel (plus one abortive, rained out trip to the allegedly dry forest). Early in the morning (6:30-8:30) I spent some time in an undeveloped area just east of the hotel with a lot of mud flats and it was jumping. In fact, I’d say it was the best birding of the trip so far. Across the road from the hotel I finally located a small flock of buzzy little brown jobs I’d been hearing for a couple of days. They weren’t anything I recognized, but after consulting the field guide I decided they were grassquits, but which ones? The female and immature Yellow-faced Grassquits look almost exactly like the immature Black-faced Grassquits. Fortunately I eventually spotted one male Yellow-faced Grassquit (though no photo) which resolved that. Or at least it did until I found two adult male Black-faced Grassquits:

Apparently it was a mixed flock so that’s #498 and #499. At least one of the grassquits was banded, though I couldn’t read the band. I later learned there’s been an active bird banding project in Bosque del Seco for a couple of decades now.
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Today was a break from birding. Instead Beth and I went to visit Viejo San Juan. It reminded me more of the French Quarter than anywhere else I’ve ever seen. Of course I did bring my binoculars, and Beth brought her camera. You never know when something’s going to surprise you in the middle of the city, and Viejo San Juan didn’t disappoint. The first surprise was what I first thought were Tree Swallows, but they were a little off. For one thing, when’s the last time you saw Tree Swallows nesting in the middle of the city? After consulting the field guide I realized we were looking at Caribbean Martins!

After that it was a few Greater Antillean Grackles, a Monk Parakeet or three, and hundreds and hundreds of Rock Pigeons until we reached the western city wall where a Red-legged Thrush dropped down right in front of us:

I’ll try for a better photo Saturday when I’m back in San Juan with my real camera.
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Today Beth and I drove up to Lajas and Laguna Cartagena, allegedly one of the best and least visited birding sites in Puerto Rico. As a large freshwater pond, it supports a lot of species that aren’t easily found elsewhere. It’s a bit hard to find and our directions weren’t great, but we got to the southeast entrance around 9:00 A.M. The area’s overgrown and the first birds we found were Gallus gallus (i.e. chickens) but we also sa a lot of Gray Kingbirds and some Cattle Egrets. Mostly though it was the same stuff we’d seen elsewhere until this last bird I first misidentified as a Smooth-billed Ani. However a closer look at the photos showed it was no such thing. The bill is completely wrong:

In fact I now think this is a Shiny Cowbird.
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After we got back from Bosque del Seco I took another spin around the hotel grounds. Toward the eastern end, I heard some unfamiliar buzzing noises, and eventually tracked it down to a Bananaquit:

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Second full day of the trip I finally convinced Beth to go to the Dry Forest, though the heat chased us out after and hour, even though we started before 10:00. Nonetheless we scored 4 life birds in that short time! The first was one I was afraid I’d never see, the endemic Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo. I’ve had bad luck with cuckoos before, but this was the easiest I’ve ever found:

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I was doing a sea watch from the beach around sunset when I happened to notice something funny in the mangroves along the shore. I put the scope on them and there they were, two White-cheeked Pintails!

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