Bananaquit near Blue Waters Inn in Tobago

We enjoyed the birds quite a bit on our trip to Trinidad and Tobagao. However, the accommodations weren't as luxurious as some of our Caribbean vacations that we take with relaxation and "beach lazing" in mind.

At the Blue Waters Inn there is some cotton growing. It's now wild, left from an earlier plantation. We saw hummingbirds and bananaquits pulling at the cotton to line their nests. Not that we are complaining, but we considered doing the same to increase the thread count on the hotel sheets.

Harbour Island: Birds and Blooms

Northern Parula


Bananaquit


Bahama Woodstar

Prairie Warble

Antigua: Bananaquit

Bananaquit

We weren't going to take any bananaquit photos in Antigua because we had taken so many in Grenada this spring. However, this one flew close to us one day and the lighting was just right.

Bananaquits of Grenada

After Barbados we spent a week in Grenada. There were quite a few birds near our cottage. The most common is the bananaquit. As we discovered, in southern Grenada, the all black morph is fairly common as well as the more widespread yellow and black bananaquit.






This bottom photo shows a typical yellow and a black morph in what we nicknamed the "negotiation bush." When they weren't drinking from the flowers of the White Trumpet Tree, they were often seen in this little bush by our porch doing elaborate dances and maneuvers for or at each other and squealing up a storm. We never did conclude whether it was mating or territorial behavior, hence the nickname negotiation bush. Some of the local people told us they call them "see-see" birds because their little squeal of a song sounds like they're saying see, see.

Bananaquit in Jamaica

 

We spent a week in Jamaica for a much needed vacation. We spent some time bird watching, mostly just while sitting out on the deck. We have quite a few pictures to go through before posting, but here's a nice Bananaquit.

Guana Island Birds

Kestrel

Antillean Crested Hummingbird

Bahamas Flamingo

Pearly-eyed Thrasher

Grey Kingbird

Bananaquit

We took a trip to Guana Island in BVI. Here are some of the photos we took.
We'll post more after we sort through them. The kestrel is a very detailed close up. We were about 4 feet away. The Antillean Crested Hummingbird is elusive and doesn't comb his hair on vacation either. It was amazing to see Flamingos flying. The Pearly-eyed Thrasher would drink from the flowers of this tree every morning. Here is a video of the Thrasher on a flower. The Grey Kingbird is a type of flycatcher.

Special Caribbean Issue

While Lake Nelson has it charms, sometimes people and birds require warmer climates and turquoise waters. We spent a week in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on two islands (Petit St. Vincent and Palm Island). Here are some the birds we encountered.

Bananaquit

Tropical Mockingbird

Frigate

Blue Heron having a snack.

Great Egret



Great Egret having a meal

Common Moorhen

Blackbird: with stolen Sweet-n-low.

Hummingbird



Sandpiper

Another Bananaquit

This duck was in a lagoon in the middle of Palm Island, SVG. It took some time searching on the internet, but we eventually identified it as a blue-winged teal on vacation in Palm Island, SVG. We prefered the caribbean waters, but they liked the lagoon.