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Birding St. Barts

saltwatertrout

SBH Member
Noo-b here, making my second visit to the island... this year I have a tiny bit more time to plan...

Does anyone know what kind of birds one might see on the island and/or where some of the best places to go to see them (photograph them) would be? Last year I got just a few shots... some water birds at Saline, some dove, what looks like a vireo, and a blurry yellow bellied white eye stripe little guy at my villa. Those suckers were surprisingly shy!

Also I see all this undeveloped land but I have read that everything is private... can you just wander in the woods or are there certain wooded areas that might be better than others?

Thanks for your help!
 
Welcome SWT! We've got some folks as part of this forum that have captured some beautiful shots of some great winged beauties. I do believe that there is one rather "shy" fellow with orange plumage that has been photographed too, but he only comes out at Carnival time....:devillaugh:
 
Thirsty Bananaquit 2.jpg

The little Bananaquit is usually seen around the villas. They like sugared water.
 
I was hoping you were watching this thread, Cliff. You immediately came to mind. amyb has some nice bird photographs, too. Search them out!
 
Here's report from memory from a week in early December 2009:

I was surprised by the lack of birds in general (but this was the middle of winter so there was no singing). I also never went out at the crack of dawn. Most of my birding was while doing other things......going to the beach, talking walks, having lunch, etc.

I didn't see a single shorebird or peep on any of the beaches. I may have seen some shorebirds at the salt flats at Saline but I can't remember for sure. If I saw anything, I couldn't ID them because they were too far away. (I only had binoculars, no scope). The area around Saline looked good for birds though.......mud flats, the pond, lots of scrubby stuff all around the pond and on the way to the beach. On the beach itself there was more scrubby stuff along the whole length of the beach. I saw a kestral here and a pair of nesting tropic birds, all from in the water. I need to start an "in the water" list. The tropic birds were nesting up high in the rocks on the right side of the beach when facing the water.

One of the best surprises was during a morning beach walk at Petit Cul de Sac when a booby came in out of nowhere and flew nearly straight up and straight down in huge "U"s, but that was the only time I saw one so I may have been in the right place at the exact right time.

Another serendipitous sighting was while having lunch at St. Jean. There was a very small fishing boat in the bay emptying traps or cleaning fish or doing something fish related. The food he was throwing in the water attracted maybe a dozen frigate birds which hung around for an hour or so. You could have taken some great shots but you had to be there at the exact right time.

I thought the lower walk (from Flamands) to Colombier would have a lot of birds because it's a little woodsy and has a lot of scrubby stuff but I saw and heard nothing! Again this was an afternoon hike so maybe early in the day it would be better(?).

The pond at St Jean had a bunch of water birds but they were all common birds from the US and the views were tough. The vegetation was thick and tall in most spots, but this was 4 years ago so things may have changed.
 
I shot this beauty while walking in Gustavia one Tuesday afternoon. Not a native St. Barth species, I think she flew over from SXM -
 

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Total n00b here, making my second visit to the island... this year I have a tiny bit more time to plan...

Does anyone know what kind of birds one might see on the island and/or where some of the best places to go to see them (photograph them) would be? Last year I got just a few shots... some water birds at Saline, some dove, what looks like a vireo, and a blurry yellow bellied white eye stripe little guy at my villa. Those suckers were surprisingly shy!

Also I see all this undeveloped land but I have read that everything is private... can you just wander in the woods or are there certain wooded areas that might be better than others?

Thanks for your help!
Here are a couple of resources:
http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/checklist.jsp?region=bl&list=clements
http://alsophis-antilles.blogspot.fr/
 
Thanks for link to Clements, Cliff.

It's a little strange that they classify the Osprey as "rare/accidental" when you have photos of it, the link JEK posted above has photos of it and I'm pretty sure I saw them when I was there. Clements was last updated almost for SBH almost 9 years ago, so maybe they're more common now!?!!? (Probably just a lack of good data for SBH)

Anyhow, thanks again for that link. It's going to be helpful.
 
Thanks for link to Clements, Cliff.

It's a little strange that they classify the Osprey as "rare/accidental" when you have photos of it, the link JEK posted above has photos of it and I'm pretty sure I saw them when I was there. Clements was last updated almost for SBH almost 9 years ago, so maybe they're more common now!?!!? (Probably just a lack of good data for SBH)

Anyhow, thanks again for that link. It's going to be helpful.

I have noticed that birds are slowly returning after Lenny, a cat 5 hurricane we went through some years back. The ospreys are nesting near here, and it has only been in the last four years that I have seen them.
 
Total n00b here, making my second visit to the island... this year I have a tiny bit more time to plan...

Does anyone know what kind of birds one might see on the island and/or where some of the best places to go to see them (photograph them) would be? Last year I got just a few shots... some water birds at Saline, some dove, what looks like a vireo, and a blurry yellow bellied white eye stripe little guy at my villa. Those suckers were surprisingly shy!

Also I see all this undeveloped land but I have read that everything is private... can you just wander in the woods or are there certain wooded areas that might be better than others?

Thanks for your help!

There were a number of different species in the pit dug out at the construction project at the far end of Grand cul de sac this morning including a Green Heron. You can see it by looking over the fence just before the windsurfing club.
 
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