The next island on the Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise was Dominica. As usual we were on deck for dawn to get as much surveying in as we approached Dominica. We saw a few distant Dolphins, but they were too far out to identify them & we never got close to them. I wasn't surprised that we saw a couple of Red-footed Boobies and about fifteen Royal Terns. However, our first highlights for the day were our first two Brown Pelicans and a Pom Skua.
Coming into the capital Roseau on Dominica: I wondered if I would encounter rain, but fortunately the weather stayed dry for the day. The island is around 290 square miles with a population of around seventy thousand people in 2011
Brown Pelican: This is the nominate occidentalis subspecies which occurs in the Caribbean & islands off the Venezuela coast
In Spring 03, I visited Dominica on a short two day trip, whilst on a longer trip to St Lucia. After a bit of searching, I finally found a friendly coastal hotel to stay & spent a morning Birding at the Emerald Pool, in the centre of the island. It was a good morning and I quickly saw the likely Ticks: Red-necked Parrot, Blue-headed Hummingbird, Forest Thrush, Brown Trembler & Plumbeous Warbler. The rest of the time was spent relaxing & swimming off the hotel's beach.
Looks like Jan, Charlotte & Terry were all catching up on emails and social media after we had finished breakfast
On this return visit, I was left with the difficult Ticks: Bridled Quail-dove, Imperial Parrot & Black Swift. At the time of my second visit, there weren't any recent sightings on eBird for Bridled Quail-dove and it was the wrong time of year for Black Swifts. But there was at least one recent record for Imperial Parrot at the Syndicate Nature Trail in Morne Diablotin National Park. Given Imperial Parrot looked to be a difficult species to see, I tried to contact a couple of local Bird Guides. But neither responded to my emails. I was back to plan B, to charter a taxi for the twenty-seven miles to the park entrance. I quickly agreed a price with a local taxi driver for the one hour journey each way and three hours in the park.
The main road on the island run around the whole of the coastline: There are roads into the interior, but there aren't too many, given it is a very hilly island
It looked a straight-forward journey and armed with the downloaded map on the excellent Organic Maps app, it looked worth a try. The taxi driver knew how to get to the park entrance, but it's always good to have a map on the mobile. The great thing about Organic Maps, is it will even provide sat nav directions, whilst you are in airplane mode. But it's a good idea to added any location onto the maps while you have a wifi signal, to avoid having to pay for connectivity over your mobile.
Every now & then the coast road ran alongside the shoreline
This boat will never go to sea again: I'm assuming it was the victim of one of the many hurricanes to hit the Caribbean
I saw a few species on the journey there, including the expected Magnificent Frigatebirds & Brown Pelicans, a Spotted Sandpiper, Royal Terns, Collared Doves and Zenaida Doves. More interesting were a Broad-winged Hawk and a Ringed Kingfisher.
There were plenty of small towns along the coast road
Another small town: All these small towns meant it was a slow journey
There were small wind turbines on the lamp posts: This is an interesting idea. It would be interesting to know if they work and whether this makes the costs of running the lighting cheaper
Where are Southampton and Winchester?: It was interesting to see two close together UK Cities are also close together towns on Dominica. The normal situation in most countries would place them far away from each other. The turning to Syndicate was close by
At last the Morne Diablotin National Park comes into view in the distance
The final part of the road wound up through small scale plantations with a few remnant forest trees, before we finally reached the National Park. I arrived about the same time as another van arrived, owned by one of the two Bird Guides that I had tried to contact. He had a punter with him. They were looking around the car park, so I waved & then headed off to pay my entrance fee & get onto the forest trail. The eBird sighting had suggested the Imperial Parrot might have been seen around the trail, but was that just the spot where the Birder who submitted the entries had used?. The trail itself past through nice forest, albeit I didn't see a lot of wildlife along it. But then I had a constant stream of over eighty loud American tourists with local guides from another cruise ship, walking back from an early guided walk. Clearly, I had no chance of seeing a shy and skulking Bridled Quail-dove.
There were some lovely trees in the forest: Fortunately, early attempts at logging the island's forests failed as extracting and transporting the timber to the coast proved too costly. As a result, there are some good tracts of forest left on Dominica
I carried on and eventually found a nice viewpoint over a lush forest valley. This allowed me to scan over a large area and fortunately, I had finished having to endure the American tourists. I started to scan and was quickly rewarded with calling Parrots. I had heard them over the forest trail, but I couldn't see them. Now I could see them & I quickly refreshed myself on the common Red-necked Parrots and around fifteen Lesser Antillean Swifts. I had plenty of sightings of Red-necked Parrots, but it seemed to be a handful of individuals which kept reappearing. But there were no Imperial Parrots.
The view over the forest from the viewpoint: It was nice looking forest
Scaly-breasted Thrasher: This is the nominate fusca subspecies which occurs on the Lesser Antilles from Dominica to Grenada. There are two other subspecies on St Lucia & St Vincent, respectively
Scaly-breasted Thrasher: This individual kept trying to distract me for looking for flying Parrots over the valley
Eventually, I left the viewpoint to try the rest of the forest trail. However, I couldn't find any further viewpoints. I decided to head back to the car park & see if there were a few species that I could photograph around the car park, as I seen very little on the forest trail.
Dominica Praying Mantis (Liturgusa dominica): This was a gorgeous and cryptic Praying Mantis
I got back to the car park, to see the Bird Guide were still around the car park. I had a quick word with him and his punter. I was pleased to hear they had seen a couple of Imperial Parrots that morning, but they were about a mile or so along the approach track near a fruiting tree. The Bird Guide gave my taxi driver the directions. Heading off to this site seemed a better idea, than hanging around to try and photograph some of the local Hummingbirds and Caribbean Elaenias in the car park.
Looking back towards the park visitors centre: I was quite some way from the main block of forest
After a few minutes, we pulled up in the fruiting tree area. There were more Red-necked Parrots flying over on a regular basis and another Broad-winged Hawk. After about forty-five minutes, an Imperial Parrot flew over and landed in some trees nearby. I headed along the edge of a neighbouring field and I had a better view of it in the trees. It departed deeper into the forest edge, before I had the chance to get any photos, but I was pleased to have seen it. I gave it another twenty minutes, before my time at the site was coming to an end and I had to return to the ship.
There was some remnant forest close to where I was looking for the Imperial Parrots: The Imperial Parrot landed in these trees
Red-necked Parrot: This species is endemic to the forests on Dominica
After we got back on the Spirit of Discovery, I noticed this Conehead sp. on one of the rails. I wonder where this joined the ship.
Conehead sp.: This looks similar to the Long-winged Conehead that is commonly found in the UK, except the wing length is even longer on this species
We left Roseau with enough time to get a good hour of surveying in before it got dark. Again there were some distant unidentified Dolphins.
There was a good sunset that evening
Jan, Charlotte & Terry had a successful Cetacean trip from the quayside in Roseau: They were happy with their Cetacean operator, but a couple of later boats joined them and they weren't as responsible
Eventually we persuaded Charlotte that she wouldn't get any dinner if she stayed on deck for the night: She was clearly tired after their successful day seeing her favourite Cetaceans: Sperm Whales on their Cetacean boat
It had been another memorable landing in the Caribbean and we still had two more landings to go.
