30 Jan 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 13 - Grenada: Our First Caribbean Run Ashore To Mount Hartman

We were on deck as normal for dawn, so we could maximise our surveying time as we approached the island of Grenada: even if that only gave us an hour or two of survey time. It was then a dash for a late breakfast, as the ship was preparing to moor & the ship cleared customs. We were asked to give a few minutes for the Saga passengers to start going ashore before we disembarked, which allowed us the time to not have to hurry the food. This survey proved to be a good start to the Caribbean section when the only Audubon's Shearwater flew past. Unfortunately, I failed to get any photos as I carried on watching it with the bins. Some of the other local Birds were more photogenic.

Magnificent Frigatebird: This monotypic species occurs in the tropical West Atlantic & East Pacific Oceans

Brown Booby: This is the nominate leucogaster subspecies which occurs on islands in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean & the tropical Atlantic

Brown Booby

Jan (left) & Charlotte: Jan is the official surveyor as she has the ORCA bins. Charlotte, like the rest of us, was generally watching, when not talking to the passengers

The ship ran up the national flag as we approached Grenada: This is good etiquette, but it doesn't appear to be a compulsory action

All too soon we saw the Pilots boat appear: Usually this is the sign that we were too close inshore to be worth continuing to survey. But we carried on enjoying the view & pointing out Birds to the passengers

Our first view of St George's the capital of Grenada: Grenada is about 135 square miles in size, with a population of about one hundred and seventeen thousand at the time of our visit

The town doesn't extend far around the bay

Fort George dominates the high ground above the port: The fort was originally built by the French between 1706 & 1710, following their colonisation in 1649. The island remained under French control until its capture by the British in 1762, during the Seven Years' War. It was ceded to Great Britain in the following year by the Treaty of Paris. At this point, the fort was renamed Fort George

There was ongoing maintenance work on the fort

The port and town behind it

It's good to see the town hasn't been ruined by high buildings

Charlotte, Terry & Jan: Ashore & wearing civies: we always wore the ORCA clothing on ship, except for the evening meal

The port customs building which had a large shop behind it: We were greeted by a small Calypso band playing on their drums outside the building

Charlotte in soft toy heaven: Trying to decide how many she can adopt without Terry saying that's too many

Grenada: Preparations were already advanced for the celebration on 7 Feb of fifty years of independence from the UK

Once we were ashore & had dragged Charlotte away from the soft toy shop, we changed some money into local currency. My plan was to hire a taxi to visit Mount Hartman on the arid side of the island. Terry planned to take the others to the Grand Etang: a high elevation lake surrounded by lush forest, which he had visited on a previous trip. My key target species were the two Grenada endemics, Grenada Dove and Grenada Flycatcher, albeit the latter species also occurs on St Vincent & the Grenadines. Both species occur in the dry forest at Mount Hartman. I quickly arranged a taxi charter for a few hours to take me to the site, with an option to continue to Grand Etang National Park, if time allowed. The driver said he knew the area. But it became clear that he didn't, when we ended up in a building site. This area was once part of the National Park until the forest was destroyed to allow somebody to make a lot of money out of a new hotel complex.

The independence day flags hadn't reached the smaller villages yet

Fortunately, I had some directions to the park, but I hadn't been able to establish the site of the park HQ, where others had looked in the past. So, I ended up taking the driver along a dirt road to the edge of the park. The habitat looked good enough to try walking further through the dry scrubby forest, so I decided to give this track a punt.

There were good numbers of these cacti under the trees

Very quickly I started to bump into a few dry country Birds, but they were mainly the widespread common species. But I did see my first Grenada Flycatcher within the first ten to fifteen minutes: one Grenada endemic down & one to go.

Common Ground-dove: This is the antillarum subspecies which occurs in the Southern Lesser Antilles from St Lucia & Barbados to Grenada. It is a widespread species that occurs from South East of the United States, through the Caribbean and Central America and as far South as Colombia, Venezuela & North East Brazil

Antillean Crested Hummingbird: This is the emigrans subspecies which is restricted to Grenada and the Grenadines. Other subspecies occur in E Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands & elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles

Grey Kingbird: This is the vorax subspecies which occurs in the Lesser Antilles. Some winter from Trinidad to the Guianas. The green colouration is caused by a leaf in the foreground

Grenada Flycatcher: This monotypic Lesser Antillean endemic also occurs on St Vincent & the Grenadines

Cocoa Thrush: This is the personus subspecies which is restricted to Grenada. Other subspecies occur in St Vincent, as well as, from Colombia, Venezuela & Trinidad to Bolivia & Brazil

Tropical Mockingbird: This is the antillarum subspecies that occurs in Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent, the Grenadines & Grenada. Other subspecies occur from Mexico to Colombia, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela to Brazil

Lesser Antillean Grasshopper sp.

After about a mile, the track reached the coast. There was a bridge over an inlet which took me outside of the National Park. More crucially the habitat had changed from the arid forest to Mangroves, which was the wrong habitat for the Grenada Doves. The highlight in this area was a small group of Black-faced Grassquits: time to head back to the arid forest.

Black-faced Grassquit: Female or Immature. This is the omissa subspecies which occurs from Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles, Tobago, to North Venezuela & North Colombia

The bridge by the inlet

There were good numbers of yachts in the bay

On the way back along the track, I heard a calling Grenada Dove and headed off the path in search of it. I saw one and heard another two. Having seen the two Grenada endemics, I reckoned I had enough time to have the best part of an hour at the Grand Etang National Park. I walked quickly backed to the taxi & we left for the Grand Etang. Fortunately, the driver knew how to get to this well-visited National Park. I will cover the rest of the day in the next Blog Post.

29 Jan 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 12 - Approaching The Lesser Antilles

We woke to our sixth and final day at sea before we reached Grenada: our first Lesser Antilles island. It was another full day on deck from sunrise to sunset. The team and a few passengers were all present at sunset, but sadly, there was no repeat of the previous evening's Green Flash.

Terry (left) nattering with Chris: one of our regular Cetacean watchers

Finally, there were a few avian highlights with a Band-rumped Storm-petrel sp. (which couldn't be resolved to which species it was), a very distant Tropicbird sp., plus, two each of Brown Booby and Masked Booby. The Tropicbird and Booby sightings were good as this was a good indication that we were finally getting closer to the Caribbean islands.

Brown Booby: Adult. This is the nominate leucogaster subspecies which breeds on the islands in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean & tropical Atlantic. In recent years, a few individuals have been seen around the UK coastline

Masked Booby: Subadult. This is the nominate dactylatra subspecies which breeds on the islands in the Caribbean, along the adjacent Venezuelan coast, Trindade Island, Ascension Island & St Helena. Maybe it will be the next Booby species that Bob Flood & co. will find on the Scillies

Jan's explaining something to a couple of the passengers: Passenger engagement was something that we all enjoyed and our Cetacean and other wildlife conversations seemed to be appreciated

Charlotte did an excellent job of ensuring our sightings board looked interesting: Even on the quiet days

I think we all went to bed looking forward to our arrival in Grenada and our first Caribbean run ashore. Having only visited St Lucia and Dominica, there were several new countries from the eight Caribbean landings for me.

28 Jan 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 11 - The Mythical Green Flash

Our fifth day at sea after leaving Tenerife started with another promising day of early morning sunshine. Sadly, another day where I failed to see any Cetaceans. However, the Mirrorwing Flying Fish and Small Clearwings were still being regularly seen throughout the day.

Mirrorwing Flying Fish

We were also regularly encountering Sargassum Weed. There were many large patches of Sargassum Weed that had broken off from the main Sargassum Weed belt in the Sargasso Sea. This Sargassum Weed moves in a clockwise rotation around the centre of the Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is approximately two thousand by seven hundred miles in size and occurred to the North of our route. Sargassum Weed is an brown macroalgae. It forms vast rafts in the Sargasso Sea and it provides an important breeding ground for many Fish and other marine species.

Sargassum Weed: We were frequently encountering large patches of Sargassum Weed

A close up of a small piece of Sargassum Weed

Occasionally, when I've seen large numbers of Flying Fish, I see a Smurf or two. Smurfs are the name given to the youngest of Flying Fish. Typically, they are only a couple of inches in length and when you see them leap out of the water, they only manage about a few feet before they drop back into the water. To the naked eye, they appear to be round. Due to their limited flying range, they are just about impossible to photograph. They have dropped back into the water, before I even get the chance to lift the camera. However, I was lucky enough to be trying to photograph an adult Flying Fish, when I saw a Smurf appear.

Smurf sp.: Sadly, it is out of focus, but it is possible to see it is a mini Flying Fish

It had been a long day with no Cetaceans. Jan decided to pack up the surveying just before sunset, to allow Terry to start working on the daily slide. There was only a few minutes before the sunset, so I decided to stay up on deck as I cannot resist an atmospheric sunset. On this occasion, the sun dropped behind the cloud on the horizon.

It was a good-looking sunset: Then it got a lot better

But suddenly, the sun reappeared through a gap in the cloud on the horizon. I was intrigued as I hadn't seen that before. I carried on watching the sun with the bins right on last light, when magically the yellow-orange sunlight changed to lime green. This was the mythical Green Flash that I had looked for on many occasions, but I hadn't seen. It lasted about fifteen seconds. I was worried I wouldn't have the time to raise the camera in time to get a photo, so, I just enjoyed it. I had always wondered why it was green. I was expecting that it should be a violet-blue colour, if it was down to light being refracted into different colours by the earth's surface. When I googled the Green Flash phenomenon that evening, I saw this was confirmed. However, these violet-blue frequencies tend to be quickly absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere and the frequencies that aren't absorbed produce the lime-green colouration. Perhaps the low cloud helped to reflect the lime-green colouration or maybe it is provides a darker background which makes the green colouration stand out better.

It had been a good day. I had photographed my first nigh on impossible to photograph Smurf and seen this mythical phenomenon.

25 Dec 24 - Happy Christmas 2024

I've been sorting out the photos from the Antarctica trip in Jan 23 & it's provided me with a nice Christmas photo to wish the followers of this Blog a Happy Christmas.

It's not going be a snowy Christmas in Southern England. So, the next best thing is this gorgeous Snow Petrel, which flew past the Plancius as we headed to Antarctica from South Georgia. The rest of the Antarctica trip Blog Posts will start being published once I've finished publishing the Saga Caribbean Calypso Blog Posts.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2024

Snow Petrel: It's the nearest to a snowy theme for Christmas

26 Jan 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 9 - In Range Of Flying Fish

After two quiet days at sea after leaving Tenerife in the Canaries with lots of poor visibility, the conditions improved as we finally left the Saharan Sand behind. On the third day we were enjoying warm sunny weather in the middle of the Atlantic.

We were on deck before sunrise, which allowed me to photograph the sunrise

With two days of not seeing any Cetaceans, I had a short view of a probably Minke Whale. But it dived quickly, didn't resurface and I hadn't been able to eliminate the possibility of it being a Beaked Whale. Sadly, that is the reality of some sightings. But it is important to be accurate on recording sightings, rather than trying to get a name to a sighting on the briefest of views.

It was good to have a reasonable number of passengers on deck throughout every day with us

Although the Cetaceans were few & far between, fortunately, we finally started to see good numbers of Flying Fish.

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: They can be identified by their glassy and veined wings. Some have a broad transverse clear bar from base of the wing to its middle and a broad light grey band on rear half of the wing. The pelvic fins are enlarged and clear. They can get up to about a foot in length

Seeing Flying Fish is always a treat and it is endlessly enjoyable. Firstly, they are good to convince you that when you aren't seeing anything at sea, it is because there isn't anything appearing. So when you see Flying Fish, then you know you aren't just staring sleepily at the sea.

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: They range across most the tropical Atlantic from as far North as the Caribbean and Cape Verde to as far South as Brazil and St Helena within their core range, but they occur less frequently North and South of this core range

Secondly, they are great to show the passengers and tell them about their interesting ability to jump out of the water and glide to escape a predator: they assume the ship is a giant predator.

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: This was the commonest species of Flying Fish that I saw with over one hundred individuals seen daily as we headed for the Caribbean

Finally, they are a photographic delight and with practice, it is possible to get some nice photos. Having photos is great, as it is then possible to show the passengers their exquisite fins which is often difficult to see in the field. When I was not on survey, I was generally standing in a good position and looking for Flying Fish, whilst chatting to passengers. This allowed me to get a few nice photos. I also skipped one lunch to try some photography from closer to sea level. Unfortunately, this coincided with a period of few Flying Fish.

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: This is one of about seventy-two species of Flying Fish

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: Their identification is difficult as I've yet to find a field guide covering their identification. There is the useful Fishbase website which covers the species, along with some identification information and range maps. However, it is focused on identification of caught specimens and it doesn't have photos of them in flight

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: Another problem with their identification is that the colour of the wings of Flying Fish rapidly fades once they are dead and this will make it harder to correlate the species in flight with caught specimens

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: This photo shows that the forewing is clearer than the rear of the wing

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: This Flying Fish is about to drop back into the water

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: A final splash and it was gone

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: When the finish their glide, they often drop their lower tail into the water & flick it side to side. This gives them enough speed to lift off the water surface again and often in a different direction. They also produce excellent wavy ripples if the water is calm. The best Flying Fish can repeat this two or three times and get close to forty or fifty metres from where they jumped out of the water

It wasn't always wall to wall sunshine during the day: There was some threatening weather ahead during the afternoon. Fortunately, we missed this rain squall

The rain showers did produce this good rainbow

Our fourth day at sea was similar to the third day, with a good sunrise.

It was an atmospheric sunrise: (27 Jan 24)

We also saw a number of Small Clearwing sp. They were typically around six inches long, with a dark bluish upper body with pale undersides & clear wings with obvious veins. The Fishbase website confirms the specific identification of the Small Clearwing sp is tricky. There are two species, Exocoetus volitans and Exocoetus obtusirostris, which both occur and have similar ranges along the route of the Saga Caribbean Calypso. Exocoetus volitans can be distinguished from Exocoetus obtusirostris by having a less blunt snout and by the origin of the anal fin being at a location behind the origin of the dorsal fin. This feature isn't possible to clearly see in my photos.

Small Clearwing sp: This was the second commonest species of Flying Fish that with around thirty or so individuals seen daily as we headed for the Caribbean (27 Jan 24)

We saw Mirrorwing Flying Fish on a daily basis as we continued our journey to the Lesser Antilles.

Mirrorwing Flying Fish: (27 Jan 24)

We finished the day on deck with an equally atmospheric sunset: (27 Jan 24)