1 Feb 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 15 - The Martinique Botanical Gardens

In the last Blog Post, I covered our arrival into Martinique and the trip to Plateau Boucher, where I saw my only Tick on the island: Martinique Oriole. Happy with these views, I asked the driver if I could spent my last non-driving hour of the charter at the Botanical Gardens, which we had driven past on the way to Plateau Boucher. Fortunately, there was a good view over the edge of the gardens where there were a selection of species, as I decided it wasn't worth the twenty Euro charge to enter the gardens for one hour.

Green Iguana statue by the entrance gate

There were some decent-looking trees in the Botanical Gardens

There was a good open area of ground under some mature trees, which had several Spectacled Thrushes feeding in: as if they were Blackbirds.

Spectacled Thrush: This is the nominate nudigenis subspecies which occurs from the Southern Lesser Antilles to Trinidad, as well as, Colombia to Guianas & North Brazil. There is second subspecies in North Brazil

Spectacled Thrush

Spectacled Thrush

Spectacled Thrush

Antillean Crested Hummingbird: There was an Antillean Crested Hummingbird feeding in the trees around the entrance area

Purple-throated Carib: This monotypic species occurs in the montane forests of the Lesser Antilles

Bananaquit: After the black Bananaquits on Grenada, I was back to seeing standard-looking Bananaquits on Martinique

Bananaquit: This is the martinicana subspecies which occurs on Martinique & St Lucia

The entrance path itself was surprisingly good, with a Zenaida Dove and a few Lesser Antillean Bullfinches coming down to feed when people weren't walking along the path.

Zenaida Dove

Lesser Antillean Bullfinch: Male. Male Lesser Antillean Bullfinches are this dull sooty black with a small red throat. This is very different to the male Barbados Bullfinches which look very like the females

There were also a few photogenic endemic Martinique Anoles around the entrance path.

Martinique Anole: This Lizard is endemic to Martinique. But despite of that, there are several subspecies described from the island

Martinique Anole: This is the my favourite photo from the ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise

All too soon, my hour was up & it was time to find the taxi driver & head back to the ship. Perhaps I should have spent all my time ashore in the Botanical Gardens, as I've now discovered that Martinique Orioles occurs there. However, there weren't any sightings in the previous month before my visit. Whereas, there were recent sightings at the Plateau Boucher site. So I think my plan was the best plan.