In the previous Blog Post, I covered the first half of my run ashore to Grenada: our first Caribbean destination on the Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise. Having seen the two Grenada endemics at Mount Hartman, I reckoned I had enough time to have the best part of an hour at the Grand Etang National Park, looking for the final potential Tick on the island: Lesser Antillean Tanager. I walked quickly backed to the taxi & we left for the Grand Etang. Fortunately, after my problems getting to Mount Hartman, the driver knew how to get to this well-visited National Park.
The first person I saw on arrival at the Grand Etang National Park was Charlotte. Her opening greeting was to tell me that she hadn't been impressed with the local bus trip up to the mountain. She also said that Jan & Terry were in the shop. I popped back to my taxi & confirmed that it would be OK for the other three to get a lift back to St George's with me. Fortunately, it was a small minivan & there was plenty of space for all of us. After paying the park entrance, I headed off for about thirty minutes towards the lake. Terry decided to join me, knowing that he didn't have to hang around for the appearance of the local bus. We spent some time photographing the local Hummingbirds & Bananaquits.
After a while, I was convinced that there weren't any Lesser Antillean Tanagers with this group of Hummingbirds & Bananaquits. I decided to continue down towards the lake where Terry had seen the local tourist highlight: the Mona Monkeys.
I didn't hang around for long at the Mona Monkeys, as I was running out of time to look for my final potential Tick, Lesser Antillean Tanager. This Lesser Antillean endemic also occurs on St Vincent and the Grenadines. But, we were only stopping at Bequia, where there are few eBird records & therefore Grenada was my best location to see it. I returned to the trees where I had been watching the Hummingbirds and Bananaquits, but again I had no success. Fortunately, I bumped into a roving mixed flock as I wandered back to car park, which contained a Lesser Antillean Tanager in it. I watched it for a couple of minutes feeding in some tall Palms, before it flew on. But unfortunately, I failed to get any photos. It was time for us to head back to St George's.
As I wandered back along the quayside, I bumped into this immature Loggerhead Turtle swimming just off the quay. After a while it dived underwater & didn't pop up again.
I headed for the ship in the hope that I would get a better view of the body when it resurfaced. It was a bit too far, so I returned to the quay as the others were emerging from the tourist shops. We had another brief view of the Loggerhead Turtle, before we reboarded the ship. This was the chance for the others to introduce me to tea, coffee and mid-afternoon snacks in the lounge. Normally, we were on deck at this time, so I had missed out on this treat up to this point.
