24 Oct 24 - Happy Eleventh Birthday & 1000th Blog Post

Just over eleven years ago, I treated myself to a decent DSLR camera and 400mm lens. I was heading out to the Andaman Islands and South & North West India at the end of 2013 and I wanted to start photographing some of the Birds and other Wildlife on the trip. To address the problem of where to put the photos, I started this Blog and this is the 1000th Blog Post on the Blog's eleventh birthday.

A big reason to create the Blog was to have somewhere that I could easily look back on my photos & remember Birding trips. I have an offline back of all the Blog Posts in word documents and recently, I've been flicking through these Word documents as I stared to prepare to write this milestone Blog Post. There is an excellent range of Blog Posts covering a lot of UK and overseas Birds, Cetaceans and other Wildlife especially, Mammals, Butterflies & Dragonflies. There are a lot of surprisingly OK photos in these Blog Posts, with plenty of useful ID tips thrown in along the way. In the last eleven years I've travelled to:

• Holland (2013)

• The Andaman Islands and India (2013/14)

• Morocco & Western Sahara (2014)

• Israel (2014)

• Croatia (2014)

• Pitcairn, Henderson Island & French Polynesia (2014)

• California (2014)

• Turkey (2015)

• Finland (2016)

• Ireland (2016, 2022 & 2024)

• Colombia (2018)

• Chile (2018)

• Argentina, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, Ascension Island, Cape Verde to Holland (2018)

• Indonesian: Banda Sea, the Moluccas, Bali & Java (2022)

• Argentina, the Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica (2023)

• New Zealand, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, the Solomons & Japan (2023)

• Angola (2023)

• Tenerife, the Lesser Antilles and Spain (2024)

• Plus, many ORCA survey trips to France and Spain.

I've still got over fifty thousand photos (& four hundred GBs) of photos to still to sort out. This could easily keep me going for a year or two until I've finally cleared that backlog. Therefore, there are still lots of interesting Blog Posts still to write. For now, I will look to the start of the next thousand Blog Posts with a few tasters of photos to come: I hope you enjoy them. So, instead of looking back on the first 999 Blog Posts, I will look back on some of the recent foreign trips and look forward to some of the species coming in the next thousand Blog Posts.

The Lady Denok in the early evening light off Nustabun Island, Tanimbar (28 Oct 22)

Firstly, I've written up the Blog Posts for the fantastic Bird Tour Asia trip to the Banda Sea. This was an excellent run trip with lots of happy memories. The trip started as I arrived in Indonesia and headed East to meet the others in the Tanimbar Islands. After a clean-up of the Tanimbar endemics, we boarded the Lady Denok to travel through the ultra-remote Banda Sea islands with many superb Birds and Cetaceans, Flying Fish and a few Sea Turtles. There are too many excellent species to mention, so you will just have to read the Blog Posts.

Melon-headed Whale: This is my favourite photo from the Banda Sea tour. At sea between Leti & Wetar, Indonesia (4 Nov 22)

I had an overnight trip to Kuala Lumpur which allowed me to renew my visa before flying out to Ternate for the start of the second of my back to back Bird Tour Asia trips. This was their Remote Moluccas tour. The only major island we didn't go Birding on was Halmahera, which wasn't a problem as I had previously visited Halmahera back in 1991. This was an excellent run trip with lots of happy memories. I still need to start sorting the photos from this tour, but I will leave you with a couple of photos. I can thoroughly recommend using Bird Tour Asia for Birding tours in Asia.

Moluccan Scops Owl: Buru, Indonesia (30 Nov 22)

A mating pair of Obi Golden Tree Frogs: Obi, Indonesia (19 Nov 22)

I had some unfinished locations from the 1991 trips to Indonesia where Keith Turner & I visited all the main islands across the archipelago, as well as, parts of West Papua. But we were foiled in North Bali where Bali Starling was critically threatened with extinction & the Bali Barat National Park was closed. Fortunately, the population is looking a lot more healthy now and it is possible to visit the area and Bali Myna and Javan Banded Pitta can be seen.

Javan Banded Pitta: Bali Barat, Bali, Indonesia (7 Dec 22)

My first day of Birding was so successful, that we rejigged the plans and spent the second day of private guiding enjoying a bonus visit to see White-faced Partridge in Java. A great way to end the seven weeks of Birding in Indonesia and with no major food problems. That was until an eight day bout of salmonella kicked when the flight was about three hours out of Heathrow. After getting over the salmonella, I had about three weeks before I was off again in early Jan 2023. This time to Argentina and a trip to my final continent, Antarctica. I've already written the Blog Posts for a few days of Birding in Argentina and the Falklands.

Hourglass Dolphin: At sea between the Falklands and South Georgia (18 Jan 23)

I still need to sorting the photos from South Georgia and Antarctica. This was one of my most enjoyable foreign trips with some great company and wildlife. I still need to sort out most of the photos, but these King Penguins are one of my all-time favourite photos.

King Penguins: St Andrews Bay, South Georgia (22 Jan 23)

Only a few weeks after I got back from Antarctica, I was on the move again. This time on my third trip to New Zealand. There were very few Ticks left for me on the main islands, but three of them were Kiwis: South Island Brown Kiwi on Stewart Island, Okarito Brown Kiwi and Great Spotted Kiwi. They varied from easy, a good chance of seeing them if the weather was OK to very difficult, respectively. I got lucky after checking out a rustling just off the track which I stumbled on what proved to be my final Kiwi species. Overall, my favourite sighting in New Zealand were my second views of the gorgeous and friendly Hector's Dolphins in South Island's Marlborough Sound.

Hector's Dolphin: These lovely Hector’s Dolphins are used to the boat and often pop over to see it. Marlborough Sound, New Zealand (17 Mar 23)

Next, it was on to Auckland for the Heritage Expeditions West Pacific Odyssey from New Zealand to Japan. I was looking forward to this expedition ship, but I had been forewarned about the likely problems with this company by a mate who had travelled with them pre-covid, where promised landings in Japan were cancelled as they hadn't arranged landing permissions. The company refused to refund the landing fees or compensate for these problems. I will go into the full details of the problems we experienced with Heritage Expeditions & how they tried to cover up C19 on the ship when I write the Blog Posts. They failed to manage it once news was out about the cover up, whilst allowing landings to continue in the Solomons, despite not testing the passengers for C19 and thus exposing the islanders to risks of infection. The same had happened in New Caledonia, but the passengers weren't aware of the cover up at that stage and no precautions were in place. Heritage Expeditions failure to tackle & control C19, meant we were not allowed to land on Truk in Micronesia, which was one of the main reasons I signed up for the trip. Following on from this we were banned from all the Japanese island landings by our C19 status. To compensate for all these cockups, Heritage Expeditions refunded two hundred US dollars, which was only part of the landing fees we had paid for Truk and the Japanese islands, pretended it was a goodwill gesture and then told us we had to spend it on the ship before we left or we would lose it. Heritage Expeditions refused to compensate the passengers for all the problems of the ship, other than to offer us the chance on another cruise with them. I am one of a number of passengers who wouldn't touch this company again with a bargepole. I certainly wouldn't recommend anybody else booking with them, which is a shame as I have good memories of travelling with Rodney Russ in 2001 to the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. But the current company management is very different to Rodney's hands on style.

Kagu: This is a major family for Bird Family Listers. However, it can be easily seen on a package holiday from Brisbane & without the short time pressures we endured. Keith Turner & I nearly cleaned up in about four days of Birding on the island. On the Heritage Expeditions trip, we were rushed out of the excellent National Park, so we could spent another thirty minutes or more Birding in piss-poor secondary habitat at the edge of Riviere Bleue Park. All of our landings were shorter than promised in the brochure and sometimes in the previous day's briefing. New Caledonia (26 Mar 23)

While I was in New Zealand, I got offered a place with mates Phil Hansbro and Richard Carden on a private tour of Angola run by their pal Niall Perrins in June 23. This was a great trip where we saw all the Angolan endemic species. I've already written up all of this trip on the Blog starting with the first day and ending at the stunning scenery on the Tundavala Escarpment.

Tundavala Escarpment, Angola: Some of my most memorable days is Birding around escarpments like this in Africa and the days here were the highlight of the trip for me (1 Jul 23)

Since I got back from Angola, I've been focusing on a building project on my cottage, with lots of local Birding and ferry survey trips for ORCA and Marinelife to France, Spain and the Channel Isles. But I also was offered a place in a team of four ORCA surveyors on a Saga cruise from Pompey to Tenerife, eight landings in the Lesser Antilles and North Spain. This was a working trip where we were surveying every day for the full time at sea, except for meal breaks. In addition to the surveying, there was a lot of passenger engagement with the delightful passengers on the ship who would spent part of each day on the top deck with us, enjoying the Cetaceans, Seabirds, Flying Fish and a few elusive Sea Turtles.

Sowerby's Beaked Whale: My Cetacean highlight & Tick on the Saga Caribbean Calypso whilst we were at sea off the Bay of Biscay (20 Jan 24)

Once we got to the Lesser Antilles, we enjoyed daily runs ashore on Grenada, Barbados, Martinique, St Lucia, Bequia, Dominique, Nevis and Antigua. When there were Ticks for me on the islands, I headed out in chartered taxis where I managed to see most of the potential Ticks. I will start posting the Blog Posts for this trip in the near future.

Purple-throated Carib: St Lucia (2 Feb 24)

Martinique Anole: I photographed this Martinique endemic in the Botanical Gardens, Martinique (1 Feb 24)

Hopefully there will be plenty of other interesting Blog Posts from local Birding, survey trips with ORCA and Marinelife, as well as, hopefully more ORCA surveying trips on Saga cruises and some future foreign trips that I still want to do. It should be an interesting next thousand Blog Posts. I hope you continue to enjoy reading these Blog Posts.

2 Feb 24 - ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso Day 16 - A Return Visit To St Lucia

Our fourth Caribbean landing on the Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise was St Lucia. It was another dawn start on the top deck surveying along our final entry route into the capital's port. This was our best morning coming into a port so far, thanks to three distant Short-finned Pilot Whales and fifteen False Killer Whales. Sadly, too far for any worthwhile photos, albeit Terry did get some distant images which clinched the identification of the False Killer Whales.

The following morning's noticeboard confirming the False Killer Whales

We had singles of Magnificent Frigatebird, Red-footed Booby & three Royal Terns on the way into the port. As we were docking, we saw two distant American Kestrels.

Coming into the outer bay of Castries Port

The South side of the outer bay

The Norwegian Visa: This ship has a capacity of carrying just under four thousand passengers. Much larger than the thousand passengers that the Saga Spirit of Discovery can accommodate

It was depressing to see this level of plastic waste next to the port

An interesting building next to the tourist port

American Kestrel: This is the caribaearum subspecies which occurs in the Caribbean from Puerto Rico to Grenada

On my first Caribbean trip in 1994, I visited Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. I visited St Lucia and Dominica on my second Caribbean trip in Spring 2003. These were the best two islands in the Lesser Antilles in terms of potential Ticks. I saw eleven Ticks on St Lucia. But I missed a few species, namely: Bridled Quail-dove, Black Swift, White-breasted Thrasher, St Lucia Black Finch & Lesser Antillean Saltator. Bridled Quail-dove occurs on most of the islands I was visiting, but it is hard to see as it is a shy, skulking species which occurs at a low density. Black Swifts aren't in the Caribbean at this time of year and therefore, there was never a realistic chance of seeing one on this trip. But the final three species are resident. I found an arid forest site on eBird near to the town of Praslin where I had a chance of seeing all three species.

Some typical local houses by the roadside

My plan was to charter a taxi & spend about three hours Birding, whilst leaving about an hour each way to cover the twenty-three miles from the port. Once out of the port, I found a taxi driver and agreed a reasonable price for the charter. In theory, it should have been possible to rent a car on St Lucia. However, the problem was most of the car hire companies were based at the airport and this would have led to extra expense and hassle to organise a taxi ride to the airport, followed by more time lost sorting out the car hire. An additional problem is some of the other Lesser Antillean islands we visited needed a local driving permit and it wasn't clear if that would be possible to do quickly or cheaply. The costs for a chartered taxi for around five hours wasn't any more expensive than trying to sort out a rental car.

A more expensive-looking local house

It was around 10:00 by the time I finally reached the layby that was indicated on eBird. There was a track heading into the dry forest. I arranged with the driver that I would be back on the road by 13:00. He had asked to bring his missus along & they planned to visit some relatives in the nearby town of Praslin. I headed into the dry forest and within a few minutes I was watching my first Lesser Antillean Saltator. One Tick down & two more to look for.

Lesser Antillean Saltator: This is the nominate albicollis subspecies which occurs on Martique and St Lucia. A second subspecies occurs on Guadeloupe & Dominica

Lesser Antillean Saltator: It was always skulking in the trees and doing its best to hide behind leaves

Lesser Antillean Saltator: Finally, it sat in the open, but in an non-photogenic pose

The track steadily wound up the hillside through the dry forest. There was a reasonable variety of species, but all at low density. After a few hundred metres, the track reached a dry river bed. Just before the river bed, I finally found a St Lucia Black Finch. It disappeared before I had chance to get any photos and despite spending quite a bit of time in the area, it didn't reappear. I spent the rest of my time searching for a St Lucia Thrasher, but just like my first visit to the island, it eluded me. One for the future, if I get offered another ORCA Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise.

Looking back towards the coast from higher up the track

Purple-throated Carib: This monotypic species is endemic to the montane forests of the Lesser Antilles

Pearly-eyed Thrasher: This is the klinikowskii subspecies which is endemic to St Lucia. Other subspecies occur on a number of other Caribbean Islands

St Lucia Warbler: This gorgeous New World Warbler is endemic to St Lucia

Bananaquit: This is the martinicana subspecies which is endemic to Martinique & St Lucia

St Lucia Oriole: This skulking St Lucia endemic just refused to show much better than this when every time I lifted the camera, but I had better views with the bins

St Lucia Anole: The species is endemic to Saint Lucia

St Lucia Anole: There were several of these St Lucia Anoles under the trees while I was trying to get better views of the St Lucia Oriole

Band-winged Dragonlet: There were several of this distinctive-looking dragonfly in the dried up river bed. It has a wide range covering the Caribbean, North America, Central America & South America

Finally, it was time to head back to the road. I reached the layby & was frustrated that the driver hadn't returned, given the sky was starting to look threatening. Five minutes later, the heavens opened with torrential & very local rain. It turned out it wasn't raining in Praslin and it hadn't rained about five miles further North. I was glad I had carried an umbrella, albeit my legs were still quite wet by the time the taxi driver finally bothered to turn up after twenty minutes of this heavy rain.

I'm glad I had taken the umbrella

I had time for a late lunch snack when I got back on the ship and a bit of time to relax and prepare for some of the later islands we would be visiting. Although we had to be back on the ship by 17:00, the skipper decided to stay in port until after the evening meal.

Castries: It looked better in the dark

The Norwegian Visa looked good after dark

There was a special Caribbean buffet planned for that evening and our normal restaurant was closed. The ORCA team were part of the entertainment team and we were expected to arrive late in the restaurant. That allowed the other passengers who wanted to eat early to do so, before heading onto their preferred evening's entertainment. On this occasion, part of the entertainment was a poolside cabaret next to the buffet. All the tables were packed, so once we had got our buffet food, we ended back up in the restaurant. This was a bonus as we avoided the cabaret.

This was the nearest I was going to get to seeing a Toucan in the Lesser Antilles: Not surprising, given there are no native Toucans in the West Indies, apart from some introduced Channel-billed Toucans on Grenada

It had been another successful landing in the Lesser Antilles. I had now seen nine Ticks on my first four landings. There were still more islands to visit over the next four days.

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.