18 April 2012

Birding in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican Tody


A year ago I went to Puerto Rico for the first time with Emily Lark. We spent time birding with a local, couchsurfing, spending a few nights in the rainforest, exploring Vieques, and roaming the streets of San Juan. It was a perfect trip but out of everything, we really wished that we had more time at El Yunque, the rainforest.

Flash forward to a year later, and here we are on our second trip to the tropical island. This time we decided to spend all of our time in El Yunque and we would invite guests. My mom and her friend Ms. Sylvia joined us for the adventure. It was great being back at Casa Cubuy Ecolodge. They have the best breakfast spread of fresh fruit and the views are perfect. Mountains and waterfalls and tropical birds, I couldn't ask for more.


Puerto Rican Bullfinch


Each morning we would bird off the deck from our room. Some pretty spectacular birds showed up there like the Puerto Rican Spindalis, Puerto Rican Bullfinch, Puerto Rican Flycatcher, and a very friendly pair of Puerto Rican Emeralds. On one occasion the emerald flew right into our bedroom while Emily was reading on the bed.

We also had some nice birds while exploring the area. On the road into the National Park we got killer looks of the PR Bullfinch. I managed to catch a quick photo seen above. We also had great looks at the Puerto Rican Tanager and Puerto Rican Tody on this road as well.


Scaly-naped Pigeon seen from the deck.


The only bird we missed this time around was the Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo. Such a cool bird but we'll see it again I'm sure.

It was great to be back birding on familiar ground but also be excited by the common birds. I spent countless hours watching Scaly-naped Pigeons this trip. They literally seemed to be everywhere in El Yunque. And even though I only squeaked out one lifer this time around, Plain Pigeon, the birding was awesome.

More Puerto Rican posts to come, once I'm done editing hundreds of photos.

1 comment:

Terence said...

Awesome picture and lovely post.