My latest dive trip was to Little Cayman, a remote and tiny island midway between Jamaica and Cuba. Interestingly, while the sea creatures were mostly cosmopolitan — species I’ve seen all across the Caribbean — many of the flora and birds were more specific to this area. Others have ranges north into the eastern US and will be familiar to some Dawn Chorusers, but they were quite unusual to me since I live in the Pacific Northwest. Luckily I stumbled across a nice local bird book to help me identify them, otherwise I’d be asking folks to help with that. But feel free to add any thoughts you have about them!
Two of the most spectacular birds, which I saw daily out over the ocean, were the Red-footed Boobies and the Magnificent Frigatebirds. One of the largest nesting colonies of Red-footed Boobies is right here on this island, about 5000 pairs, who occupy the mangrove trees around the Booby Pond at this season. During the day, parent Boobies journey out across the nearby ocean hunting for fish to bring home to their chicks. Their biggest hazard is the kleptoparasitic Frigatebirds who supplement their diet with the stolen fish of Boobies (and sometimes cormorants). In the photo above, I caught the tail end of an encounter between two. The Frigatebird is dive-bombing the Booby below, hoping to harrass it into regurgitating its fish, and the Booby is screeching at it. It was a brief but violent encounter.
Body slam a few feet above the surface. I saw no fish “change hands”; most attempts are not successful in general, and this one by a juvenile Frigatebird probably less so than the average rate.
I knew it was a juvenile by its white head. Here’s a closer look at a juv, which was hanging around a fishing boat near the dock. Adult males are all black and females have a black head with white chest. It takes two years at least for a juvenile to mature.
90% of the Red-footed Boobies in this nesting colony are the brown morph, as compared to the white morph I saw in Belize. Every day as we drove out to the dive sites I saw Boobies gliding and flying and fishing, on both sides of the boat. They are unexpectedly quick, and I didn’t get many photos in focus.
The Booby Pond was mostly dry. The rain comes in summer. In the trees across the 70-acre pond are countless nests of Boobies, with both Boobies and Frigatebirds flying overhead. The Frigatebirds have a separate nesting area along another section of the pond.
The Booby Pond is owned and protected by the Cayman National Trust. They have purchased land throughout the islands and have a number of conservation and education programs for birds, iguanas and the coral reef.
A few Boobies were nesting on this side of the Pond. A fluffy nestling perches quietly,
while a fledgling practices flapping. Those long narrow wings are typical of oceanic long-distance traveling birds. After the breeding season the Boobies will be out at sea most of the time.
The Booby Pond is one of several shallow tidal ponds on this flat island. Rainwater percolates right through the limestone and seawater percolates up into the ponds, especially at the west end of the island. The place we stayed was right across the road from one of these ponds and we went out there every afternoon about an hour before sunset when the birds became active. Depending on the state of the tide, the pond was flooded or mostly dry. The Trust has built two observation platforms. This is one.
Westerly Ponds observation platform and boardwalk. Without these access spots the birds would be invisible behind the margin the low forest scrub surrounding the ponds. The trees in the distance are mostly Black Mangroves. The shallow water below was swarming with extremely active small crustaceans — the surface looked like it was raining, but the “drops” were from below. A wealth of food for wading birds.
Many of these wading birds are old hat to some folks but they were all new to me. It was really cool to watch them going about their business every day.
Green Heron
Green heron stretching? There were two scampering around in the trees this day. They sounded something like chickens. Other days I could hear them but they stayed in the mangroves mostly out of sight.
Blue-winged Teal. We don’t have these in the maritime Pacific Northwest. Green-winged Teals, yes, but no Blue-wings. This was one moment I got a good look at the blue wing. Sometimes it looked green or gray.
Pair of Blue-winged Teals
A much more unusual duck for all of us is the West Indian Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna arborea).
A pair, I assume. Plumage is identical in males and females.
Being breeding season there was some posturing going on amongst the ducks. They do have a high-pitched call.
This is the only species of duck that breeds on the island. Once I saw a pair quickly lead their brood away from the pond into the mangroves when I appeared across the way. The ducklings look very young.
Common Gallinules stood out in the pond. Next to them is a Black-necked Stilt, the most spectacular shorebird in the pond by far, and a life bird for me. I wrote Daily Bucket about them with lots of pictures of them in various stages of breeding. Go here for that story: www.dailykos.com/...
Besides the Stilts, Greater Yellowlegs were the most common shorebirds. I also saw Dowitchers.
The Yellowlegs were on their way through, on migration headed north.
Where I live in the Salish Sea there’s one kind of heron, the Great Blue, which rarely moves. In contrast, the pond here was full of herons and they were more active than I thought possible. Most frequently I saw Tricolor herons. This one with the reddish neck is a juvenile.
Adults have a blue neck. All actively hunted in the pond, stirring up the bottom and flapping their wings over the surface.
Sometimes they got into scuffles with each other. The mix of grace, elegance and clownishness was endlessly fascinating to watch.
One Little Blue heron occasionally joined them. The difference in profile shows up clearly in this photo with both species.
Occasionally I saw Snowy Egrets
There were three species of egrets here, three more than I have in the PNW! Snowy on the left, Cattle Egrets in the middle, and a Great Egret on the right.
Around the place we stayed I saw a few birds, but mostly heard them. It is so difficult to see birds in trees!
I was surprised to see so few grackles. At every other dive place I’ve stayed in the Caribbean the grackles shriek and hoot all day long, cadging for treats around the cabins and restaurant. On Little Cayman, birds are not fed by humans so I saw and heard grackles infrequently. Much of the island is a protected reserve and the rest is very lightly populated. There are 200 full time residents, and the conservation ethos there is strong. This is the endemic Cayman Greater Antillean Grackle, Quiscalus niger caymanensis.
One of the most common tree birds is the Gray Kingbird. These are pretty aggressive birds and will chase larger birds. This one shows its heavy pointed beak,
while this photo shows its markings and long tail.
Another very common bird is the Bananaquit. These are gorging on the flowers of the endemic Cayman Agave, now in full bloom.
This species has a wide range but the ones here are the endemic Cayman subspecies, Coereba flaveoloa sharpei.
I heard the White-winged doves frequently.
Barn Swallows were thick on the ground, literally. Focused on hunting bugs, they swooped across the road sometimes at their peril. In fact the locals call them “suicide birds”. They are in passage right now on their way north to breed, and will be gone in a few weeks.
One parrot lives on Little Cayman, the endemic Cayman Parrot, a subspecies of the Cuban Parrot: Amazona leucocephala hesterna. Another subspecies of the Cuban Parrot lives on Grand Cayman 90 miles away. You can see the white forehead, ie. “leucocephala”. This individual came and went during our two weeks at the resort, munching on the fruit of the Indian almonds, ripe right now.
Reports say these parrots were more common on Little Cayman until a hurricane in the 1990s destroyed many trees here. There’s still a large breeding population on the sister island of Cayman Brac 5 miles away, and parrots come across the water now and then.
I became familiar with the voice of this little perching bird, the endemic Caribbean Elaenia (Elaenia martinica caymanensis). It is the only flycatcher on Little Cayman island.
Once I crossed paths with this elegant heron on the grounds of the resort — yet another heron. This is the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, and it was hunting hermit crabs. Hermit crabs were so plentiful I had to watch my step.
One of many surprises to me on this little island was how many emdemics there are. Birds came here from Cuba or Jamaica with the prevailing easterly Trade Winds, and have diverged enough to become separate subspecies.
I will be returning to Little Cayman next year and I hope to see more birds then. Stay tuned!
As usual I will join you later in the morning after I wake up. Please add your observations for the week and any thoughts you’d like to share about these or other birds~