Our family has been enjoying a week-long Spring Break trip to Puerto Rico for our biannual family reunion. Our tradition of a family trip started in 2005, when my wife and I decided that instead of giving our children more “stuff” and “things” for Christmas that year, we would provide a trip as our gift.
Fast forward 18 years, and our family has changed a lot. There are 18 of us here in Puerto Rico. Coordinating daily meals for 18 people for one week (the equivalent of 378 meals), activities, transportation—and, of course, squeezing in some time for birding—makes for a hectic week!
This is the first time we’ve done our family trip outside of the continental United States. Why Puerto Rico? We have family here, so we didn’t need to pay for lodging. We just had to pay for a flight (and a BIG trip to Costco), which actually has made the trip affordable. We are staying at a home in San Juan which is a far cry from Prescott. When we left Prescott, there was still snow in the shady areas. Today, it was 93 humid degrees in Puerto Rico!
We had a four-hour layover in Orlando on our flight out—so I did what any hardcore, rabid birder would do. Prior to leaving Prescott, I researched birding hot spots near the airport. As soon as the plane landed, I was off and running. I left the airport and took a taxi to a place called Airport Lakes Park, where I birded for two hours before returning to the airport.
I saw thirty species and was quite pleased with the variety of birds observed, including wood stork, anhinga, common gallinule, white and glossy ibis, red-shouldered hawk, blue jay, Carolina wren, brown thrasher, and downy and red-bellied woodpecker, to name a few!
I have been looking forward to our trip for a long time. I thrive on seeing a new part of the world and seeing new species, and that has certainly been the case. There are seventeen endemic bird species on this relatively small island, and I’ve been doing my best to track down all of them.
So far, I’ve seen a good number of the endemics including the Puerto Rican tody, flycatcher, tanager, spindalis, woodpecker, bullfinch, emerald, and the Adelaide’s warbler. I am hopeful, before leaving the island, to see all seventeen endemic species.
Needless-to-say, I have really enjoyed seeing unusual and new species found in the Caribbean region such as white-cheeked pintail, scarlet ibis, scaly-naped pigeon, smooth-billed ani, red-legged thrush, loggerhead kingbird and pearly-eyed thrasher.
One of the interesting aspects of birding in Puerto Rico is seeing many of the same species here that occur in the United States. For example, I’ve seen red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, yellow-rumped warbler, and white-winged dove—a common bird found in both Phoenix and Tucson.
The biggest overlap is probably in the heron family. So far, while I’ve been here, I have seen great egret, snowy egret, cattle egret, green heron, little blue heron, tricolored heron and yellow-crowned night heron, which all occur in the states.
I will be back in Prescott in a few days. We will soon be moving to our new store location at 1230 Willow Creek Road. We will remain open at our current location through Friday, March 31st. We be closed on Saturday, April 1st to give us time to set up and merchandise the new store, and are planning to open at 8:00 a.m. Monday, April 3rd in our new location at the corner of Willow Creek Road and Black Drive. We look forward to seeing you there.
Until next week, Happy Birding!
Eric Moore is the owner of Jay’s Bird Barn, Arizona Field Optics, and Hallmark in
Prescott, Arizona. Eric has been an avid birder for over 55 years. If you have
questions about wild birds that you would like discussed in future articles, email
him at eric@jaysbirdbarn.com.
