November 1999

by Bruce Patterson

After a two hour delay on the tarmac due to engine problems and a drunken newly wed in diabetic shock we managed to get off the ground and arrived in the DR to rain and overcast skies.

I was very delighted to be greeted at the airport by cattle egrets (instead of common house sparrows) and wild chickens.  We didn't have to work at all for the following list and most of the
warblers seen were in the sea grape tree that overhung the spot on the beach where we parked our beach chairs every day.

The highlights of the trip were watching a pair of Bananquit's build a nest outside of our unit and all of the various hummingbirds that were constantly flitting here and there.

The List is as follows:

Least Grebe
Pied-billed Grebe
Magnificent Frigatebird
Little Blue Heron
Snowy Egret
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
American Kestrel
Purple Gallinule
Common Moorhen
Killdeer
Great Black-backed Gull
Royal Tern
Common Ground Dove
Least Poorwill
Black Swift
White Collared Swift
Chimney Swift
Antillean Mango
Jamaican Mango
Hispaniolian Emerald
Vervain Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Gray Kingbird (our 6:00 o clock alarm call)
Palmchat
West Indian Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-legged Thrush
Northern Mockingbird
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
House Sparrow
Yellow Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Pine Warbler
Palm Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Kentucky Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Green-tailed Ground-Warbler
Hooded Warbler
Bananaquit
Antillean Euphonia
Yellow-faced Grassquit
Black-faced Grassquit
Greater Antillean Grackle (ate breakfast with us every morning)

We stayed in the area of Playa Dorada at the  Playa Naco Golf and Tennis Resort and all of the reported birds were observed in the immediate area or flying overhead.

Bea and Bruce Patterson
Wheatley Ontario (Around the Corner from PT Pelee)
www.mnsi.net/~brucep/
brucep@mnsi.net
bandbs@netscape.net