Birding the Americas Trip Report and Planning Repository

13 - 19 February 2006

by Laura Gooch

I spent a week in St. Vincent between February 13 and February 19, 2006. This was not exclusively a birding trip, and most of my birding was done at the place we were staying, a small valley and cove on the west coast just a bit north of Kingstown called Petit Byahaut (between Kingstown and Buccament). We also made excursions to the Kingstown Botanic Garden and to the Vermont Nature Trails. The birding at Petit Byahaut, which is a forested (somewhat groomed) valley, was good. There's nothing like waking up in the morning to a cacophony of unfamiliar bird song! The afternoon timing of our visit to the Vermont Nature trails was good for St. Vincent Parots but very quiet for other species. There are several species that I think I saw or heard (yellow-crowned night-heron, tropical mockingbird, broad-winged hawk, belted kingfisher) that I did not get a good enough fix on to list definitely.

My species list for the week follows, with the locations I saw the species and my sense of their abundance.

Brown Booby - Petit Byahaut and vicinity - common

Magnificent Frigatebird - Petit Byahaut and vicinity - common

Royal Tern - Buccament Bay - common

Great Blue Heron - coast south of Petit Byahaut - one

Great Egret - Buccament Bay - common

Cattle Egret - Buccament Bay and vicinity - common

Spotted Sandpiper - Petit Byahaut and vicinity - seemed to be one per cove

Common Black-Hawk - Petit Byahaut, Buccament Bay, Botanic Gardens, Vermont Nature Trails - common

Osprey - Buccament Bay - one - unfortunately I did not get a good enough look to note whether this appeared to be a resident or migratory bird

Scaly-naped Pigeon - Petit Byahaut and Botanic Garden - several around

Rock Dove - Kingstown Eared dove - Petit Byahaut - common

Common Ground-Dove - Petit Byahaut - a few

St. Vincent Parrot - Vermont Nature Trails at the lookout - We saw perhaps a dozen of the birds, moving around freely

House Wren - St. Vincent race - Petit Byahaut - moderately common (and noisy)

Antillean Crested Hummingbird - Petit Byahaut - common

Green-throated Carib - Petit Byahaut - moderately common

Grenada Flycatcher - Petit Byahaut - several around

Gray Kingbird - Petit Byahaut - several around

Caribbean Elaenia - Petit Byahaut - several around

Yellow-bellied Elaenia - Petit Byahaut - several around

Bare-eyed Robin - Petit Byahaut - there, but not so easy to spot

Black-whiskered Vireo - Vermont Nature Trail - saw one...

Bananaquit - St. Vincent race - Petit Byahaut, Botanic Garden - inescapable

Lesser Antillean Tanager - St. Vincent race - Petit Byahaut - moderately common

Carib Grackle - Kingstown - common

Black-faced Grassquit - Petit Byahaut - common

Lesser Antillean Bullfinch - Petit Byahaut - common

Laura Gooch

<lgooch@AMERITECH.NET>