Day 6: Mangrove Madness

Sunday 26 March 2017 80 °F

Today, my dad and I hiked to the brackish pond "salina" (or so we thought) on Providenciales that is renowned for a remarkable diversity of avian life.

Before we even got into our car on our hotel grounds, I found this YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON still hanging around from its nighttime prowling:

GROOVE-BILLED ANIS:

The light from the sunrise showed beautifully on this cloud formation:

We were on the trail by 8am and the songbird birding proved to be quite worthwhile along the trail...

Very nice male BAHAMA WOODSTAR with a beautiful purple gorget:

Male CAPE MAY WARBLER:

After a long hike and an unbearable stretch of bush-whacking, we arrived to the pond to find very little avian life, except for these few things...

WILSON'S PLOVER:

GREAT EGRET:

BROWN PELICAN:

Distant LESSER YELLOWLEGS:

RUDDY TURNSTONES with SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS:

Overall, it was a huge letdown from the flocks upon flocks of flamingoes and egrets I had heard about. Frustratingly, this letdown was explained to me later today when my dad showed a google map image to me that undeniably showed to me that we had mistakenly hiked to the wrong pond...it was simply a backwater collection of ocean water as opposed to the true "salina" pond that we did NOT hike to (but wanted to). As frustrating as that is, the one consolation is that the google image showed that the salina looked to be inaccessible, anyway, which at least made me feel a little better about it.

And the hike was far from not being worth it, as the "big ticket" bird of the day, an amazing MANGROVE CUCKOO, sat but ten feet away from us patiently on the hot hike back to the car, allowing for these photos:

So the cuckoo and time with my dad made it worth it, even if the pond was a huge let-down. The rest of the day was spent relaxing at the resort and swimming and kayaking at the adjacent beautiful beach.

Bird-of-the-day goes to the Mangrove Cuckoo, with runner-up to the Bahama Woodstar. A good day!

Tomorrow will be our final full day in Providenciales, so stay tuned...

Good birding,

Henry
World Life List: 929 Species (no life birds today)

Full species list for today:

Brown Pelican
Great Egret
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
American Kestrel
Semipalmated Plover
Wilson's Plover
Lesser Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstone
Royal Tern
Mourning Dove
Common Ground-Dove
Mangrove Cuckoo
Smooth-billed Ani
Bahama Woodstar
Belted Kingfisher
Mockingbird Sp.
Blue-gray Gnatcather
Thick-billed Vireo
Yellow Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Palm Warbler
American Redstart
Northern Waterthrush
Warbler Sp.
Bananaquit
Passerine Sp.