BANANAQUITS: AHEAD OF THE CURVE?

February 15, 2020 by Rolling Harbour

BANANAQUITS: AHEAD OF THE CURVE?

Bananaquits (Coereba flaveola) are small, colourful, and delightful birds of the coppice and garden. Besides their obvious attractiveness, the birds have in recent years enjoyed an uniquity: the status of being the sole species in the family Coerebidae.

However this singular status has really been a kind of avian parking place due to past, present (and doubtless future) uncertainty of the right category for these birds. Like so many avian species these days, they are subject to the rigours and vagaries of continual reclassification by the ornithological powers-that-be.

Bananaquits are, broadly speaking, passerines – essentially birds that perch. The nominal ‘passer’ was specifically awarded to sparrows by BRISSON, a contemporary of Linnaeus. Recently, bananaquits have suffered mysterious migrations of their classification ranging from the generalised ‘passerine‘ to the vague incertae sedis (= ‘uncertain group‘) to uncomfortable inclusion with tanagers / emberizids.

The debate over the appropriate classification for this pretty little bird (of which there are many subspecies in the broad Caribbean region) – rumbles on. A new way to confuse the issue is the suggestion that the bananaquit should be split into 3 species. In some areas, I believe this has happened at least informally.

Elsewhere there are doubters, sceptics, and champions of other group inclusions. The most obvious beneficiaries of all this will be dedicated birders, who may end up with two extra species to add to their ‘Lifer’ lists. Personally I’d like to think that the birds themselves will stay ahead of the curve in their own category, maintaining the mystery of their precise status while humans argue about what to call them.

CREDITS: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour (1); Gerlinde Taurer (2); Craig Nash (3, 7); Tom Sheley (4, 5); Erik Gauger (6). All birds photographed on Abaco, Bahamas

Bananaquit perched on yellow elder, the National flower of the Bahamas Bananaquit, Abaco Bahamas (Craig Nash)

BANANAQUITS: SMART BIRDS ON ABACO

July 4, 2018 by Rolling Harbour

BANANAQUITS: SMART BIRDS ON ABACO

Bananaquits are smart. They look smart, of course, and they act smart too. Their diet consists mainly of nectar and fruit, so you’ll find them where there are flowering or fruiting trees and shrubs. Their sharp little beak curves slightly, enabling them to get right into where the good things are, as shown in this sequence of not-especially-good-so-I’ll-call-them-illustrative photos. And that beak gives then another method of reaching nectar – they can pierce the base of a flower and use the beak as a sort of probe to get at the nectar that way. And soft fruit? Easy!

All photos: Header, Craig Nash; the rest, Keith Salvesen – all at Delphi, Abaco Bahamas

BANANAQUITS ON ABACO (GUEST PHOTOS)

June 23, 2016 by Rolling Harbour

BANANAQUITS ON ABACO (GUEST PHOTOS)

This is the best job in the world (#it’snotajob #it’sapastime #duh!yougetpaidinajob). I get to choose what to write about and what photos to use. And it’s all enjoyable, interesting, and totally new (to me) within the last 10 years. Bananaquits are another favourite small bird of mine. Charmaine Albury takes great Abaco wildlife photos – birds, butterflies, insects, shells and more – on Man-o-War Cay and beyond. It’s time to showcase some of her bananaquit photos. Let’s go!

Bananaquit, Abaco (Char Albury)

Juvenile bananaquits have their own totally adorbz qualities, as I have observed BEFORE.

Bananaquit juvenile, Abaco (Char Albury)

As the juveniles grow, their colouring becomes stronger until eventually they are hardly distinguishable from their parents Bananaquit juvenile, Abaco (Char Albury) Bananaquit, Abaco (Char Albury)

Bananaquits are readily attracted to gardens. They can used their sharp curved beaks to drink from hummingbird feeders. Or why not try Charmaine’s idea for a free-to-make bananaquit bar – look how successful it is!

Bananaquit, Abaco (Char Albury)

You’ll find several posts about bananaquits, none particularly recent. For an ‘in-house’ gallery of these bright little birds, click HERE

All photos Charmaine Albury, with thanks for use permission. You’ll notice that the images are watermarked or named, which is because Char’s images are available for sale. Let me know if you are interested in any of the photos featured here…

SMALL ABACO BIRDS TO MAKE THINGS BETTER

February 1, 2016 by Rolling Harbour

SMALL ABACO BIRDS TO MAKE THINGS BETTER

Bad day. I know about random outage outrage and so on, but really… The router died, unmourned. Bought another. Wasted 2 hours trying to make it work. Turns out to be ‘defective’, which is to say broken. Or another B word. Bought another. Almost lost the will to live. I have the briefest window in which to check emails etc before it, too, checks out of the Mac Hotel. The ONLY SOLUTION (apart from Kalik in copious quantities, sadly not available where I am right now), is to look at some pretty birds taken in the gardens round the Delphi Club. Mmmmm. Feeling better now. Deep breaths… and… relax…

Bananaquit, Abaco 1 (Keith Salvesen) La Sagra flycatcher, Abaco 1 (RH) Cuban Emerald, Abaco (Keith Salvesen) Yellow-throated Warbler, Abaco (RH)

All pics by a rather stroppy RH

STOP PRESS Exactly 24 hours after excitedly unwrapping the (second) new router, after a convoluted and Kafkaesque series of phone calls to various techie centres, headily mixed with wine, beer, tears and tantrums, I combined some of the info from each and miraculously the recalcitrant beast sprang to life. For how long, though? Router advice given: $100 ph + exes

GILPIN POINT, ABACO: A ‘2 HOURS, 40 SPECIES’ BIRDING HOTSPOT

November 25, 2015 by Rolling Harbour

Black-necked Stilt, Abaco (Alex Hughes) copy

GILPIN POINT, ABACO: A ‘2 HOURS, 40 SPECIES’ BIRDING HOTSPOT

Got a spare couple of hours? Reluctant to go birding on the bird-reliable yet ambience-lite town dumps, where careful cropping will be needed to avoid including post-apocalyptic scenery in your hard-won photos of a Little Mulligatawny Owl? Then read on. I have mentioned Gilpin Point before as a great place for birding, and listed many of the species to be found there. It benefits from a large pond, a pristine shoreline, and a coppice environment with some pine forest thrown in. All the makings of an excellent birding location, with suitable habitat for a wide variety of species. Blue-winged Teal, Abaco (Keith Salvesen)

On November 21st Reg Patterson, well-known Abaco birder and guide, was up early, and by 07.00 he was at Gilpin Pond where he spent a couple of hours . He recorded 40 species in that time, from very large to very small. His checklist reveals a great cross-section of the birdlife to be found on Abaco. There might easily have been parrots there too, since Gilpin has become one of their daily chattering spots for a frank exchange of news and views. Sadly it seems that the beautiful and (now) rare SPOONBILL recorded there in early October has moved on.

Willet, Abaco

Here is Reg’s checklist, which I have illustrated with a variety of photos of the species he found, all taken on Abaco and many actually taken at Gilpin Point. There are plenty of other species that might easily have been seen there then – or perhaps later in the day (e.g. snowy egret, yellowlegs, kestrel, turkey vulture, red-legged thrush, cuban emerald, not to mention shorebirds and seabirds if some time was spent on the shore).

CHECKLIST

Blue-winged Teal (16) (see above)

White-cheeked Pintail (20)

White-cheeked Pintail, Abaco 1 (Keith Salvesen)

Green-winged Teal (1)

Great Blue Heron (1) Great_Blue_Heron_Wading_2

Great Egret (1)

Little Blue Heron (2)

Tricolored Heron (2)

Green Heron (2) Green Heron, Gilpin Point, Abaco (Keith Salvesen)05

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (1)

Turkey Vulture (7)

Common Gallinule (1)

Black-necked Stilt (1) (and header)

Black-necked Stilt, Gilpin Point, Abaco (Keith Salvesen)

Spotted Sandpiper (1)

Willett (1) (see above)

Common Ground-Dove (1)

Smooth-billed Ani (8)

Bahama Woodstar (1) Bahama Woodstar (m), Abaco (Bruce Hallett)

Belted Kingfisher (1)

West Indian Woodpecker (7)

Hairy Woodpecker (1) Hairy Woodpecker, Abaco (Tony Hepburn)

Peregrine Falcon (1)

Loggerhead Kingbird (4) Loggerhead Kingbird, Abaco - Tom Reed

Thick-billed Vireo (7)

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (1) Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Abaco, Bahamas (Keith Salvesen)

Red-legged Thrush (1)

Gray Catbird (4)

Northern Mockingbird (2) Northern Mockingbird, Abaco (Keith Salvesen)

Ovenbird (1)

Northern Waterthrush (6)

Bahama Yellowthroat (1)

Bahama Yellowthroat, Abaco (Charles Skinner)

Common Yellowthroat (1)

Cape May Warbler (3)

Black-throated Blue Warbler (1) Black-throated Blue Warbler (m), Abaco (Bruce Hallett)

Palm Warbler (2)

Prairie Warbler (2)

Bananaquit (1) Bananaquit & palm, Delphi, Abaco, Bahamas (Keith Salvesen)

Black-faced Grassquit (6)

Greater Antillean Bullfinch (4)

Western Spindalis (7)

Red-winged Blackbird (X) Red-winged Blackbird Abaco Bahamas (Keith Salvesen)

Gilpin Map 1 Gilpin Map 2 Gilpin Map 3

Credits: Alex Hughes (1 / header); Keith Salvesen (2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 15 , 16); TBC (3, 5); Bruce Hallett (8, 14); Tony Hepburn (9); Tom Reed (10); Charles Skinner (13)

FEEDER BIRDS AT THE DELPHI CLUB, ABACO

September 15, 2015 by Rolling Harbour

FEEDER BIRDS AT THE DELPHI CLUB, ABACO

The compilation of The Delphi Club Guide to THE BIRDS OF ABACO involved making a few rules and sticking to them. For example, the avian images in the book – and there are a great many – had to be of birds actually photographed on Abaco or in Abaco waters. Gorgeous pictures from Grand Bahama or New Providence were ruthlessly excluded, however painful it was to do. Some wonderful spoonbill photos taken in Nassau stayed in the ‘Not Use’ folder. The temptation to slip in an non-Abaco whimbrel to fill a whimbrel-shaped space among the shorebirds had to be resisted – even though at the time the last recorded sighting of one on Abaco (no photo) was in 2000…

Another important restriction was the stipulation that we would only use birds that had been photographed in their natural surroundings, defined as being a place where a particular species might naturally be found. Coppice and shoreline, obviously, but this included utility wires, posts and docks etc for species that habitually use them to perch on or hunt from. However, the rule meant a complete embargo on feeder photos, however winsome a hummingbird might look as it sips sugar water. We extended the principle to include a ban on luring birds into camera-shot with seed or corn trails; and similar ruses beyond the simple whistles and pishes that anyone might use to tempt a bird out of deep cover.

Cuban Emerald coming in to land… and feeding

The Delphi club is the perfect location for an enviably varied number of species. Its remoteness down a one-mile drive from the Highway, with pine forest giving way to luxuriant coppice, ensures minimal disturbance for the birds including a number of rarer species.

The one-mile white sand curve of the beach sees many shorebirds and seabirds in all seasons. The gardens attract both the usual suspects and less common birds. The building, too, has its resident West Indian Woodpeckers in two nesting boxes under the eaves, thoughtfully provided to discourage the Club’s woodwork from exploratory drilling.

Mr and Mrs Black-faced Grassquit

There are a number of seed and sugar water feeders around the place, and bird baths too. It’s a long time since I featured a collection of ‘tame’ birds. This post shows a few of the species that have made Delphi their home.

Mr and Mrs Greater Antillean Bullfinch

Mr and Mrs Painted Bunting

Bananaquit: the curved beak makes it easy to use the hummer feeder (see above)

A Gray Catbird takes a drink… and a bath

Adaptive behaviour from a W I Woodpecker – that long tongue is perfect for the job

The turkey vulture takes priority over all smaller birds…

A red-legged thrush enjoys picking up the seed shrapnel off the ground…

As do rose-breasted grosbeaks and indigo buntings

Meanwhile, a yellow-crowned night heron takes a drink from the pool

Credits: all photos RH except aerial shot of Delphi, Peter Brown; the hummers, Peter Mantle; and the buntings / grosbeaks, PM and Caroline Stahala…

A QUARTER OF A MILLION GLIMPSES OF ABACO…

August 5, 2015 by Rolling Harbour

A QUARTER OF A MILLION GLIMPSES OF ABACO…

Well here’s a rum do. About four years ago, this somewhat minority interest blog emerged ‘mewling and puking’¹ into the world, guided by an incompetent male midwife whose basic training had been about 4 weeks of exposure to Abaco, its fishing, its wildlife, its geography and its history. ‘Bananaquit’ might as well have meant taking up a plantain-free diet. ‘Grassquit’ might have been the local word for ‘keep off the lawn’. And that’s before all the flowers. And the reef fish. And everything else that turned up during the storm-wracked voyage of discovery via polydamus swallowtails, manatees, spider wasps and batfish that led slowly to the calmer waters of ‘rather better informed (if no wiser)’.

Anyway, at midnight last night some unknown person kindly made the 250,000th visit to the blog, a target that once seemed inconceivable. In the past month, the 1000th person also signed up as a follower, another source of amazement. The reality is that despite Abaco being a sparsely-populated microdot island in a huge world, there are a great many people on the island or associated with it who are passionate about it and its extraordinarily diverse natural history. That knowledge makes curating this blog both easy and pleasurable.

I checked my stats for the last year to find out where hits from the top 10 countries – and for fun the bottom 1o – came from. Here’s the answer. Rather shamefully there was also a country I had never knowingly heard of, Palau (Micronesia). There follows a selection of a few photographs that have been popular over the years, mostly my own but the underwater ones are from Melinda Riger and Virginia Cooper of Grand Bahama Scuba.

Top 10 Bottom 10
Top 10 countries jpg

SEARCH TERMS

The most popular searches – omitting posts about hurricanes, which always generate a lot of traffic – have concerned Abaco Parrots, Lignum Vitae, Sea Glass, the Loxahatchee poster series, Tarantula Hawk Wasps, Sea Biscuits / Urchins, Yellow Elder, Parrotfish, Shipwrecks, Hutias, Hole-in-the-Wall, Lionfish, Remora, and Abaco Maps. The most leftfield search of all was ‘How dispose of dead bodies?’, by someone who had clearly strayed into the wrong category of website…

A FEW OF THE MOST POPULAR POSTS / PAGES
SEA SHELLS
SPIDER WASPS & TARANTULA HAWKS: DON’T MESS WITH THESE GUYS
ABACO FACTS (including likelihood of adverse shark encounter or shipwreck)
ABACO MAPS
LIGNUM VITAE – BAHAMAS NATIONAL TREE
YELLOW ELDER – THE BAHAMAS NATIONAL FLOWER
SEA URCHINS & SEA BISCUITS – BEACHCOMBING TREASURES ON ABACO
ABACO FOOD & DRINK (cook hog / bonefish; clean a conch; sip an Abaco cocktail / Goombay Smash)
ABACO & HOLE-IN-THE-WALL, BAHAMAS: A SHORT HISTORY IN MAPS
PINEAPPLES: SYMBOLS OF WELCOME & WEALTH (ALSO, DELICIOUS)
ABACO ISLAND BOA: THE ONLY ABACO SNAKE
WHALES & DOLPHINS
ABACO PARROTS
FLORA

It would be strange to end this little celebration without a tip of the hat to Peter Mantle, old friend and genial doyen of the Delphi Club, for his wholehearted encouragement and support for the production and publication of THE DELPHI CLUB GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF ABACO. This hefty tome, published in March 2014, showcases the wonderful and varied avian life on Abaco and has proved very popular – indeed well beyond our expectations. Although I appear nominally as author on the cover, it is in fact an extraordinary collaborative effort by some 30 people. The book’s success further demonstrates the commitment of Abaconians and other who love the island to Abaco’s rich natural heritage in an age of rapid change; and provides another good incentive for me to continue with the blog. Next stop: 500,000!

¹ © W. Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet Act 2 Sc. 7

THE PECKING ORDER: FEEDER GREED ON ABACO

March 4, 2015 by Rolling Harbour

THE PECKING ORDER: FEEDER GREED ON ABACO

At Delphi there are several feeders, with seeds for the garden birds in general, and sugar water feeders for the specialist hummingbirds. The seed feeders are the cause of a certain amount of species squabbling, with a pecking order based on size. Smaller birds tend to give way to larger, and either flutter down to the ground to pick up dropped seeds or fly off to the bushes until it’s safe to return. The hummer feeders are also visited by birds with adaptive beaks to fit the tiny holes, such as bananaquits; and birds with long and probing tongues like the resident West Indian woodpeckers. The hummers tend to flit away until the intruders have flown off again.

BLACK-FACED GRASSQUITS

There’s no getting away from it, I’m afraid. BFGs are greedy little birds. Many would also call them dull, but personally I rather like the assertive colouring of the male and the subtle olive shades of the female (but that said I’d trade one in for a painted bunting without a second thought…). They are easily bullied out of the way by GABs (see below), although I have noticed that both species happily coexist on the ground under the feeders, where there is more space for them to pick up fallen seeds.

GREATER ANTILLEAN BULLFINCH

These fine birds with their striking livery assume feeder priority. They are just as voracious as the BFGs, and get seriously stuck in. No other birds spoil their feasting. These are alpha seed guzzlers.

HEY YOU! GRASSQUIT! DON’T YOU DARE COME ANY CLOSER… MINE!

HUMMINGBIRD FEEDER RIVALS

BANANAQUIT

This bird had been sticking its thin, curved beak in to the tiny holes and drinking until I got a bead on it (with the camera). Annoyingly it then started to sip the spillage, so I missed the shot I really wanted… Meanwhile two Emeralds had retired to the bushed nearby, waiting for their chance at what was after all their own designated feeder.

This is a beak that can easily negotiate a little feeder hole

WEST INDIAN WOODPECKER

When Delphi’s resident woodpeckers decide to try out the hummer feeder, everyone keeps clear. Very meanly, the male takes precedence over the female, despite the fact that in the course of each year she rears two families, moving to the second nesting box to rearrange the furniture even before the chicks in the first box have flown. Nevertheless, she has to wait her turn… Note how the male manages to get his long tongue right into the small hole in the yellow flower…

Meanwhile, Mrs Woody politely waits her turn…

All photos: RH

FESTIVE BIRDING ON ABACO WITH GUEST BIRDER VELMA

January 8, 2015 by Rolling Harbour

FESTIVE BIRDING ON ABACO WITH GUEST BIRDER VELMA

Velma Knowles is a resident of Nassau but originates from Abaco, where her grandparents lived. She is a keen photographer and birder, and recently spent a few days ‘back home’ on Abaco, staying on Man-o-War Cay during that strange ‘Christmas to New Year’ period that people have begun to refer to uncomfortably as ‘Twixmas’. Which I guess goes well with ‘Winterval’, if that neologism to describe the festive season rocks your sleigh.

Obviously, Velma had her camera with her; and a bit of quality birding was built into her schedule. Man-o-War has been having a prolific winter season, birdwise, with plenty of interesting migratory species passing through or settling there till Spring. But who would be content with a random warbler from the North, when there are Abaco’s specialist birds to encounter. Many of the birds featured – all are permanent residents – were seen on Man-o-War; others on the main island, though not actually at Delphi. Every bird shown can readily be found at Delphi, except perhaps for the Royal Tern, hence a few mentions. Let’s see how Velma did during her brief visit. (Spoiler Alert: very well indeed!).

ABACO PARROTS

A first ‘get’ for anyone’s Abaco checklist, and hence the header image. Not available on the Cays, so a trip to the ‘mainland’ and the wild pine forest and coppice of South Abaco is called for (they don’t venture north of Marsh Harbour). Rescued from the brink of extinction by careful conservation measures, the newly regenerating population of these unique underground-nesting parrots is gradually spreading, making them easier to find. During the day, Bahamas Palm Shores is a likely spot, as are locations to the south, including Delphi and the area around Crossing Rocks down to Gilpin Point.

Abaco Parrot, Abaco (Velma Knowles) Abaco Parrot pair, Abaco (Velma Knowles)

BAHAMA WOODSTAR

Abaco’s lovely endemic hummingbird, rather pushed around by the brash incomer Cuban Emerald and therefore tending to avoid them (though both can be found at Delphi). The MALE CUBAN EMERALD has a striking purple throat aka ‘gorget’; the female (below) encountered by Velma has a more delicate colouring.

Bahama Woodstar, Abaco (Velma Knowles)

CUBAN EMERALD

Unlike the Woodstar, these pretty iridescent green hummers are not endemic yet are more frequently encountered. They fly and change direction with astonishing speed, and are feeder-keen! Your sugar-water feeder will also attract Bananquits (pointy curved beak for the little holes) and West Indian Woodpeckers (long tongue) – and possibly Woodstars.

WEST INDIAN WOODPECKER

Splendid and occasionally noisy birds that nest in boxes under the eaves at Delphi. They produce two families a year. Velma writes “It has been a long wait but I finally saw this lifer, the West Indian Woodpecker. This bird is only found in The Bahamas, Cuba and the Cayman Islands. Awesome call!”

WESTERN SPINDALIS

Velma writes “One of my targeted birds, the Western Spindalis, formerly called the stripe-headed tanager. On the way from the airport we spotted him on the side-of-the-road. Now that’s island-birding!” Western Spindalis, Abaco (Velma Knowles)

BANANAQUIT

One of my own favourite small birds. Irresistably cheery, busy and ubiquit(-ous)

THICK-BILLED VIREO

Velma writes “Such a beautiful call… the Thick-billed Vireo. We heard a number of these guys on our bird-walks. The Thick-billed Vireo is a Caribbean endemic, being restricted to The Bahamas, the Caymans, the Turks and Caicos, two islands off of Cuba and one off of Haiti (though it has been reported in Florida)”

GREATER ANTILLEAN BULLFINCH

The adult male’s striking colour patches are orange-red; the female’s are more yellow. They are greedy at the feeder and rank high up in the pecking order, where smaller birds defer to them. One local name for them is ‘Police Bird’: the adult male’s colouring matches that of a Bahamian Police Officer’s uniform.

YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT HERON (juvenile)

ROYAL TERN

ROYAL TERN SYNCHRONISED DIVING SCHOOL, LONG DOCK, CHEROKEE

At 770 feet, this dock is the longest in the entire Bahamas Royal Terns at Long Dock, Cherokee, Abaco (Velma Knowles)

All photos: Velma Knowles, with thanks for use permission

“A WHALE OF A YEAR”: 12 MONTHS FROM ROLLING HARBOUR ABACO

December 30, 2014 by Rolling Harbour

Whale Tailing, Bahamas (BMMRO)

“A WHALE OF A YEAR”: 12 MONTHS FROM ROLLING HARBOUR ABACO

JANUARY

Red-winged Blackbird, Abaco Backcountry

FEBRUARY

French Angelfish (juvenile), Bahamas

MARCH

Publication & Launch of “The Birds of Abaco”

book-launch-1 Author signing copies, with Bahamas birding gurus Tony White, Bruce Hallett & Woody Bracey

APRIL

20130106_Bahamas-Great Abaco_4846_Bahama Yellowthroat_Gerlinde Taurer copy

Bahama Yellowthroat, Abaco

MAY

Bananaquit & palm, Delphi, Abaco, Bahamas 7

Bananaquit, Delphi Club, Abaco, Bahamas

JUNE

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, Abaco : WWT - RH 3

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, Abaco – first recorded sighting

JULY

Octopus ©Melinda Riger @ Grand Bahama Scuba

Octopus, Bahamas

AUGUST

Bobwhite pair 2.Abaco Bahamas.Tom Sheley cr

Bobwhite pair, Abaco, Bahamas

SEPTEMBER

Black-necked Stilt, Abaco

OCTOBER

White-winged Dove, Abaco, Bahamas

NOVEMBER

Exploring Dan’s Cave, Abaco

DECEMBER

Piping Plover: a precious winter visitor to Man-o-War Cay, Abaco

All the best for 2015 to Rolling Harbour’s regular, occasional and random visitors

Credits: BMMRO, RH, Melinda Riger, Gerlinde Taurer, Tom Sheley, Alex Hughes, Brian Kakuk, Charmaine Albury

BANANAQUITS ON ABACO: CHEERY VANQUISHERS OF GLOOM

September 27, 2014 by Rolling Harbour

Bananaquit, Abaco - Bruce Hallett

BANANAQUITS ON ABACO: CHEERY VANQUISHERS OF GLOOM

I’d been planning a post about marine debris and its dire effects on the natural world. Some images I proposed to use are distressing, and some simply suggest how futile it is to try to prevent mankind chucking harmful and semi-permanent rubbish into the sea. Depressing. A gyre of upset. Add in new military interventions without limitation and suddenly I longed for something more cheerful. Checking through a folder of photos of Bananaquits helped to stave of the gloom, so I picked out a few images of this lovely small bird taken by 9 photographers.

Bananaquit, Treasure Cay, Abaco - Becky Marvil Bananaquit, Abaco - Bruce Hallett

Credits: Bruce Hallett, Craig Nash, Keith Salvesen, Becky Marvil, Gerlinde Taurer, Charlie Skinner, Erik Gauger, Tom Reed, Peter Mantle

BANANAQUITS ARE UBIQUITS ON ABACO – AND ÜBERCUTE TOO

May 23, 2014 by Rolling Harbour

BANANAQUITS ARE UBIQUITS ON ABACO – AND ÜBERCUTE TOO

The Bananaquit Coereba flaveola. Permanently resident on Abaco, at the Delphi Club, and in my top ten favourite birds. And everyone else’s, I shouldn’t wonder. With their handsome livery and their cheeky chirping, they can be found almost anywhere. They could equally well be called ubiquits. I had been going to post some recent images of one feasting at a hummingbird feeder, but I found this thirsty palm-forager in my photo folder first, so here he is in all his glory…

Here’s the song of a bananaquit from Xeno-Canto (Paul Driver, Andros) (and there’s a thick-billed vireo in the background)

[audio http://www.xeno-canto.org/sounds/uploaded/FSCGENVPXK/XC140241-BANANAQUIT%20Andros%2042910.mp3]

And here is the ‘whole picture’ without the zooming, showing what a relatively small and cute bird the bananaquit is

All images: RH; sound recording Paul Driver, Xeno-Canto

IDENTITY CRISIS ON ABACO:WEST INDIAN WOODPECKERS OR HUMMINGBIRDS?

March 9, 2014 by Rolling Harbour

IDENTITY CRISIS ON ABACO:WEST INDIAN WOODPECKERS OR HUMMINGBIRDS?

The hummingbirds round here – Cuban Emeralds and occasional Bahama Woodstars – have feeders full of sugar water to keep them sweet. These are also enjoyed by other birds with suitable beaks or tongues able to get to the liquid through tiny holes. Bananaquits, for example. Now the resident woodpeckers have got in on the act. Our arrival at Delphi coincides with the start of insistent tapping noises from inside the 2 nesting boxes that were put up to divert the woodpeckers from wrecking the wooden roof eaves. They are carrying out annual routine maintenance, putting up new bookshelves etc before settling down to produce their first brood of the year. And they have now discovered how to get a sugar-rush to keep up their energies.

TRYING TO INSERT THE BEAK IS NOT A GOOD METHOD

USING A LONG TONGUE IS IDEAL

MEANWHILE THE FEMALE HAS TO WAIT FOR HER TURN…

ALL THINGS BRIGHT… CHEERFUL GARDEN BIRDS AT DELPHI, ABACO

February 5, 2014 by Rolling Harbour

ALL THINGS BRIGHT… CHEERFUL GARDEN BIRDS AT DELPHI, ABACO

It’s not necessary to prowl around the coppice or lurk in the pine forest to see beautiful birds. They are on the doorstep, sometimes literally. Especially if there are full seed feeders and hummingbird feeders filled with sugar water for the Cuban Emeralds, Bahama Woodstars and other birds with pointy beaks (Bananaquits, for example). Here are are a few from the gardens immediately around the Delphi Club.

PAINTED BUNTINGS (f & m)

PAINTED BUNTING (m) WITH BLACK-FACED GRASSQUITS (m & f)

PAINTED BUNTING (f)

WESTERN SPINDALIS (m)

THICK-BILLED VIREO (m)

This is a TBV recording made with my iPhone.

For details how to record birds (or indeed animals. Or people) with a smart phone and embed the results as an mp3, CLICK HERE

CUBAN EMERALD HUMMINGBIRD (m)

A PAIR OF CAPE MAY WARBLERS

These little birds are autumn / winter visitors, though I have seen one at Delphi in June – it must have like it there and decided to stay on. Strangely, though originally named for one found on Cape May in the c19, there wasn’t another one recorded there for another 100 years…

ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK (m)

INDIGO BUNTING (m)

BANANAQUIT (m)

THE DELPHI CLUB, ABACOCredits: Mainly Sandy Walker; a couple from Peter Mantle; DCB by RH

ABACO: A SANDY ISLAND (SANDY BEACHES, A SANDY POINT & A SANDY WALKER)

January 25, 2014 by Rolling Harbour

ABACO: A SANDY ISLAND (SANDY BEACHES, A SANDY POINT AND A SANDY WALKER)

This post features some great Abaco bird photos taken by Sandy Walker, a man familiar to anyone connected with the Delphi Club in any capacity at all, and well-known far and wide from Marsh Harbour to Ireland. Possibly notorious in some places… Sandy doesn’t talk about his photography much, though he has plenty to say on most topics. Here are a few of his photos taken in the last 6 months or so, and deserving a wider audience. The header image, from the Delphi garden, shows a Bananaquit in characteristic feeding mode.

CUBAN PEWEES

A great picture of feeding time, with the huge chick already seeming to have outgrown the parent – apart from its rather stumpy tail

CLAPPER RAIL

These shy birds are reclusive by nature and relatively hard to photograph. They tend to lurk in the undergrowth or half-hidden on water margins. If they are caught in the open, they tend to run in a somewhat cartoonish sort of way. This one was having a good dig in the mud for food.

WILLET

Large birds of the shoreline and mangrove swamps, and classed with sandpipers. In flight, they have eye-catching wing stripes that Sandy has captured with a bit of camera sharp-shooting. You can see more Willets HERE

ANTILLEAN NIGHTHAWK

I was with Sandy when he took this photo during an amazing early evening feeding display of these birds. A hundred or more were swooping and jinking, making the most of an evening fly hatch. Sometimes they flew very close to our heads, make a whirring sound as they passed. Their speed and jagging flight made them very hard to take. I hardly got one in my viewfinder at all, but Sandy is an excellent shot of a different sort, so I guess aiming isn’t a problem for him…

SNOWY EGRET

I love these handsome birds, distinguishable from all other white herons and egrets (in some cases as white morphs) by their astonishing bright yellow feet. These are so vivid that they are often clearly visible when a snowy egret is standing in the water. This one was taken by the jetty at a local pond, a wonderful and secluded place to see water birds of many varieties, including rarities.

All images (except this one): Sandy Walker, with thanks

BANANAQUIT BABIES ON ABACO: AWWWWWW…SOME BIRDS

August 29, 2013 by Rolling Harbour

BANANAQUIT BABIES ON ABACO: AWWWWWW…SOME BIRDS

I’m not generally into whimsy and such stuff BUT… I can’t get enough of small bananaquits (Coereba flaveola). I’ve featured them before HERE and HERE AGAIN, but then I see another one, take some photos, and awwwwww – look at its little fluffy feathers… and its tiny sharp claws! The two shown below are summer babies. They aren’t really babies, though, are they? Teenagers, more like. Like many Abaco birds – especially the parrots – they are keen on the fruit of the Gumbo Limbo tree Bursera simaruba shown here. They also love flowers, piecing the base with their beaks to get at the nectar. They are quite as happy on a feeder – or indeed sipping sugar water from a hummingbird feeder, living up to their nickname ‘sugar bird’.

“Watching you watching me…”

This second bird is a bit older, and has developed some smart citrus lemon shoulder flashes. Bananaquits have many regional variations throughout the caribbean and beyond. These birds are, or were, generally lumped in with the tanager species. They have an official classification of ‘uncertain placement’ in the taxonomic scheme for now, while their exact status is debated. Not that anyone watching them worries about that sort of technicality.

Here is what a Bahamas bananaquit sounds like, recorded on Andros (Credit: Paul Driver at Xeno-Canto)

A pair of adult bananaquits

ABACO BIRD ID CHALLENGE (FOR NON-EXPERTS): THE SOLUTION

October 9, 2012 by Rolling Harbour

ABACO BIRD ID CHALLENGE (FOR NON-EXPERTS ONLY): THE SOLUTION

This small bird (Oh. I’ve given away the size already) was photographed in June. I was looking through a batch of downloaded photos recently. When I saw it again, I knew at once which bird species it belonged to – but not the specific make. I did some research and came up with the answer. I’d nailed the ID – or thought I had. The photo was a long shot which I had to enlarge to see the markings more clearly, hence a lower overall quality. I sent the jpeg to an officially avian-knowledgeable person for confirmation (hi, Alex!). The reply was swift. No, not the bird ‘swift’, I mean it was quick. It turns out that I was, as so often, completely wrong. Barking up the wrong tree. Chirping in the wrong nest. Perched on the wrong branch…

I’d say there are two definitely plausible candidates, and you may even think of others. So what bird is it? You can click on it to enlarge it. Please join in and give your answer using ‘leave a comment’ (tiny letters at the end of this post) or email rollingharbour.delphi@gmail.com Or, if you are seeing this on Facebook, please reply on that.

UPDATE Thanks for emails. Opinion is divided, but one of the 2 candidates is definitely ahead… I’ll leave this over the weekend

SOLUTION Of the few replies, most were right. One or 2 were (wrongly) with me – I reckoned it was a SWAINSON’S WARBLER. No one suggested turkey vulture. The correct ID, and the reasons for it, were provided by Alex Hughes, to whom thanks: “The first bird is a BLACK-WHISKERED VIREO. The black supercilium going through the eye and the heavy bill are good marks, which can resemble a Swainson’s Warbler, but a clinching mark here is the yellow wash underneath the tail at the rear of the bird”.

While I am dealing with mystery birds, I posted photos of a very sweet little JUVENILE BANANAQUIT about a month ago. At the end I added a photo, which again has since been positively identified (thanks again, Alex)

“Finally, this bird was a distance shot. At the time, it looked larger than a bananaquit – more Loggerhead Kingbird-sized. Before I had downloaded the image and could see it clearly [rather than on the screen on the back of the camera], I’d wondered about a mangrove cuckoo. Then I saw at once that it didn’t tick the right boxes. So I decided it must just be a huge bananaquit with an orange rather than yellow front. If it’s anything else (a rare hybrid spindalisquit?), please say so!” It is a indeed bananaquit, but in my limited experience I have never seen one with a spindalis-orange front. Can anyone say if that is a common colouring on Abaco, or unusual?

ABACO BANANAQUITS – MORE DISPATCHES FROM ‘CUTE BIRD’ CENTRAL

September 5, 2012 by Rolling Harbour

A couple of months back I posted about Bananaquits on Abaco – specifically, at the Delphi Club. I featured images of a recently fledged bird, still with its ‘too big for my face’ orange-based beak. You’ll find other bananaquit information there, including audio of their call. I won’t repeat it all here – to see that post CLICK BANANAQUIT

The small bird below looks like a slightly older juvenile – an early teen, let’s say, before the troublesome stage. There’s something very sweet about its feathers. It’s still more like fluff. This one is growing into its beak, which has also lost the very bright orange at the base.

This handsome adult was a regular at one of the feeders at Delphi. The base of its beak is red as opposed to orange (I don’t know the technical term for this bird part. Is ‘mouth’ too simple? Someone tell me, by all means, via the comment box). Bananaquits enjoy the hummingbird feeders, which their narrow curved beaks seem to manage. There, they are not pestered by the (very greedy) black-faced grassquits and the larger Greater Antillean Bullfinches who enjoy the other types of feeder available and take priority in the pecking order.

Finally, this bird was a distance shot. At the time, it looked larger than a bananaquit – more Loggerhead Kingbird-sized. Before I had downloaded the image and could see it clearly, I’d wondered about a mangrove cuckoo. Then I saw at once that it didn’t tick the right boxes. So I decided it must just be a huge bananaquit with an orange rather than yellow front. If it’s anything else (a rare hybrid spindalisquit?), please say so!

A JUVENILE BANANAQUIT ON ABACO – HOW CUTE CAN A SMALL BIRD BE?

June 19, 2012 by Rolling Harbour

BANANAQUITS Coereba flaveola

These small birds are a favourite of mine. They flicker around, cheeping cheerfully, yet are often quite hard to see in the coppice even if you think you are looking exactly where the sound is coming from.

Bananaquits are passerines, with an uncertain species designation. Over the years they have been officially reclassified three times. Some include them loosely with tanagers; others put them in their own family group; others argue that there are 3 distinct species. Basically, there is no universal consensus. There is some satisfaction, in a vastly over-classified world, in one small bird resisting man’s pigeon-holing (so to speak). It’s a tiny taxonomic enigma.

Among the islands of the West Indies there are several subspecies of bananaquit, with marked variations of appearance and size too tedious to relate. The best news is that “…the Bahamas Bananaquit with a whitish throat and upper chest may be a separate species…”.

The Bananaquit’s slender, curved bill is designed for taking nectar from flowers. It can pierce flowers from the side to reach the nectar, or use its bill to puncture fruit. It also eats small insects. The birds are tame, and love feeders, especially hummingbird feeders filled with sugar-water – hence their nickname “sugar bird”. They breed all year round. This is the characteristic chirrup of the Bahamas Bananaquit (credit: Xeno-Canto)

This small juvenile was happily feeding by itself near the Delphi Club, Abaco. Its mother then flew onto a nearby branch, and I’m afraid to say that the child indulged in a shameful charade of “Hungry! Feed Me! Now!”