A Jaunt Through the Windward Islands

April 25 - 30, 2002

April 25 - I departed Washington National airport at 7:45 a.m. enroute to Philadelphia where I connected to another US Scareways flight to St. Maarten, 3.5 hours away. I used frequent flier miles on US Airways because I think they are going extinct soon (and deservedly so). I used 60,000 miles for a First Class ticket on them. Coach on Air Tran is more First Class than these bozo's put on.

We arrived St. Maarten on time at 2:15 p.m. where I connected to a Windward Islands Airways ( ) flight to Anguilla ( ) with an intermediate stop on St. Barth's ( ). The latter island is famous in Parrothead circles as the place where Buffett dreamed up his song "Cheeseburger in Paradise." He used to own a funky hotel near L'Orient that gave him the impetus for the song "Autour du Roche" from his new CD, "Far Side of the World. Arrived Anguilla and took a taxi to the Ferryboat Inn near the ferry dock on Anguilla. This was a nice hotel run by Marjorie McClean, an Anguillan who'd spent all but 12 years of her life on Anguilla. Those other 12 years were spent with her husband managing a hotel on Tobago.

On approach to the Anguilla airport I saw a nice saline wetland near the ferry dock. I walked there after checking into the Ferryboat and found a nice assortment of shorebirds. Later I had a fish dinner washed down with several cold Carib beers at the hotel restaurant, then crashed.

April 26 - One of nature's finest alarm clock's is the Pearly-eyed Thrasher, and on Anguilla they start singing at 5:00 a.m. when there is just a hint of light in the east. I walked to the road in front of the hotel and then turned left and followed it to a new development going in at the mouth of the bay. Bananaquit's and Yellow Warblers were present and conspicuous. Walked back along the road to the intersection with the road to the ferry, turned left and walked one "block" then turned back west at the signs for the Rendezvous Bay hotel where I had breakfast. The best bird along this road was a vociferous Mangrove Cuckoo. Although my time on Anguilla was short, it became obvious from talking to people there, and from walking around a bit, that the most difficult task you face on the island is raising a bottle of beer.

I caught the ferry at 10:00 for the fifteen minute run across the straits to French St. Martin. Getting to Anguilla is a snap with ferry's in each direction every 30 minutes from St. Martin. I walked the several miles from the ferry dock to Princess Juliana airport on the Dutch side of the island. I had planned to sit in the airport and write until my 4:30 departure for Antigua, but I saw that Windward Island Airways had a flight at 2:00 that went to Saba ( )and then St. Eustatius ( ) before returning to St. Maarten at 3:00. So, with enough time to spare and two life airports glaring at me I bought a ticket and did the triangular flight path picking up two new airports. Windward departed for Antigua on time at 4:30, although the pilot wanted to wait a bit in the airport because a rain shower was moving in. We lifted off to the east, then turned south with St.

Barth's to the left and the huge volcanic plug of Saba to the right. Our first stop was on St. Kitts ( ) and then a quick 5 minute hop to Nevis ( ), its sister island. Nevis turned out to be my 400^th life airport.

From Nevis we went northeast to Antigua. Enroute we had a nice view of what remains of Montserrat, site of the recording of Buffett's Volcano album, and where the volcano blew its top in 1995 and 1996. I remember the volcano supporting a lush and verdant tropical forest that supported 2,000 pairs of the endemic Montserrat Oriole. On Antigua I saw pictures of the volcano today. It now looks like a moonscape with no forest remaining. Current estimates are that only 200 Montserrat Orioles remain. The flight arrived Antigua at 5:40 p.m., a few minutes after a Virgin Atlantic 747-400 arrived from London. Immigration was packed to the gills, causing it to take more than 40 minutes to get my first Antiguan passport stamp in 14 years.

Outside of customs I got some money from the ATM, purchased my ticket from Carib Aviation for tomorrow's trip to Barbuda, and then sat in the viewing area waiting for Mark Oberle's American Eagle flight from San Juan. From the airport we took a taxi to the Antigua Beachcomber Hotel ($80 a night) where we had dinner and then crashed.

April 27 - Carib Aviation's ( ) 7:45 a.m. flight to Barbuda ( ) boarded at 7:20 and we were airborne by 7:35. Will wonders never cease in the Caribbean? Of all the flying I've done in the islands, this was only the second time ever that a flight left early. We met George Burton by the tiny Coddington airport terminal (268-460-0103; cell- 268-773-5940) who took us two miles south of the airport to an area where Barbuda Warbler ( ) has been found in the past. George dropped us off at 8:00 and by 8:17 we found the first of several warblers. With it safely in the bag, I'm back to having only three island-specific endemics left to find in the Caribbean (Cuban Gnatcatcher, Oriente Warbler, Zapata Rail). Now if Fidel would just croak so I felt safe going to Cuba by myself.

Mark busied himself trying to get recordings of the Warbler's voice while I roamed around in the 12-20 foot high coppice. Someone who had seen the Warbler here earlier said the bird was in "white bark" forest. That white bark is on Jamaican Dogwood, the dominant tree in the coppice.

George picked us up at 9:00 and drove us to a boat on Coddington lagoon. To use George's service's costs $120 US per day. This includes transportation to the Warbler area, a boat trip on the lagoon to Magnificent Frigatebird colony, lunch, drinks, and any other driving around you want done. George takes your plane tickets when you arrive on the island; you see your tickets again when he hands you the boarding pass just before the flight departs.

Coddington Lagoon must be the largest lagoon I've seen in the Caribbean outside of Cuba. We sped across its waters for 15 minutes to the mangroves on the north side where we snaked our way up a channel to the edge of the Frigatebird colony. Parking the boat at the edge of a line of rope put up by the Barbudan government to keep boats back from the nests, we sat in the brilliant sun watching young Frigatebirds being fed by their mothers. About 7,000 pairs of Frigatebirds nest in the colony. This is the first and only Frigatebird nesting colony I've ever seen.

Back at the boat ramp, George took us to a flowering Agave plant just northeast of the settlement where Lesser Antillean Bullfinch, Bananaquit and Green-throated Carib were sucking nectar like crazy. While Mark did audio recordings, I stumbled around in the coppice, hearing two singing Barbuda Warbler, and a Mangrove Cuckoo.

We ate lunch at a restaurant that didn't have a sign saying it was a restaurant, then drove south along the main road to the two swank hotels at the south end of the island.. One of the hotels, the K Club, is where Princess Di used to hang out when she came to the Caribbean. Rooms/ villa's here start at $500 a night and go up to $2,800 per night. My guess is that Di stayed in the more expensive villa. Nearby is the Coco Point Hotel with similar prices. I'm not sure what you get for the extra money paid for a room, but you certainly get privacy at those prices. We birded the abandoned salt pans next to the K Club finding Least Tern and Snowy Plover among others then walked to the entrance gate at the Coco Point Hotel. Here the guard let us walk out on the beach which has to be the most beautiful, extensive, beach I've seen in the islands. Anywhere in the islands.

George drove us back to the Warbler spot and dropped us off about 1:45 with plans to pick us up at 4:30 for a return to the airport. Mark disappeared into the forest with his recording equipment and I walked around looking for other birds. The spot for the Warbler is easily found. Just about two miles south of the airport you will see an excavated wetland on the right (White-cheeked Pintail here). Directly across from that wetland there is a length of a huge pipe. Maybe 60 feet behind the pipe is the berm of another excavated wetland. Walk into the forest by the pipe. We had at least two singing Barbuda Warbler in the acacia trees over the pipe. Walk up to the berm, walk around it to the forest on the east side, and then walk and listen along any of the cattle paths into the forest. Barbuda Warbler's voice sounds like a combination of Yellow Warbler and Chestnut-sided Warbler. They sing loud and conspicuously and shouldn't be difficult to find.

Walking along one of the trails I flushed two Helmeted Guineafowl which surprised me because I didn't think they could fly! Along the edge of the wetland I saw and heard one Lesser Antillean Flycatcher of the race berlepschii. This race occurs only on St. Kitts, Nevis, and Barbuda. I walked south from the pipe along the main road for a couple hundred yards then walked east (left) along a bulldozed trail that skirts the edge of the coppice and an adjacent pasture. I walked east for 20 minutes picking up at least 13 singing male Barbuda Warbler, one late Prairie Warbler, and flushed another Helmeted Guineafowl. Hearing that many singing warblers in the heat of mid afternoon suggests that there is a large number of Barbuda Warbler in proper habitats on the island.

George picked us up at 4:20 and took us back to the airport. Carib Aviation came in on time and we boarded for the 15 minute flight back to Antigua. Departing to the east we climbed quickly over the island then turned south toward Antigua. It was refreshing to see that once past the light development around Coddington, there is nothing but forest on this 68 square mile island. Just north of the K Club there are two large wetlands hidden in the forest. I'd bet they are the place to look for West Indian Whistling Duck. Unless something disgusting happens to Barbuda in the way of tourism development, the future of Barbuda Warbler habitat should be secure for a few more years.

There is one more "reasonably" priced hotel on the island, the Palmetto Beach Hotel on the north coast where the lagoon opens up into the ocean. The price for one night here is "only" $340. There are a couple guest houses in Coddington also, but its apparent that with the ease Barbuda Warbler can be found, all you need to do is fly over for a day trip from Antigua. The $120 for George's services is money well spent. If nothing else, its ecotourism money that helps support one family on the island. I told George how much I liked the island and hoped that it would never be developed like so many other West Indian islands have been. He said "we plan to keep Barbuda wild." I hope they succeed.

April 28 - We slept late and had breakfast at the hotel. I walked back to the airport to catch my 11:00 a.m. flight on my old friend LIAT. Mark had a 2:30 p.m. flight on American Eagle back to San Juan. Much to my pleasant surprise, LIAT was only 15 minutes late departing for Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. Enroute, we had nice views of Barbuda off the right side of the plane, and St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, and Saba off the left side. We flew directly overhead St. Barth's and St. Maarten before beginning our final approach to Tortola. Stepping off the plane in Tortola ( ), I had now completed a clean sweep of all the island nation's in the West Indies; the British Virgin Islands were the last country that I needed.

I stopped at the Clair Aero desk to purchase my ticket for the flight tomorrow to Anegada, but learned that it had been canceled because too few people had reserved a spot. Oh well, so much for tomorrow's plans. I then walked about 5 minutes to the Beef Island Guest House where I spent two nights. This funky guest house is written up and recommended in the Lonely Planet travel guide to the Virgin Islands. I was able to make a reservation there through www.WhereToStay.com. It's a very laid back guesthouse with four rooms used mainly by people on the island for sailing charters. The large, carpeted rooms come with breakfast for $85 a night in the off season. Perched on the shores of Trellis Bay, with the equally funky "De Loose Mongoose" restaurant next door, this is a highly recommended laid-back Buffett kinda place.

Given the expensive cost of other accommodation in the BVI's, I highly recommend the Guest House for a place to crash.

Chilled out in the afternoon, walking along the beach and birding the nearby forests. Had dinner of swordfish washed down with several Red Stripe beers at the Loose Mongoose and talked with a bunch of Brit's who had sailed over from Europe. A bumper sticker hung to one wall of the bar. It showed a shark, its mouth open, and these words printed in blue "Save the BVI, Eat a Developer." I wanted to buy several of them but their supply for the winter was sold out.

April 29 - I took a courtesy bus from the airport to the Avis rental car office in Road Town where I rented a car for the day and went out to explore Tortola. My goal was to get to Cane Garden Bay and to visit the Callwood Rum distillery. Both places are firmly planted in Parrothead lore because they are both prominently mentioned in Buffett's song "Manana" ("Women and water in short supply, not enough dope for us all to get high, I hear it gets better, that's what they say, as soon as I sail onto Cane Garden Bay"; and "I've got to head this boat southward and soon, new island's old and I'm fresh out of tunes, but I know that I'll get them, I know that they'll come, through the people, and places, and Callwood rum." Cane Garden Bay is easily found after a run over the mountain for 15 minutes from Road Town.

It's a beautiful bay that has been scarred by too many people loving it to death. Unfortunately for me, the Callwood rum distillery was closed on Monday so I couldn't do a tour and sample its nectars. In the long run this was beneficial. The last time I toured a rum distillery in the West Indies, it was the Mount Gay distillery on Barbados. After a two hour tour with barrels of free rum at every turn, they turned me loose on the Bajan roads and I had a slight accident. Luckily the police were forgiving and cited me for "driving without due respect," when what I was really drinking with was a severe case of rum drunk!

I could find no birds that would not be expected on a West Indian island in late spring/ early summer while chasing around on Tortola. In late afternoon I returned the car to Avis then caught a bus back to the airport. Walking back to the guest house, I found a nice male Baltimore Oriole in some mangroves and at the edge of the guest house property, I found a White-winged Dove perched on an electrical wire. Raffaele's books on the Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and the Birds of the West Indies both state that White-winged Dove occurs on St. Croix and on St. John in the U.S. Virgin islands, but there is no mention of it for the British Virgin Islands. Further, Avisys does not include White-winged Dove in their list of birds of the British Virgin Islands. With only a few short miles between St. John and Tortola, its not unexpected for White-winged Dove to be on Tortola. This was likely the first sighting of White-winged Dove for the British Virgin Islands. Its unfortunate that Paul Lehman and the other experts didn't see it. C'est le vie.

The restaurant at the Guest House is closed on Monday nights, so I walked to the nearby Cyber Cafe‚ along the beach where I had the "meal to remember." It was a huge salad with broiled flying fish. It was damned good, and it was made even better by the bottles of Red Stripe that accompanied it, and the continuous Jimmy Buffett playing in the background. I asked Jeremy, the owner of the cafe‚ if it was his own CD of favorite songs. He said he was listening to an Internet radio station at www.funkyville.com . I checked it out the next day. Go to the website, click on "listen to radio stations" then scroll down to "Boat Drinks" described as "1 part Bob Marley, 1 part Ziggy, and 5 parts Jimmy Buffett."

After dinner I walked to the airport hoping to hear and maybe see an Antillean Nighthawk, but no such luck. In fact, this is the first time I've ever been in the Caribbean in spring or summer that I've not recorded at least one Antillean Nighthawk. I wonder where they are hiding this year?

April 30 - When I checked in for the American Airlines flight to San Juan, the couple ahead of me checked their luggage to Buffalo. This coincidence was another reminder of Buffett's song "Manana" since it contains the line "they're freezing up in Buffalo, stuck in their cars, while I'm lying here 'neath the sun and the stars." Seeing where they were headed, I said "you sure you want to go home? I hear its freezing up in Buffalo, and people are stuck in their cars." The wife of the pair smiled and said, "another Parrothead, huh?"

My original plan was to fly on American Eagle from Tortola, but they abandoned the flight and I had to fly to San Juan before getting to St. Maarten. We lifted off from Tortola and flew along its north shore. We passed just north of St. Thomas, then over Culebra and on into Puerto Rico.

Our approach to the San Juan airport ("customs there they hassle me") was to the south, up near the base of El Yunque. We then made a wide swing north to line up for approach to the airport.

It had been three years since I'd last been in Puerto Rico, and I could tell that development has continued its rampant firestorm across the island. What Puerto Rico needs more than more development is a well-placed anti-development force 6 hurricane that will set back the march of people for at least a couple months.

I had 2.5 hours between flights in San Juan and considered going to a nearby area that Mark had suggested for exotics, but American had two flights leaving for Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, so I said the hell with birds and watched most beautiful women on earth check in for the flights back to the DR. Although Dominican women are indescribably beautiful, they are all now the same age as my daughters or younger. Oh well, there were those times 17 years ago at the Sheraton disco that made for good fodder in a couple chapters of Somewhere South of Miami. I caught an American Airlines 757 (yikes!) out of San Juan at noon bound for St. Maarten. Our route took us back over Culebra, past the north coast of St. Thomas, directly overhead Cane Garden Bay, and then into St. Maarten. I cleared St. Maarten customs then checked in for the 4:00 p.m. U.S. Scareways flight to Philadelphia. When we lifted off from St. Maarten, our line of flight took us back over Tortola, just north of St. Thomas, over Culebra to the San Juan airport before heading northwest over Grand Turk and onto Philadelphia. Thus, I got to see Tortola, St. Thomas, and Culebra and the San Juan airport three times today.

Looking down at Grand Turk today I couldn't help think of all the debauchery that occurred there long ago, and wondered what Gerry Benny does for excitement now that Pan Am no longer flies to the island, and he no longer has me to moon Pan Am flights with him.

The flight to Philadelphia took 4 hours 20 minutes from St. Maarten. Despite being in what US Airways calls "First Class" this was far from a first class experience. Flight attendants served drinks after leveling off then served dinner a few minutes later. Dinner was baked whitefish. All that was served was a microscopic hunk of fish, one broccoli sprig, and a dollop of instant mashed potato. After the meal dishes were taken away, the flight attendant's disappeared, and didn't serve a single drink or check on passengers. A first class ticket from Washington National to St. Maarten costs $2,200 round trip. The "service" you get in first class is not worth 1/10th that amount. US Airways complains that they have the highest cost per passenger mile in the airline industry. They sure as hell don't have a high cost per mile in their "first class" on this trip. I will continue to pray for their bankruptcy.

We arrived Philadelphia on time at 8:15 but had to wait for a gate to clear. US Airways has wisely planned for the arrival of virtually all their flights from the Caribbean and Mexico to pull up at the terminal at the same time that all their flights to Europe are leaving. It's a freaking mess. We were finally transported to Immigration and Customs (I cleared US Customs twice today) in a people mover like they have at Washington Dulles. Once inside we stood in a line for what seemed like forever to clear immigration. John Ashcroft has wisely assigned 6 immigration officers to handle the hundreds of people clearing immigration in Philadelphia. The line just kept getting longer. Once through immigration and a few sniffs from drug sniffing dogs, its one hell of a long hike from the International terminal to terminal F where the US Scareways Express flights depart. My scheduled departure was at 10:05. After going through the mess in the International terminal and then sprinting to the departure gate on Concourse F about nine hundred miles away, I arrived at the gate at 10:00. Taking 1 hour and 45 minutes to get through the formalities and to your connecting gate is more than ridiculous. Think I"ll ever fly US Airways on an international flight again?

Impressions

After being in the Caribbean so many times its hard to have any new impressions. I've now been on 57 islands in the West Indies, and visited each island nation in the Caribbean. Barbuda Warbler was my 488th species for my West Indies list. There just aren't many left to see out there, mon. One of the things I got from the trip was learning that at least two islands remain in the islands that are islands the way the islands used to be. Anguilla is a real sleeper that I hope remains sleepy. While there I heard talk about some nitwit developer who wants to bring in casino's and cruise ships and other things to destroy the character of a character-filled island. I was assured that the developers would not succeed. Hell, if someone wants to go hang out in casino's, they can go to St. Maarten, or Puerto Rico, or Antigua, or some other island that's already ruined. St. Maarten seems to be primarily a place for the beautiful people to congregate to catch flights to St. Barth's where they can check out other beautiful people. In "Far Side of the World" Buffett talks about the "old St. Barth's" the island that it used to be before "all the glitz and all the glamour hit like a hurricane." St. Barth's is definitely the upscale place to go and be seen. You can keep St. Barth's.

Barbuda was a pleasant surprise just like Anguilla, and I only hope it stays that way. Tortola was great, not too touristy and definitely laid back. With a bunch of sailors around how could it help but not be laid back?

Craig Faanes
505 Roosevelt Blvd, B106
Falls Church, Virginia 22044
curlew@attglobal.net

 Birds Observed in the Windward Islands

April 25-30, 2002

PELICANS -1

Brown Pelican

BOOBIES - 1

Brown Booby

FRIGATEBIRDS -1

Magnificent Frigatebird

HERONS -5

Great Egret

Little Blue Heron

Cattle Egret

Green Heron

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

DUCKS -1

White-cheeked Pintail

HAWKS -1

Red-tailed Hawk

FALCONS - 1

American Kestrel

GUINEAFOWL - 1

Helmeted Guineafowl

RAILS - 2

Common Moorhen

Caribbean Coot

AVOCETS - 1

Black-necked Stilt

PLOVERS - 4

Black-bellied Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Wilson's Plover

Snowy Plover

SANDPIPERS - 10

Short-billed Dowitcher

Greater Yellowlegs

Lesser Yellowlegs

Solitary Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpiper

Willet

Ruddy Turnstone

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Least Sandpiper

Pectoral Sandpiper

GULLS - 2

Ring-billed Gull

Laughing Gull

TERNS - 3

Sandwich Tern

Royal Tern

Least Tern

DOVES -5

Rock Dove

White-crowned Pigeon

Zenaida Dove

White-winged Dove

Common Ground-Dove

CUCKOOS -2

Mangrove Cuckoo

Smooth-billed Ani

HUMMINGBIRDS - 2

Green-throated Carib

Antillean Crested Hummingbird

FLYCATCHERS - 3

Caribbean Elaenia

Lesser Antillean Flycatcher

Gray Kingbird

SWALLOWS - 1

Caribbean Martin

THRASHERS - 2

Northern Mockingbird

Pearly-eyed Thrasher

VIREOS - 1

Black-whiskered Vireo

WARBLERS - 5

Northern Parula

Yellow Warbler

Barbuda Warbler

Prairie Warbler

Northern Waterthrush

BANANAQUIT - 1

Bananaquit

BUNTINGS - 2

Black-faced Grassquit

Lesser Antillean Bullfinch

BLACKBIRDS - 2

Carib Grackle

Baltimore Oriole

Species seen - 60