Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Island Hopping in The Caribbean

Back in December I spent 2 weeks on board the MS Serenissima working as a zodiac driver and naturalist guide on a cruise run by Noble Caledonia. This was a little different from my cruises around the UK and Iceland earlier in the year, but no less enjoyable. The weather was perfect as you would expect, a welcome break from a miserable British winter, and the island chain of the Lesser Antilles is a stunning destination. Opportunities for birding were limited, we spent more time doing such pleasant things as snorkelling, sampling the products of various plantation/distilleries, and touring old forts and museums and such like.
Of course I did manage to see a few nice bits and bobs, and our ship was almost constantly accompanied by some fantastic seabirds. Heres a few photos I grabbed between rum punches:
Antillean Crested Hummingbird
Antillean Crested Hummingbird
Brown Booby

Black-faced Grassquit
Blue-headed Hummingbird

Blue-headed Hummingbird

Bananaquit

Carib Grackle

Flying fish sp.

Grey Kingbird

Lesser Antillean Bullfinch

Lesser Antillean Flycatcher

lizard sp.

Least Sandpiper

Mangrove Cuckoo

Magnificent Frigatebird

Pearly-eyed Thrasher

Purple-throated Carib

Purple-throated Carib

Red-billed Tropicbird

Red-billed Tropicbird

Red-footed Booby

Royal Tern

Pantropical Spotted Dolphin

Semi-palmated Sandpiper

White-cheeked Pintail

Wilsons Plover

Yellow-crowned Night Heron