Birdwatching and "Birding" in the Abacos
By Alice Bain - The Abaconian 1 May 2002

Birdwatching, or "birding" as it is commonly known, is more popular than ever before on Abaco. This island lies directly on the eastern flyway migration route between North and South America, and subsequently Abaco has a lot to offer ornithologists--particularly during the migration months of April and October.

Ron Pagliaro is a certified Bahamas birding tour guide and presently operates the only birding tours available in Marsh Harbour.

"Popularity of the tours is definitely going up" he says. "This week we've had the most inquiries we've ever had about birding."

Ron takes small groups out early in the morning, usually focusing on Bahamian and Abaconian specialty species"birds you can't see elsewhere or that are rare in other locations. The Abaco Parrot is, of course, extremely popular but Ron cautions that on any given tour there is no guarantee that the parrots will be in evidence. "They don't leave us a schedule of when they're not going to be at home," he explains. Among other species targeted by visiting birders are the Red-legged Thrush, LaSagra's Flycatcher, the Loggerhead Kingbird, the Crescent-eyed Peewee, the West-Indian Red-bellied Woodpecker, the Thick-billed Vireo, the Olive-capped Warbler, and the Bananaquits that are so common in everyone's back yard.

Anything else? "Yes, they go gaga over Stripe-headed Tanagers!" says Ron. "Also, everyone loves hummingbirds," he continues. Abaco is home to two species of hummingbird, the Cuban Emerald and the much rarer Bahama Woodstar. Birders often spend a lot of time differentiating one small, greenish-brown species of warbler from another. Some are common, some are rarer. The Olive-capped Warbler is native only to Abaco and Grand Bahama and is found nowhere else in the world.

The acme of birding within the warbler genre is the Kirtland's warbler"a migratory bird that summers in pine forests of Michigan. There are only a couple of thousand of them left alive. They winter in the Bahamas, in coppice much like we have here in Abaco. Every serious birder would give his or her eye teeth to see one of these elusive little warblers. The fact that one was recorded near Hole-in-the-Wall two years ago can only boost bird-oriented tourism to the area."

Spring and Fall are the two most exciting times for birding here," says Ron. "You have to pay extra attention to the birds because some of them will be ones you're not expecting." Local ornithologist-in-residence Reg Patterson agrees. "April is the best time," he says, "because you get a lot of birds coming through. The winter birds are leaving and the summer birds are about to arrive. The warblers are easier to identify because they are growing their mating plumage. In October all the warblers tend to look alike, and it drives you crazy!" Reg spotted two Red-breasted Mergansers at Different of Abaco two months ago, a species he says he has never heard of being recorded on Abaco before.

He sometimes takes tours out but does not operate an official business. He is a mine of anecdotal data about the local bird populations. Parrots used to be relatively common on the Little Harbour/Cherokee peninsula, he says. Curtis Lowe, who was the lighthouse keeper at Little Harbour during the 1950s and 1960s, used to have one as a pet. "They had that bird for years," says Reg. "It wasn't very fluent as parrots go, though"wasn't a very good talker." Once, during the 1996 October migration, Reg was called out by BaTelCo employees who had arrived to work and met a strange and gruesome sight. Dozens of warblers were dead and dying, littering the ground around the radio tower in town"and apparently the same thing had happened at towers in Sandy Point and Crossing Rocks. "They were mostly Blackpall Warblers," he says.

"These birds migrate to South America in huge flocks, mainly flying by night. Apparently the night was cloudy, and the birds had somehow picked up the beacon from the radio towers and beat themselves to death on the struts.

Because it was October, they were hard to identify but I took some of them home and found among them one Connecticut Warbler, which is a species I have never seen before or since on Abaco." How about rare birds? Mr. Patterson continued, "In April of 1971 we had a strong southwest wind that blew for days and days. We were seeing birds that were rare, birds we'd never seen before on Abaco.

Apparently they had been blown here all the way from the central flyway!" The central flyway migration route passes over Texas and the eastern part of Mexico, then down over Central America, which is a long way to be blown off course! There is also the issue of "exotics" non-native species that have been introduced to the island. Eurasian Collared Doves, known locally as Ringneck Doves, are an introduced species and fill the niche in Marsh Harbour that is filled by the common pigeon in cities like Nassau.

European House Sparrows have also been introduced and seem fairly widespread. An imported species of Bolivian parrot, the Quaker Parakeet, is also liable to become established in the wild here, mirroring similar populations in South Florida. Exotic species usually compete with native birds and may be responsible for decreasing their populations.

Certain native species, however, are now increasing their numbers. The population of the White-crowned Pigeon has rebounded in response to the instigation of a hunting season. Reg Patterson reports that he now sees more pigeons than he used to, plus they are breeding on cays where they were not present before.

He agrees in principle with the season on these birds but thinks that the opening day should be brought forward two weeks. "The season was calculated for the Central Bahamas but is not good for us here in the North Bahamas. Our birds finish nesting earlier. Most years by the time the season opens, they're already gone. The season should really open on the 15th of September instead of the 29th here."