pratt@paul.rutgers.edu (Lorien Y. Pratt) (01/05/91)
My husband John and I recently returned from our honeymoon. We visited
Puerto Rico for a week touring the island and then spent a week at Maho
Bay Campgrounds in St. John, USVI. Since this trip would have been
very different had we not had the wonderful services of the net
(rec.travel, rec.birds, rec.scuba readers), we decided to keep a trip
log to repay our withdrawal from the information bank. This message is
that log.
We spent a lot of time bird watching, so new species are marked
in this log with the indicator: ``==''. A total list of species seen
is given at the end of the log.
I'm cross-posting to rec.scuba because we did spend one day diving
(grep on ``James'' to find the start of that discussion). We did an
awful lot of snorkeling as well, though, so I thought divers who were
considering going to this part of the world might be interested, though
this is anything but a definitive survey of PR/St. John diving.
Enjoy!
December 4, 1990: flying into San Juan
So that John misses as few days of work as possible, we will take a
late flight (on American Airlines) from Newark airport to San Juan,
Puerto Rico. We have just returned the previous day from a
business/skiing trip in Colorado, and we're feeling a bit rushed
around, having unpacked all of our winter stuff, laundered our
underwear, and packed all our summer/camping stuff. John also went
into work today. In return for helping him move into his new house,
our friend William drove us up to the airport through the pouring
rain. It's always a pain to do this in NJ, because it's through the
worst industrially polluted part of the state, and on the Turnpike,
which is just generally tough to deal with.
Arriving at the gate around 7:00 pm, we notice that most of the
passengers who will be travelling with us appear hispanic; we'll notice a
similar lack of gringo tourists the rest of the trip. It's probably
because we're really ``pre-season'', since the real tourist season is
supposed to start on December 15. This was intentional, but we will
find ourselves a bit lonely for English-speaking people. Sitting in
the airport is our first taste of being a minority, a feeling that
we'll have for a while. A large group of teenage girls talks excitedly
in Spanish. Two passengers have dogs with them; we thought they were
guide dogs but later we realize that they're just keeping the animals
out of storage containers as long as possible. One is a mean looking
bull terrier with a muzzle. The flight announcement is bilingual; in
general, public-service people in Puerto Rico speak both English and
Spanish fluently. The entire waiting area rushes to the line at the
announcement, in no order particular order. To avoid the fray, we wait
until the end.
On the flight, we play scrabble, and I lose, as usual. Three hours
later, we lower towards our landing in the San Juan airport and see
palm trees near the landing strip. We realize we're in the tropics!
What a nice contrast to New Jersey. The passengers applaud and cheer
the arrival announcement.
As we step off the plane, we feel a rush of balmy tropical midnight
air. Surprisingly, the gate area is almost empty; we'd expected to see
families greeting the passengers. Instead, the entire airport is
almost deserted. This is partially attributable to the late hour, but
also to the fact that the major parts of the airport are restricted to
passengers with tickets. Only after picking up your baggage do you
leave the restricted area. We wait a short while, and see our bags
coming off the belt. I have packed my things in an external frame
backpack, and with bungy chords I attach John's small suitcase to the
top and my day pack to the bottom. The whole thing is heavy, but
surprisingly comfortable, especially compared to carrying each item in
my hands or on my shoulders. This leaves John carrying our dive bag,
which has backpack straps, and the bag with our video camera. Did we
over pack?
Waiting outside the baggage area, we find our Budget rental car van,
which plays loud radio music while taking us to the rental area. We
have rented a mint-green Nissan Sentra, automatic, with air
conditioning. The handsome agent looks half-asleep; he speaks to us in
halting english and smiles a lot. He explains the rental agreement and
gives us very careful directions to our hotel. John says ``OK'',
sometimes just 'kay, which I later realize might be confusing, because
it sounds just like ``Que??'', or ``What?''. Several older men stand
around outside -- the van driver and some others that help us carry our
bags.
We are told to look the car over carefully before taking it, presumably
because we're liable for any bumps. It handles weird, with very touchy
steering, and hesitation in the transmission when a downshift is
required. John doesn't like it, but this doesn't matter, as I'll end up
driving the rest of the trip.
In a semi-consious state, we arrive at the Pierre de Best Western
Hotel; the man at the desk eyes me strangely (I'm probably a sight with
the backpack towering over me) and tells John jokingly that he must pay
cash with a name like John Smith. The hotel has a damp feeling to it,
reminiscent of seaside places in New Jersey that still have a bit of
mildew. Otherwise it's very nice, with a big comfortable bed, a TV
that shows questionable movies. We have a corner room (number 602),
and so we have windows on two sides of the bedroom. The room is
$80/night, and we'll stay for two nights. John's handling all the
money this trip, since it's our honeymoon and he's supposed to? I feel
like a bride, standing back and letting him deal with it all.
Wednesday December 5, 1990: A day in San Juan, trying to find birds
We have a continental breakfast in the hotel in a nook next to a picture
window to a tropical garden. We watch lizards crawl up the outside of the
glass. The breakfast is OK, but like most ``continental'' fares, pretty
minimal. I try the guava and mango and don't like them. In the parking lot
outside the hotel, we see a dove with white on its wings. Looking it up in
our field guide (``A guide to the Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin
Islands'' by Herbert A. Raffaele), we decide it's a ==Zenaida Dove. In
general, there are a lot of different dove and pigeon species around, we hope
to see several of them.
Today, we plan to visit the Isla Grande Naval Reserve in San Juan.
This spot is mentioned in our field guide as being good for exotic
species. To get there, we must drive across a bridge into Old San Juan
and back again, so we stop in Old San Juan along the way. Along the
road, which runs next to the ocean, we see pelicans diving into the
water head-first to catch fish. In the sky is a female ==Magnificent
Frigatebird. About a half mile after crossing the bridge, we find a
place to park next to the beach. We pay $1 and pull over, when we see
and hear a bunch of ==Monk Parakeets in the trees above us. Like many
parrots and parakeets, they make unpleasant screeching noises, which is
how we found them.
There is beautiful turquoise water here, pounding against what look
like the remains of concrete pilings. It's suprisingly nice, and very
clean. I try to use a bathroom in a nearby building, though, and it's
really disgusting. We see a ==grey kingbird flying between palm fronds
and catching flies. At a distance, we spot some small doves on the
ground. They flash red on their wings, and we decide that they are
==common ground doves. We also see our first ==bananaquit of the
trip. We will continue to see these last two species almost everywhere
we go on this trip, including on St. John. There are also ==Rock Doves
(i.e. city pigeons) around here. Near some buildings, we spot a
flock of ==Greater Antillean Grackles, identified by the wedge-shaped
tail. John thinks he might have seen a ==loggerhead kingbird, but he's not
sure.
Walking along a boardwalk over the water next to a hotel, John spots a
group of ==Royal terns, identified by the orange bill and larger size.
I'm not sure that this is enough for an ID. I stop in at a hotel (the
Raddisson?) that is absolutely gorgeous, with an inner atrium with pink
walls and very clean bathrooms. We walk back along the road, and
cross over a footbridge into a park (we later learn that it's called
``Parque Munoz Rivera''). This a nice park, with many benches and
tropical foliage. There are two ==Northern Mockingbirds flitting
around in the trees, and more common ground-doves. We see a greenish
hummingbird flit through some flowers. We wait to see it again so we
can identify it, but we're unsuccessful. We walk along after that
and see a ==red-legged thrush in a tree (our first endemic species!).
We walk through a structure with green poles and a shaded roof, and
come to some trees where we saw 3-5 ==Pearly-eyed thrashers. John sees
the white iris first, and the rest of the markings (light underparts,
brown upperparts, streaking, long bill) seem to match the description
pretty well, though we only had fleeting glimpses.
We walk back to the car and try to follow the directions to Isla Grande
that are given in our field guide. We will learn from some people that
we will talk to later that we ended up in the wrong part of Isla
Grande. We spend a couple of hours walking up and down between crowded
government buildings and parking lots. This is the Motor Vehicles
Division of San Juan, and there are car wrecks (confiscated,
presumably) everywhere. We see very few birds; no new species, just
lots of kingbirds, mockingbirds, and grackles. In a field is a
stallion that looks vaguely Arabian; I'll read somewhere that Puerto
Rico has an Arab-like breed, and perhaps he's one of them. A litter
of puppies is living under a tree, and mongrel dogs walk around the
pavement.
Giving up on this idea, since we had so little luck, we head into
downtown San Juan. We got lost getting there on some very narrow
streets, but we ended up at a fort, called San Cristobal. On the
corner near it (on De Valle street, I believe) is Cafe Amandas, which
gives a wonderful view of the ocean from an outside sitting place, and
has what looks to be a mouth-watering menu, with tofu tacos and other
mexican-like fare, as well as interesting rum drinks. We visit the
fort, take some pictures, and head home after a long day. We have
dinner at the Best Western, but the food isn't very good (especially
given the price) and the service is slow.
Random impressions of the day: narrow streets; we feel much wealthier
than the average person (we'll read later that the average income in
Puerto Rico is only around $4700 annually); drivers don't pay attention
to the lines in the road; very agressive driving -- if you're not used
to competing with New Jersey or Boston or Manhattan drivers, then
downtown San Juan is going to take some definite getting used to, and
might be hair-raising. There is a lot of garbage in the streets, and
this is sort of depressing, but the ocean is clean and very prettily
colored. There's a great big supermarket across from the hotel, with a
big selection. They have cable in the hotel, and we get the Weather
Channel. This was a nice hotel, just a little expensive. We're pretty
disappointed by our Isla Grande experience -- be sure to get directions
to the right place if you go! I am a little frightened by the people;
the language problem makes it tough, but when I have a chance to
interact with people, they are consistently friendly. I'll find this
throughout the trip -- my fear of people that I don't talk to, followed
by surprise at their friendliness when I do talk to them. It was a hot
day, especially after Colorado and Wisconsin. We managed to
handle the heat OK, but it sometimes verged on being overwhelming and
definitely affected us, making us a bit more slow-moving, I think.
Even in the evening, it remains warm and comfortable outside.
After dinner we sit down with maps and guidebooks and plan out the
remainder of our Puerto Rican tour. Most of the population of Puerto
Rico is in San Juan, and trips elsewhere are usually excursions ``out
on the Island''. Tomorrow we'll go to the Rio Camuy caverns, which is
one of the most popular such excursions, and then on to Boqueron, where
we will stay at the Parador Boquemar for two nights, on the west coast
of the island. This is a motel in a chain of ``Paradores'', which are
sponsored by the tourist board to be a set of relatively inexpensive,
yet clean and nice places that you can stay at around the island. We
make reservations for a hotel in Fajardo (couldn't book a Parador room)
for the two nights after that, when we will visit El Yunque: a mountain
peak in the Luquillo rainforest mountains in the northwest corner of
the island.
Thursday, December 6, 1990: Rio Camuy Caverns, then on to Boqueron
Today, we will drive to the Rio Camuy caves. We drive along route 2,
along the north coast from San Juan to Arecibo. This road is very
built up, and looks like a more crowded version of Route 1 in New
Jersey. Lots of car dealerships, gas stations, restaurant chains
(Kentucky Fried Pollo, ``Casa del Mattress #7'' ...). There's garbage
in the roads. Once again, if you're exclusively a Wisconsin driver,
you're going to have trouble with this situation. My strategy of
driving carefully in the right-hand lane in dicy situations doesn't
work as well because so many cars are just parked in the right lane.
There is a lot of traffic, many cars seem to belch more fumes than
would be allowed by US emissions standards, and the air smells of this
pollution. This makes me slightly nauseous. There are many traffic
lights.
Despite the fact that this road is so built up, just off the road are
alluring ``Karst'' mountains, covered with tropical foliage. This
interesting geological formation was caused by sporadic cave-ins of an
extensive cave system throughout this part of the island. The
mountains are very steep-sided and shaped like beehives.
The street signs are all shaped like Continental US signs, but the
wording is exclusively Spanish. We are able to work out their meanings
from the shapes. ``Solo Salidad'' is Exit Only, ``Pare'' is Stop,
``Cruces de Peatones'' is Pedestrian Crossing, etc.
John spotted a ==snowy, ==cattle, and ==great egret. All egrets are
almost as common here as starlings are in New Jersey -- they fly over
the roads in groups and you see them along the roadsides in flocks.
They are even more numerous than in Florida.
We smell the pleasant, pungeant odor of fresh pineapples, and notice
that a truck two cars ahead of us is brimming with fresh-picked
fruits. We realize that the fields on either side of the road are full
of pineapple plants.
We turn onto the Arecibo bypass, #22, east of Arecibo. This road is like
a parkway: much better than route 2 -- it has a big mown meridian strip
and there are no longer shops on either side. The traffic speed picks
up as well. Some kind of swallow we have yet to identify flies over
the road.
Just over 2 hours out of San Juan, we arrive at the Camuy Cave visitor
center near Lares. The park is very well kept up (especially compared
to the rest of the island we've seen so far), very clean, beautiful
sculptured gardens, flowers, nice open-air shelter where one waits for
a bus, pools with turquoise water. John sees a ==red-tailed hawk
overhead. After a wait of about 20 minutes, we are led into an
auditorium where we watch a slide show. We had been warned by a
previous poster (Dilip Barman) that this would be bad and tacky, that
the visitor center would be crowded, but that this would all be worth
it when we finally saw the caves. As expected, the slides are weird,
like they've been fed through somebody's video processor, and they have
used every special effect in the book, from dissolves to spinning
slides to double-images. The slide show is played to some strange star
trek-like music, and is followed by a video describing the cave park
(``15 kilometers of underground galleries and spacious rooms shape this
national treasure beneath the Puerto Rican soil, etc.'').
We wait a long time (about 1/2 hour) after the slide show to catch a
little train to take us down into the cave. While waiting, we talk to
the other gringo tourists on the trip -- a professor emeritus from
Rutgers and his wife. She's in Puerto Rico for a Neurophysiology
conference, and he is accompanying her on their trip. They've been to
the island several times before, and we find that they'll also be
staying at the same Boqueron Parador that we'll be at. Louis Orzack
says that this part of the island was once considered for a major
international airport, which is hard to imagine since it is so rugged.
While standing around, we see more Bananaquits in the trees and
photograph flowers. Mrs. Orzack identifies a Tulip Tree.
Finally, the little train arrives, and we take it on a steep narrow
paved path down into the cave system. There are lots of screaming
children. We find this cave to be small, in that we don't walk very
far through it, but the ceiling is very high. It basically feels like
we're on the inside of one of the Karst Hills (which I guess we are),
and the hill next door has caved in (hence the steep paths going
down). There is beautiful foliage hanging down from the roof of the
cave. The guided walk takes us through the hill and out into another
sinkhole open-air area. We turn around and retrace our steps
partially, but take a slightly different route back through. The
scenery and the feel of the cave is so special that it was all well
worth the long wait, even though we do feel a bit like a herd of
cattle. Enhancing this trip are the exclamations of the Orzacks, who
have never been in any sort of cave before and find it all quite
exhilarating.
We get back in the car and drive through some back-country roads to
Boqueron. We stop occasionally when there is a place to pull of on the
steep, narrow twisty roads, and look at birds. At one stop on the way
towards Cabo Rojo in the distance we hear loud ice-cream truck
noises, and after about 10 minutes a truck materializes -- a plain
grey van with a speaker on top.
There is no question that the most common bird around is the
Bananaquit. It seems like 90% of the time when you point your
binoculars at a tree, this is the bird that you spot. This makes it
more difficult to spot other birds, as you're spending all your time
confirming that various birds are indeed Bananaquits. For such a
common bird, though, it's lovely, with bright yellow belly and black
back, and a long decurved bill that it uses for sipping nectar.
At the ice-cream truck stop we see a number of new species. John finds
a ==Puerto Rican Tody, which is another endemic bird. We'll later
learn that they are a very ancient species related to the
hummingbird, but which never learned to hover. Like hummingbirds,
Todies have iridescent green plumage, but their feeding strategy is to
sit on a branch, looking up, until an insect appears on the underside
of a leaf, when they jump up and eat it. This waiting-and-jumping
habit is reminiscent of flycatchers, but they don't fly nearly as
well. They are beautiful little birds, with bright red throat and
bill.
We finally identify a hummingbird, the ==antillean Mango. We also
heard a dove that sounded like a mourning dove. We saw another
hummingbird, but it flew away. John spotted some form of waxbill,
probably orange-cheeked or black-rumped, but we're not sure which. The
number of individual birds is pretty impressive, as we saw several
hummingbirds at one time. But, as mentioned above, most of the birds
are bananaquits.
Turning onto Route 2 from the road onto the mountains, we saw a
==Turkey Vulture. Turning onto Route 114, we saw a flock of birds that
looked like grackles but with much longer tails. I was going to say
boat-tailed grackle until I spotted the beak, and we decided that it
was a ==smooth-billed Ani.
We finally arrive around 4:00 in Boqueron at the Boquemar Parador. It
is very clean and nice, located in not the most pristine little
village, but nicer than several others we've seen. We grab our snorkel
gear and walk along the Boqueron beach, which is reputed to be one of
the nicest on the island. It is indeed nice, with a wide and long
(well over 2 miles) strip of sand ringed by palm trees. I am a bit put
off by some graffiti we see on buildings and garbage in the sand,
though the amount of this decreases as we walk away from the town
center of Boqueron. The visibility in the lagoon isn't really good
enough to see many fish, but we enjoy the swim after the day in the
car. We see more Royal Terns in the bay.
Friday, December 7, 1990: South of Boqueron, around the lighthouse
John wakes up with a pretty bad backache. He's felt this before and had
it diagnosed, so we know it's nothing more serious than muscle spasms
of some sort. We decide we're going to take it easy today because of
this, and I'll try to carry stuff. John also has some paperwork from
his job that he has to finish today, so our plan is to head south
towards the Cabo Rojo lighthouse (also named ``El Faro''), which is on
the extreme south-western corner of the island, about 15 minutes away,
and to hang out there while he does his work and relaxes.
We drive along Route 301 south. At a junkyard on the right-hand side
of the road, we see a profusion of cattle egrets, turkey vultures, and
John saw a number of ==killdeer. Driving further along, we see a group
of sparrow-like birds near a house. We pull over and identify a flock
of ==warbling silverbills on a chain-link fence. Approaching the
lighthouse area, there are several salt ponds and flats. We see a
==lesser yellowlegs and a ==black-bellied plover. As we were sitting
by the side of the road putting on sunscreen, we pished two beautiful
==adelaide's warblers (more life listers, yay!) out of a nearby tree.
They came within 6 feet of us, and were much prettier than in the
book. A very satisfying sighting. We saw more flocks of swallows,
which we decided were ==cave swallows. We saw a nesting bananaquit.
There are butterflies everywhere here, many individuals and what seems
to be several different species. Another striking thing we've noticed
about the island is that there are flowers blooming everywhere, often
with big blooms wide enough to accomodate a hummingbird: hydrangeas,
bouganvillas -- we have no idea what they are. Next time I'd like to
have a tropical flowers identification book.
The road turns to dirt and becomes very bumpy and badly graded in some
parts, but it does have long smooth stretches as well. We are able to
get over it in our non-4-wheel drive car (in retrospect, it might have
been better to rent a truck-type thing). We persist on, however, and
eventually pull off the road into some shade. We hike up to the
lighthouse by following the road further, and then onto a path that
says ``entrada guiez ofsalamante'' (or something like that). You can't
drive all the way there, but must hike this last stretch. The
lighthouse is on top of a hill. From a distance, it looks beautiful,
painted in pale blue against the sky. Up close, it's a bit
disappointing, with broken glass around it, graffiti, and the smell of
urine. The view from here is spectacular, though, as we can see the
ocean to both the south and west of the island, as well as mountains on
the island itself and cliffs running down to the water. On a rock
below the lighthouse cliff, we see a rock with a group of Pelicans, as
well as seven or eight ==brown boobies. Definite life-listers! Below
the cliff, we think we see a small shark in the clear water.
We walk back to the car, and take it further along the bumpy road to
its end. This is probably what we should have done in the first place,
since the walk to the lighthouse is shorter from here. At the end of
the road is a gorgeous, completely isolated, turquoise beach, where
we'll spend a few hours.
There is a blimp hanging over this end of the island that looks a lot
like the one we've seen over Key West. We'll learn later that this is
a radar blimp which is used by the DEA to spot drug traffic planes. We
go snorkeling in they bay. There are lots of fishes -- damsels, a drum,
a scorpionfish, parrotfish, tangs, lots of the standard carribbean
species (unfortunately, we forgot our good fish identification book, so
we're not able to list all the names). We find ourselves in the midst
of a huge minnow school, with the water more dense with fish than with
water, it's like swimming in fish. They leap out of the water when we
splash and reduce visibility to about 3 feet. Swimming in the sun,
they're quite beautiful. Brown pelicans dive head-first into this
mess and come up with beaks full of minnows.
On the way back from the beach, John sees a flock of ==ruddy turnstones,
and also an ==Osprey. We stop in at a nature observatory that we see
along the road, and the park service person there tells us at some good
length (nice to hear an English voice!) about some local birding spots
and the birds that we should expect to see there. It's a shame that
this place wasn't mentioned in our field guide, as it looks like a
good spot to bird, but we're not there until almost sunset, and darkness
comes quickly.
We return to the Parador Boquemar. We relax for a while before
dinner, then run into Marisa and Louis Orzack, who we had met at the
Rio Camuy caves. We had dinner again at the Parador restaurant. The
food is very good, the service was excellent, though slow (probably
because everything is made fresh). John, Louis, and Marisa had the
whole red snapper, which is the only one that's caught fresh that was
available at the restaurant.
Saturday, December 8, 1990: Laguna Cartagena and
Driving across the island to Fajardo
I wake up around 7:30; John has already been up for a while since we
went to bed shortly after dinner. We pack up and leave the Parador
and drive out of Boqueron on route 101 for about 10 miles (16
kilometers) until the intersection of route 306, which is a dirt road,
badly graded like the one yesterday, and hard to see from the car. We
take 306 South, with sugarcane growing 10 feet high on either side of
the road. After a while (1-3 miles), we see a sign for a nature area
on the left. At the nature preserve office yesterday, the park service
official told us to ignore the signs on a gate saying that this area
preserve was for official personnel only. So we hop the fence as he
told us. We walk in for about a mile or two, into what feels like a grass
savannah, with mountains in the distance. We see cave swallows,
big flocks of smooth-billed Ani's, ground doves, lots of egrets flying,
a turkey vulture, a red-tailed hawk, a beautiful sighting of a male
==northern parula in full colors, a ==yellow warbler, kingbirds. In
this dry area, we see no hummingbirds. The heat here is again somewhat
oppressive, and this being the third day of slogging through this
weather, I start to feel run down. To stop my complaining, John takes
to pouring drinking water on my head, which helps surprisingly much!
We turn around and come back to the road after an hour or two. We
might have seen ==chestnut mannequins, but we're not sure. We also see
another Adelaide's warbler.
We get in the car and go back north on 306, and stop the car in the
middle of the road between the cane fields. Stopping like this and
just waiting for birds seems to be a pretty good technique, actually,
as we've had some success with new species this way. We see our first
life-lister for the day: a ==black-faced grassquit, in exactly the
habitat the book said it should have.
We are driving today through the center of the island up towards
Fajardo, where we will stay for the night. We drive through the town
of Juanico, where cars with loudspeakers on the roofs advertise various
products very loudly. We emerge into some really gorgeous mountainous
countryside. Sometimes there's very sparse population and there aren't
any people or cars for miles around. Other places, the houses are
spaced closely together on steep winding mountain roads. We fantasize
about figuring out a way to make a living here, where the price of
living is very cheap and the countryside is in many ways spectacular.
But there's probably nobody that would pay us to do the computer
science we're trained for. We talked to a man later who told us that
pharmaceutical companies are really big on the island, however, so who
knows? We'd definitely have to learn Spanish, though!
Route 52 from Ponce is one of the most beautiful. We take routes 3 and
33 from there, which are more through cities and look more like New
Jersey.
We arrive in Fajardo at the Hotel Delicias, which is on the harbor,
after getting fairly lost in Fajardo itself. The hotel is a real flea
pit, especially considering the $48 charge. There's no air
conditioning, telephone, or carpet. The floor is tile, and the whole
place is somewhat dirty and noisy, with a bar full of drunken sailors
that feel somewhat threatening. We'll read in a guidebook later that
there are a number of ``interesting'' sites right here, including the
customs house across the street, and the restaurant that we can see
from our hotel room, but they both look pretty run down and
depressing. Maybe next time we'll plan a little earlier so we can get
a room in the local Parador. We get an early night's sleep so that we
can go hiking in El Yunque in the morning.
December 9, 1990: El Yunque!
5:56 am. It's well before sunrise and we're up early so we can be at
El Yunque, the Puerto Rico mountain rainforest, at dawn. The Coquie
frogs are making a wonderful racket outside, especially compared to the
din of cars and people that kept us in fitful sleep until 2:00am last
night.
Part way up the mountain, the sun starts to come up and lights up the
fog in some beautiful fields. Frogs with different calls remain
vociferous. We take some pictures, frog audio, and video as we drive
up the mountain. We see runners and bicylers heading uphill too, and I
realize that these are the first athletic people I've seen around --
probably they only run in the very early morning to avoid the heat.
Stopping part-way up the mountain, we see a ==Puerto Rican tanager.
Coming up to the visitor center on the trail, we see a ==Lousiana
Waterthrush. Walking on a trail near the nature center, we see what
John thinks is another pearly-eyed thrasher. We come to an observation
tower, which we climb to see nothing but a white cloud. Maintenance
men there tell us that the El Yunque visitor center will open around
10:00 am, so we proceed slowly up the mountain.
At the visitor center, a park service official tells us about the hike up the
mountain. We hear a screech in the trees while talking to him, which he
later says was probably the endemic (and very endangered) ==Puerto Rican
Parrot!
We strip ourselves of camera, walkman, and most other paraphenalia, and
hike to the peak of El Yunque. It takes exactly five hours up and
down. The trails are surrounded by tall trees dripping water, with
bromeliads clinging to them. The air is cool and moist, and reminds me
most of the inside of some rainforest zoo exhibits I've been in, probably
closest to the environment at the Minneapolis zoo. I really enjoyed
this, and I didn't get burned out, as I had on previous much-hotter
hikes. On the way, we see a ==scaly-naped pigeon, identified by the
size, and the red on the head seen through the fog. We saw tons of
puerto rican todies, and bananaquits, more Puerto Rican tanagers, a
pearly eyed thrasher, ==redstart, some more hummingbirds.
The entire El Yunque park is very well maintained -- the park service
guides are knowledgeable and friendly as usual, the trails are well
marked and cleared, and the bilingual signs are friendly. There are
Impatiens all over the ground in the lower elevations. Near the top of
the mountain, the vegetation changes to more palm trees. At the very
top, unfortunately, there's a service road, with a few cars on top in
which the service personnel for a bunch of big radio antennas have
travelled. The view is, again, a great white cloud. We're later told that,
on a clear day, the view is spectacular, and there are sheer cliffs all
around, but we didn't see any because of the fog. During the hike, it
rains on and off about four or five times. We hike when it rains,
and stop and look at birds when the sun comes out. Unlike a New Jersey
rain storm, there isn't a uniform high cloud ceiling, but instead
clouds that roll in, either creating fog or rain. Between the clouds
is blue sky and sunshine and everything kind of steams.
After our hike to the summit, we wander a bit down the ``big tree
trail'', where we see a definite ==Puerto Rican Emerald hummingbird,
identified by the all-green color, forked tail, and small bill. We
don't have time to go to the bottom of this trail, but there are a lot
of happy-looking people coming uphill in bathing suits; apparently
there's a very good swimming hole at the bottom. Tons more todies and
bananaquits, and a very still immature ==broad-winged hawk,
distinguished from the sharp-shinned only three weeks later when we're
at home and see the much smaller sharp-shinned in our back yard.
December 10, 1990 : From Fajardo to Maho Bay, St. John
We wake at 5:00 am this morning so that we'll be able to escape
the Fajardo Hotel Delicias and make it to the airport as early as we
can to try avoiding the traffic and catch a flight from San Juan over
to St. Thomas, and then a ferry across to St. John. We don't have
reservations for any particular flight, because our travel agent has
told us that we can take an American Eagle shuttle across without
reservations. We're out of the hotel before sunrise, and into San
Juan before 7:00. Unfortunately, we manage to hit horrendous traffic
on a road along the way into the airport. There are three marked lanes,
but they are being completely ignored. Cars are driving on a dirt path
next to the road, and filling a center non-lane as well. This makes
for some hot, frustrating going, and it takes almost an hour.
One saving grace is that when we finally do make it to the airport
entrance, the Budget car return area is clearly marked, and we're able
to return the Nissan without much hassle. We wait about 15 minutes
for a shuttle van, lug our heavy bags into it, and finally arrive at
the American Eagle ticket desk. It's just before 8:00am, and the agent
says there's seats available on an 8:30 flight. John makes a
reservation and buys tickets for us. We check our larger bags, and go
to the gate. Around 8:25, they announce our 8:30 flight has been
delayed until 9:00. Around 8:30, several passengers are boarded onto
the 8:00 flight. Around 9:08, the 9:00 flight is announced, and we're
left wondering what happened to ours! I ask for standby seats on the
9:00 flight, which ends up leaving around 9:30. I guess this is what
they mean by ``island time''.
We arrive in the St. Thomas airport after a 20 minute, 68 mile ride in
a small plane over beautiful tropical scenery, including El Yunque in
clear weather. We both remark on the number of seemingly uninhabited
islands we pass over. The St. Thomas airport is open air, and the
baggage area is like a big warehouse. In the corner, a tourist board
booth is handing out free rum punch. I ask for one, and it knocks me a
bit out. We ask an official looking person how to get to the taxi to
the St. John ferry, and we load our posessions (our bags having
miraculously arrived on the flight we took) into a taxi van ($11) with
some other tourists. This takes us from Charlotte Amalie to Red Hook.
The traffic on St. Thomas is horrendous, and we see a terrible traffic
accident, with a car upside-down and people bleeding. I notice that
the race of the population has shifted substantially from Puerto Rico
-- instead of the largely hispanic mix, there are many blacks, some
with long dreadlocks, and more white tourists. Superficially, to me,
the people seem more friendly than in Puerto Rico, but perhaps I am
biased by familiarity, as they're all English-speaking. The taxi ride
is longer than expected -- about half an hour; at the time we think
this is due to the accident, but our return ride in a week will be just
as long.
The Red Hook ferry to St. John leaves every half hour. We catch the
12:00 noon ferry ($3/person). There are porters to load our bags.
Sitting on the ferry, we saw a ==white-crowned pigeon fly by, but,
surprisingly, very few birds altogether, no gulls whatsoever. Red Hook
seems to be a yachting harbor, and we conjecture that the birds were
off at whatever fishing harbors are around, but we'll see a similar
lack of any gulls for the following week on St. John as well. The only
gull relatives that are at all present are Royal and Caspian Tern,
which we'll see later on. The ferry takes 20 minutes -- we're
surprised at how close St. John is to St. Thomas.
We land in the town of Cruz Bay in St. John. Right at the ferry dock,
Surrey-style taxis are lined up (basically pickup trucks with seats and
canopies over the bed). The Maho Bay shuttle won't run until 3:20pm.
It would be cheapest ($4/person), but we don't want to wait that long.
The first taxi we ask refuses (``no way will I drive to Maho Bay, no
way indeed'') to take us, but another says yes. It costs $12.50 for
the two of us. The roads are very windy and narrow, reminiscent of the
Puerto Rico mountain roads, and I realize that they wouldn't be so
steep if it ever snowed or iced here! Though the island is only
about four by nine miles large, driving takes surprisingly long, about
45 minutes for the trip from Cruz Bay to Maho Bay. The final road into
Maho is badly graded gravel-and-mud (hence, we conjecture, the first
taxi driver's reluctance).
Maho is spectacular. Our cabin (number A8) is far from the center of
the camping ground, but has a beautiful view of Big Maho bay and the
hills beyond it. There are lots of stairs up from the beach at Little
Maho bay (which is adjacent to Big Maho) to a fairly horizontal path
which one follows for about 250 steps (I counted once) to our cabin,
which is at the very end. If, instead, you keep going up more stairs,
you get to an ``administrative'' level, which has an open-air
registration office. Upstairs from that (there are *lots* of stairs
here, I have to stop and rest sometimes) is the camp store (where most
everything is overpriced, >$5.00 for a bag of potato chips!). Upstairs
from *that* is the ``Pavilion'', which is an open-air restaurant that
has a spectacular view out over the ocean.
All the paths, steps, and buildings are made (we'll later learn mostly
by one man, named Hamilton) of a very strong processed wood, mostly cut
into two-by-fours for the supports and boards for the walking surface.
There are patches of rougher stuff as well as slats along the walk for
cutting down on slipperiness after the rain. We're told that bare feet
are best for walking around on this stuff, as shoes can slip on it when
it's wet. I'll learn this first-hand during my long (80 step) regular
midnight walks to the bathroom, when I shorten my stride to avoid the
slats.
The cabin itself consists of about a 10' x 8' living/dining/kitchen
area, and a 10' x 8' ``bedroom'', as well as another 10' x 8' outdoor
porch. The first two rooms are encased in alternating netting (which
you can see through, so it doubles as windows) and canvas (which you
can't see through, which means our neighbors can't peer in at us). In
the living area is a couch, wooden bookshelves and kitchen shelves, a
glass table, and formica countertops, upon one of which is a Primus
(gas) stove (no oven!). A cooler serves as refrigerator, and we'll go
through three big blocks of ice during our stay. Three lizards live here,
and we are their guests. They are very territorial, we're told, and
also very beneficial, as they keep the bugs away. And we only saw them
on the bed once, when we first arrived and hadn't yet moved in. These
guys vary in size, from an inch or so to about 10 inches, tail included.
Our cabin seem very exposed to the elements, with the netting
throughout and all, but, as we're learning, tropical weather is very
comfortable (makes me think we evolved in temperatures like these).
The daily average temperature varies by only about 10 degrees
year-round, so most days, the high is between 75 and 85. Rain here,
when it happens, is different as well. Unlike temperate rainstorms,
which are usually part of systems that can be seen creeping eastward
across the country days in advance, clouds capable of producing rain
seem to spring up at an hour or so's notice, or at least in the current
``dry'' season. Rain clouds depart just as quickly, with none of the
lingering overcast, drizzly weather so familiar back home.
Furthermore, one can often see the rain coming at a distance. Clouds
that hang low over a mountain are usually identified as rain,
especially if there's some vertical streaking in them. As we
approached the island today, we saw a cloud like this hovering over the
mountains and, sure enough, the boardwalks are slippery when we
arrive.
One slightly disappointing thing is that, though the Maho staff are
very friendly, they don't really welcome us, treating us
matter-of-factly instead as we register. Somehow some acknowledgement
of our long trek (which they couldn't really know anything about) would
be appreciated, especially since it's our first time here, and so
different for us. They did let us look over several cabins before we
chose A8, to which we'd been assigned in the first place. Others were
much closer to the beach or bathhouses, but none of the ones we saw had
such a nice view.
Another surprising aspect of the environment (making me think, once
again, that mankind grew up here) is a surprising lack of bugs. The
mosquitos that plague North American campgrounds are almost nonexistent
here. The one pervasive bug is a little biting sand-flea called a
``no-see-um''. These come out in the morning and afternoon and leave a
very small welt which doesn't itch as much as mosquito bites, but after
one has been bit (as was I) more than a hundred times on the legs, they
can still get annoying. We tried a citronella-based ``natural'' bug
repellant, but nothing works as well as good old DEET-based ``deep
woods OFF''. The staff people say that everyone develops an immunity
to these bugs after 2-5 months, but unfortunately we're not staying
that long. I do find some relief by rubbing aloe gel into them before
bed, when the itching is the most distracting.
We're all moved into the cabin early enough that we have time for a
sunset snorkel in little Maho Bay. The visibility is excellent, and we
find coral reefs in 0-15' of water right off the beach. We see many
different fish species, including bluehead wrasse, rainbow parrots,
stingray, flounder, different grouper species, gar, lots of different
squirellfish, foureyed butterflyfish, french angel, blue angel, banded
butterflyfish. Shortly after I enter the water, I pick up sort of a
hitchhiker: a little silvery and yellow fish, about 2 inches high, who
swims in front of my mask like a little puppy. When I turn on my back,
the fish swims just above my stomach and looks at my face. When I swim
fast, it keeps up, and for the 45 minutes or so that I'm snorkeling, it
doesn't lose me. Since this is my first swim in the Carribbean, I
figure this is fairly common and will happen again. Surprisingly, for
the next week of hours of snorkeling a day, I'll never see as friendly
a fish as this one. I still haven't even been able to identify it,
although I assume it's a juvenile of some species, since it's not in
any of my books...now, I realize this was a pretty special experience
and wish I'd stayed in the water longer! We both agree that this is
certainly the best beach snorkeling we've ever done, and better even
than Pennekamp park in the Keys, since we can stay out as long as we
want.
We eat dinner at the Maho restaurant; the food is excellent. I have a
vegetarian burrito, John has fresh red snapper. My only complaint is
that the servings (which include choice of salads and a side dish) are
fairly huge, and slightly expensive (around $10/plate). After dinner,
the staff runs an ``everything you always wanted to know about Maho
Bay'' slide show, with free rum punch and a participatory percussion
concert beforehand (they give drums to people eating at the
restaurant). The slide show describes more activities than we think
we'll ever be able to fit into a week. Various highlights include wild
mongeese (mongooses?), donkeys, goats; several excellent snorkeling
places, a turtle breeding ground next door, whales sometimes visible
from the restaurant; frogs making noises in the background,
windsurfing, scuba diving, night snorkeling motor boats for rental.
Most activities seem to be fairly water-oriented, although there are
some bird watchers that come to the island.
Tuesday December 12, 1990: Snorkeling, trying to find WaterLemon Cay
We go snorkeling from Maho Beach in the morning again, but now the surf
is up and the visibility is atrocious and we see virtually zero fish
despite over an hour in the water. We try swimming a long distance to
a more sheltered area (Francis Bay, on the other side of little Maho)
in hopes that the visibility will improve there, but to no avail,
except that we do see a green turtle, an endangered species that nests
in the turtle grass here. We hike back to the beach, and a staff
member gives us what turn out to be incorrect directions to nearby
Waterlemon Cay, which is reputed to have good snorkeling. We head
towards it with fins in our packs, but get fairly turned around, hiking
the same trail several times. It's frustrating, but at the same time
somewhat adventurous, since we end up slogging through a rocky shore to
get back to the campsite.
We collapse and read novels in the cabin for a bit, where from inside
the netting, and very up close, we see a new bird species, the ==lesser
antillean bullfinch. John also spots a ==caspian tern over the water,
identified by its red bill. He also sees some ==barn swallows overhead.
We have dinner again at the Maho restaurant, which is followed by a
presentation by a Park Service guide, who answers questions about the
island. One interesting fact is that the island is volcanic in origin,
not an accreted coral reef, as are many similar tropical islands.
Perhaps this explains the steep cliffs. We also learn about what the park
service is trying to eradicate on the island. This includes the wild
donkey population (they're going to shoot female donkeys with
infertility drugs), and a plant called the `spaghetti plant' which is a
yelowish vine that drapes itsef over other bushes and ends up
strangling them (there's one in front of our cabin). The mongooses
(which, being diurnal, were erroneously introduced to kill the rats,
who are nocturnal) are also a problem. It's interesting that, like these
animals, the palm tree is also an introduced species, but they're not being
eradicated.
I also asked the park service official whether there was any industry
on the island other than tourism (fantasizing about trying to earn a
living here). I thought he was pretty much joking when he asked
``illegal or legal?'', but when I answered ``either'', he gave a long
description of the problems here with drug traffic. Apparently,
night-flying planes drop bales of cocaine in the waters in this area,
which are picked up by speedboats and smuggled through customs to the
mainland. Last year, ten tons of cocaine were seized off of St. John,
implying that much more is getting through. The Park Service official
said that 15 years ago there was so little crime on the island that it
was necessary to pass a law making it illegal to leave one's keys in
one's car, because so many people did this, and so many friends
borrowed cars to get across the island, that the small police
department was over-burdened with false stolen car complaints. Today,
it is unsafe to leave one's posessions on any beach except Maho (where
the staff keeps an eye on it) because people steal things in order to
get drug money. There are also a few strung-out people wandering
around Cruz Bay who were never present in previous years. This story
hit home with me in a new way the problems caused by drugs and the
contrasts that they can make to a population.
At night, we can see the lights of St. Thomas in the distance from our
cabin, but Maho's ``no light pollution'' policy, along with the fact
that our side of St. John is virtually uninhabited, means that most
nights we get a clear view of the milky way, along with millions of
other stars.
Wednesday, December 12, 1990: Scuba diving off of St. John
Today, we're going to try scuba diving off of St. John. We catch the
Maho shuttle to Cruz Bay Watersports. On the shuttle bus is another
diver, who is going with Low Key Divers. We promise to compare
notes. We did a two-tank dive, which costs $75 each, including rental
equipment. It's interesting that, if you don't rent equipment, the
price only goes down to $67 or so, so it doesn't make much difference,
except that if you have your own equipment, you know it's good!
Our first dive was to St. James Cay and Reefs, where there's some nice
pillar coral as well as big boulders. They are neat formations, but we
don't really see any new fish. The problem with this dive is that it's
a ``group'' dive, where Ron the dive master expects us all to follow
him in a line. This means that we don't get a chance to pause and look
at things, and that we use up our air much faster than usual by
swimming hard to keep up with Ron, who's going quite fast. On the plus
side is that he watches us very carefully, which I appreciate, since
it's our first dive in a few months. I didn't take Sudafed early
enough before the dive, so I have some ear trouble and even a bit of
vertigo. Ron offers to go up, but I say no, and tell John to stay near
me just in case. We see a big spotted Moray and the usual tropicals.
As I talk into my log the next day, it's starting to rain -- the first
one since we've been at Maho. It lasts about 20 minutes, and pours for
a bit, but it's refreshing.
After St. James Cay, we go on our first wreck dive, the Captain Rogers,
said to be a pretty easy wreck for first-timers, since it has very good
visibility, and the deck is in 40 feet of water, with the bottom at 60
feet. I descend slowly because of my previous ear trouble, but don't
have any problems the rest of the dive. We explore around the boat,
and see various reef-encrusted formations, including a toilet right on
the deck. The fish here are very tame, and people near us are being
video-taped feeding fish. When they're done, we feed fish bread from a
plastic bag and they swarm so thickly that they brush up against our
hands and bodies. Most are french grunts, although there are some
yellowtails and a single Spanish hogfish. John explored the side of
the boat while I watched; he managed to scratch his hand on some coral,
and (just like they say in the dive book!) his blood was indeed green!
Fortunately, it got red as we surfaced.
In summary, we were very happy with the service at Cruz Bay watersports.
Unfortunately, their rental equipment, though in good shape, did not include
octopi (which I believe is a bad oversight), and also had no bottom timers or
depth gauges! Apparently, this is standard practice around the islands, and,
according to at least one person we talked to, reflects a lack of
modernization. Their stuff was all fairly new, though, so it's a bit of a
contradiction. Fortunately, they made up for this lack a bit by being very
attentive.
After the dive, we spend a couple of hours walking around Cruz Bay.
Unfortunately, it's very hot, and we don't really have much energy
after diving. It's not a really trashy town, but not the nicest I've
ever been to. Most shops sell T-shirts and other souvenirs, and there
are no really good bargains, which you might be looking for in a place
like this. We run into our friend from Low Key divers, who says that
it is one of the worst diving establishments he's ever been with. Good
that we made the right choice!
We catch the 3:15 shuttle back to Maho and collapse the rest of the day.
Thursday, December 13, 1990: Snorkeling at Waterlemon Cay
In the morning, we see a flock of ==willets, and an egret of some sort
flying past. We decide today we're going to try to find Waterlemon Cay
again, which we got lost looking for on Tuesday. We obtain the correct
directions, and it takes an hour to hike there, looking leisurely for
birds. At a pond, behind the beach, we finally see a few
==white-cheeked pintails, which are life-listers for both of us. We
also see ruddy turnstone, lesser yellowlegs, an immature ==little blue
heron, and a willet, as well as black-faced grassquits, and solitary
sandpipers. We continue hiking past the beach, parke our stuff on some
rocks, and snorkel out to the Cay. From where we stop, we can see a
==great blue heron standing at the water's edge. Also some huge
century plants.
Today is the best snorkeling we've had so far. We see a 6-boot
barracuda hanging out above a cleaning station with its mouth opened,
getting its teeth brushed. My heart thumps a bit when it looks my way,
and John swims down next to the thing, but we emerge
unscathed. We also see a giant hermit crab, a good foot in diameter, a
2-foot long black sea cucumber, and various other invertibrates, as
well as some very nice coral. Fish included french and queen angels,
bar jacks, a spotted moray eel, several kinds of trumpet fish, a couple
of porcupine fish, a peacock flounder. The fish here don't eat our
bread.
On the hike back, we see another life lister, a ==green-throated carib
hummingbird, which is flying around on a tall cactus.
At night, we have dinner at the restaurant, and watch ``The Trouble
With Harry'', which is a pretty funny Alfred Hitchcock film. They set
up a big TV monitor outdoors under the pavilion and we watch it to a
background of frog noises.
Friday, December 14, 1990
We get up late (around 8:30) and walk down to nearby Mary Point pond
(about 20 minutes), where our field guide says there's some good bird
watching. No life listers there, but a zenaida dove, more pintails,
ruddy turnstones, and of course pearly-eyed thrashers and bananaquits
everywhere.
Mrs. Marsh is a crazy lady who lives on Big Maho beach. She's the only
person who lives there, and she stands on the beach yelling about
``white nigger puerto rican murderers, just doing it for a buck'' and
waving a machete. Fortunately, we were warned about her, and told
she's pretty harmless. She has inherited 40-odd acres, basically all
of Big Maho beach, from her father, but the National Park has access
rights, so there are boats in her harbor, which I believe she resents.
Today is a bit overcast, which we like. We spend the reset of the day
on the beach and relaxing, reading our novels.
Saturday, December 15, 1990: Sailing with Skip
I think that today we finally get onto ``island time'', as I stop
keeping my log, and I have to reconstruct these notes from New Jersey
two weeks later, where it's snowing! This was one of the best days of
our trip. For $45/person, we went on an all-day sailing excursion out
of Maho Bay. Far more than half of the reason that this is such a good
day is the skipper, named, appropriately, Skip, who entertains us with
information about the island. Skip is one of those rare people who,
aided somewhat by a voice like an NBC anchorman, somehow manages to
monologue for hours on end without ever becoming boring. He tells us
about how he bought his boat, gossips onisland politics, and discusses
the twins to which his wife will soon give birth ``through the miracle
of modern fertility technology''. He is a wealth of statistics -- able
to quote the island's population and the salary of the local senators.
I get a chance to steer, and enjoy it a lot. As I turn a corner
around a large rock, John spots a beautiful ==red-billed tropicbird,
with a long white tail streaming behind it. Busy with the steering, I
don't get as good a look, but I do see its outline.
We stop for lunch between two Cays: Congo and Lobongo. Skip says these
were named for African slaves, which I think is good, but we later hear
that the second island was previously a brothel, nicknamed
``love-and-go'', hence its current name (Simiarly, Coral Bay on St.
John was previously Corral Bay, so named for the slave corrals that
once were there!). The snorkeling is pretty good; I have fun looking
around at pieces of a boat wreck on the bottom in about 20' of water.
I dive down and try to salvage things unsuccessfully.
Sunday, December 16, 1990: Salt Ponds excursion
Hamilton is a Maho staff member who runs various excursions out on the
island. Today, we take a van to the ``salt ponds'' on the south side.
Hamilton doesn't stick around, but leaves us and about 15 other
Maho-ites there for three hours or so. It was an OK beach, but the
nearby coral was pretty well knocked over, by Hugo the hurricane or
perhaps overzealous snorkelers. There was also a walk to a pond in the
dunes which was supposed to be good for shorebirds, but we really
didn't see any. Some nice surf around the corner from this pond though
-- big waves pounding on rocks, looking like a *real* ocean instead of
these calm little beaches we've been seeing. John notices that several
female sunbathers are topless. Lorien walks right by two of them and
never even notices. On the way back, Hamilton takes us by Lucy's bar,
where we all order rum punches. Mine has three different sorts of rum
in it, and I finish out the ride back (through some pretty steep hairy
and beautiful mountain roads, I might add) fairly well sockered.
Monday, December 17, 1990: Back to Waterlemon Cay
We spend a leisurely day on Waterlemon Cay again. We try hiking there
via a different route (a ``goat trail'') and it takes a lot longer.
Snorkeling, we see an Eagle Ray, which is a magnificent thing, with
about an 8' wing span and a 10' long tail! There's also more turtles.
John has bought a disposable underwater camera for $20 (plus
developing), so we try some snapshots. They come out pretty nicely,
and we're inspired to get a waterproof camera for rafting and
snorkeling.
Tuesday, December 18, 1990: Home to San Juan
It's been a great trip, but after being away so long, I'm anxious to
get home, and actually looking forward to seeing New Jersey again! We
have reservations on a flight that gets in at midnight, but go standby
on two flights and manage to make it home by 8:00 pm. Once again,
the service on airlines between St. Thomas and San Juan is
infuriatingly backwards, but we get through it all. It's cold in New
Jersey!
Total list of bird species seen:
adelaide's warblers monk Parakeets
antillean Mango northern Mockingbirds
bananaquit northern parula
barn swallows overhead osprey
black-bellied plover pearly-eyed thrashers
black-faced grassquit puerto Rican Emerald hummingbird
broad-winged hawk puerto Rican Parrot
brown boobies puerto Rican Tody
caspian tern over the water puerto Rican tanager
cattle egret red-billed tropicbird
cave swallows red-legged thrush
chestnut mannequins red-tailed hawk
common ground doves redstart
great blue heron rock Doves
great egret royal terns
greater Antillean Grackles ruddy turnstones
green-throated carib scaly-naped pigeon
grey kingbird smooth-billed Ani
killdeer snowy egret
lesser antillean bullfinch turkey Vulture
lesser yellowlegs warbling silverbills
little blue heron white-cheeked pintails
loggerhead kingbird white-crowned pigeon
lousiana Waterthrush willets
magnificent frigatebird yellow warbler
zenaida Dove
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L. Y. Pratt Computer Science Department
pratt@paul.rutgers.edu Rutgers University
Hill Center
(201) 932-4634 (Hill Center office) New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA
(201) 846-4766 (home)