Wednesday, April 29, 2009

G Day boating cruise


Today we went out in our boat, the G'Day.  We saw several great birds while we were out floating around Pine Island Sound. We saw a Least Tern,  Frigate Bird and a Swallow Tailed Kite. We also saw 10 or so rays swimming around the boat.  





Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Snakes alive, and other stuff.

Well this is a crock, and we saw it in Cozumel, I worked for the State of Florida for several months as a crocodile  hunter and tagger. It was not a good job. I got bite thousands of times....... by bugs. We would go out all night with a 10ft jon boat, and a 4 hp. motor. Never did get to tag one.


 
Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Better Picture of the Southern Lapwing

   Hope this is better, it is hard to tell when I upload the pictures. 
Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Bird List for South America / Southern Lapwing

Location:     Cartagena
Observation date:     4/11/09
Number of species:     37

Northern Screamer     10
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck     40
Fulvous Whistling-Duck     10
Pied-billed Grebe     2
Brown Pelican (Caribbean)     10
Neotropic Cormorant     10
Magnificent Frigatebird     10
Rufescent Tiger-Heron     1
Cocoi Heron     2
Great Egret     20
Snowy Egret     10
Cattle Egret     10
Striated Heron     4
Glossy Ibis     15
Black Vulture     20
Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture     5
Osprey     2
Gray-headed Kite     1
Snail Kite     10
Black-collared Hawk     2
Crested Caracara     2
Common Moorhen     20
Limpkin     2
Southern Lapwing     8
Wattled Jacana     30
Laughing Gull     5
Royal Tern     2
Groove-billed Ani     2
Ringed Kingfisher     2
White-necked Puffbird     4
Crimson-crested Woodpecker     2
Pied Water-Tyrant     2
Great Kiskadee     2
Fork-tailed Flycatcher     1
Great-tailed Grackle     40
Yellow-hooded Blackbird     2
Crested Oropendola     1





Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Monday, April 27, 2009

Celebrity Cruise and the Northern Screamer

Hi Everyone,

We had a great trip on the Celebrity Constellation.  Our  ports of call were; Grand Cayman, Cartagena, Panama, Costa Rica, and Cozumel.   This is close to the same itinerary that next years cruise with Carefree Birding will be; however, next year they add Roatan, Honduras to the list of ports and the ship will be the new Equinox which has it's maiden voyage in August.

Celebrity is a very nice cruise line.  The food was excellent and the service was quite good.  We really did not have any complaints about the cruise.   We had a great time birding in all ports. In Grand Cayman we revisited the Queen Elizabeth Gardens (this is the place we will take the group).  The flowers were blooming and the birds were chirping.  We will be uploading some new video taken their and will let you know when it is ready for prime time.  Some of the birds we saw their were; Cayman Parrot, cuban bull finch, yucatan vireo, west-indian woodpecker, western spindalis, loggerhead kingbird to name a few!

Then off we were to Cartagena.  We took a boat ride on a river which was very productive.  We saw snail kites, rufescent tiger heron, ringed kingfisher,  black collared hawk, cocoi heron, lesser yellow headed vulture, southern lapwing and the most interesting bird, the Northern Screemer! (I attached a picture of this one).  Then we headed to the botanical garden and saw a crimson crested woodpecker, crested oropendola.   In all we saw about 35 species for our 4 hour trip. 

We were a few hours late arriving in Panama, however, our guide Guido was there waiting for us.  We explored a multitude of places to take you all and we had a great afternoon of birding.  Besides the birds, we saw a two toed sloth and monkeys! The highlights of our birds were wattle jacana, yellow headed caracara, chestnut headed oropendola, panama flycatcher, thick-billed euphonia, slaty-tailed trogon and a golden collared manakin.  Can you imagine if we had birded in the morning instead of the heat of the day?

Off to Costa Rica where Alex met us for a morning of bird watching.  We started out by taking a quick trip down a river where our highlights were the collared aracari , green kingfisher, amazon kingfisher, and the ringed kingfisher.  Then off we went exploring the country side!  The highlights were keel-billed toucan,  olive-back euphonia, yellow-crowned euphonia, , pale vented pigeon, common black hawk, montezuma oropendola and black-checked woodpecker. Alex wanted to show us and his son Kevin a black chested jay. We drove 40 or so miles and saw two of these birds, they are only found in a very small area of Costa Rica. We have stayed with Alex in his B&B several times in the last several years.   For the day we saw around 46 species. 

Our last port was Cozumel.  There we explored a couple of new options for the next visit.  After traveling around the island, we determined the San Gervasio ruins area is still the best location for seeing the endemics of Cozumel like the Cozumel Emerald. Our guide drove us to a very secluded place behind the ruins. It was hard to believe that we were on Cozumel, we did not see any vehicles  or people for several hours. Then we returned to the beach and were reunited with civilization.  

Both Linda and I had a great trip, but we missed our "Carefree Buddies" . We hope that you will be able to join us on the cruise next year so we can have more fun. We also look forward to meeting and laughing with our new CB's, as several new  people  have signed up and are ready to go. 

About the pictured bird:

Our bird "expert" in South America who had no idea what any bird was told me that this was a turkey. So we called it a funny turkey until we got home and found out it was the Norther Screamer. There are about ten thousand of these birds in S.A. and two other types of screamers. When we first saw it, we said that it looked like a large duck, crossed with a goose, and had the wings of an eagle, legs like an ibis  and a face of a vulture.  We will have to go back and hear it scream. 

Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Spoonbills gone from Ding Darling

We went to Ding Darling today and did not see these birds. The spoonbills are gone, but the Redish Egret is still around. Lots of birds have gone north. We will wait for them to come back.  This picture was taken in Jan 09



Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Friday, April 24, 2009

More Bird Stories Cockatoos eat french fries

We were down under and fed the Cockatoos  french fries.  We had a great time and the birds liked the food. 




Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Wrong Bird, but good story Crimson Rosella

Hey this was going to be a bird from our last cruse, but it came out this one. We saw him Down-under. We chased this bird for several days trying to get a picture. Then we were eating at a picnic table and he landed next to us.  Nice guy.


Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Tuesday, April 21, 2009



Hey, Look I got a bird on the blog! This is the Cayman Parrot, and is only found in the Cayman Islands.  I will try and get a film of this guy on the blog.   






Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010

Monday, April 20, 2009

Here we go!

Well now I am a birder and and blogger, does that make me a double B ? I will try and put some pictures up here about our trips that we have done. I might be slow but when the pictures and video show up, you will enjoy them. 

Ken.





Next cruise ! February 16, 2010 & March 8, 2010