Green Castle Estate
This morning we explored yet another trail to try and find the two further endemics that were available on us on the Green Castle Estate, these were Jamaican Lizard Cuckoo and Jamaican Pewee which we located without too much trouble. A single Pewee and two Cuckoo responded to a tape lure and showed really well in the trees above our heads, unfortunately this back breaking birding was taking its toll on Dudley and he had to retire to his room to rest his back.
After breakfast we followed the access road before taking a track to the John Davy lookout which is a historic site where some of the original inhabitants of Jamaica lived, it is apparently an important archaeological site and has been excavated in the past, although now it has been reclaimed by the jungle. Dwain was very informative and as we looked down at the Orchid sheds he told us that it had been very successful until a Hurricane caused a lot of damage, then when they were repaired that disease had then effected the Orchids which resulted in them being abandoned!.
After lunch we made good use of the Swimming Pool and generally relaxed in a wonderful venue. The staff were brilliant and couldn’t do enough for us , the food was good, healthy and plentiful and barely four hours passed between meals! The Estate House was so quiet during the day, you could hear a pin drop, at night it was a little different when the wildlife started up!
In the afternoon we revisited Waterfall Trail where to cut a long story short I missed out on a Worm-eating Warbler which Joy managed to get on, it didn’t cause a problem, some you win, some your lose.
Wednesday 9th January
Hardware Gap, The Blue Mountains
Another early start involving two breakfasts, the drive though was not as long and we met up with Roger again in his home territory of the Blue Mountains. At this point we only needed to see a further three endemics which were all on today’s agenda. The first proved no problem, we saw uptown 30 Ring-tailed Pigeons immediately. We basically birded alongside the road with the van following all the way up to Hardware Gap, we saw a single Blue Mountain Vireo leaving just the Jamaican Blackbird to compete the set, but this bird was proving elusive. We were giving up hope so we stopped for lunch, we were checking out a few promising trees when Roger located a single Jamaican Blackbird feeding low down in a tree.
By the time we made our way back down to the coast it was time to return to the Estate for a quick dip in the pool and a relax having seen all the endemics that Jamaica had to offer. The next couple of days were down to us to bird on our own which I was looking forward too.
 |
| Jamaican Pewee |
 |
| The Blue Mountains |
 |
| Jamaican Blackbird |
 |
| Ring-tailed Pigeon |
 |
| Jamaican Pewee |
 |
| Jamaican Tody |
No comments:
Post a Comment