The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Went to Barbados for two weeks holiday in mid-September arriving back home in Lincoln on the 2nd of October

The weather throughout was hot and humid with just the odd shower at the start of our stay. We stayed at Couples Barbados just outside Bridgetown in St Lawrence Gap. The hotel had a glorious sandy beach and a large area of woodland adjacent to the accommodation.

The woodland was famous for seeing monkeys but didn’t produce during my visits and not to many birds either

The grounds of the hotel were alive with birds but just the same five species
• Carib Grackle 100’s
• Lesser-Antillean Bullfinch 100’s
• Zenaida Dove 100’s
• Bananaquit 50+
• Gray Kingbird 15+

Two other birds could be seen in small numbers in the grounds-namely
• Scaly-Naped Pigeon up to 10
• Green-Throated Carib (a small hummingbird which was never still)

The beach by the hotel did produce small numbers of Sanderling most days before the sun worshippers were out. Over the sea it wasn’t unusual to see the almost prehistoric Magnificent Frigatebird. Also patrolling the shoreline were the odd Laughing Gull, Royal Tern, on one occasion a Caspian Tern, two Least Tern just once, a Red-Billed Tropicbird (lifer) and on several occasions small flocks of Bridled Terns and once a Belted Kingfisher

I found it extremely hot and exhausting to wander very far so my bird list only finished with a total of thirty-four

The woodland and the surrounding grassland by the hotel did give me
• Black-Faced Grassquit
• Shiny Cowbird
• Caribbean Martin (lifer)
• Cattle Egret
• Yellow Warbler (the only species of warbler seen)

The only specific occasion I did go off birding was on the penultimate day. I walked down to the Grahame Hall Sanctuary. This was closed for the day but there is an area of swampland at the side of it that proved to be fairly productive. Birds seen here included

• Western Sandpiper
• Spotted Sandpiper
• Little Egret (the only place in the Caribbean where they breed apparently)
• Snowy Egret
• Green Heron
• Great White Egret
• Moorhen
• Turnstone
• Wilsons Plover
• Solitary Sandpiper
• Plain Pigeon
• Crested-Antillean Hummingbird (on the walk to the Swamp)
• And half a dozen green monkeys

Did see some Barn Swallows on a tour of the island and some feral pigeons in Bridgetown centre but that is the sum total of birds seen. Cannot say that there were any species that I didn’t identify just to compensate for lack of numbers

All in all this was an excellent holiday on a beautiful island with amazing friendly people everywhere but if I want to add to my Caribbean list I will not pick Barbados