Tuesday 24 May 2011

Antigua Day 2 - Hotel and local area

Friday 13th
The day started much the same as the first day with me visiting the beach but only the spotted sandpiper was in residence. However a fortuitous glance at the sky revealed a distant osprey carrying a fish.  A little later there were 2 cruising around but they never came close enough for a decent picture.
Osprey (with fish|)

Since nothing was going on on the beach I walked out to Devils Bridge – a promontory that juts out into the sea and provides one of the most westerly parts of the island and only ~ 1/2 mile walk from the hotel. The scrub I passed on the way held all the common stuff but as I reached the grass covered end of the peninsular I found 5 semi-palmated plovers. These seemed to be resident as I saw them every day I visited this site.
View of Devils Bridge from our room

Semi-palmated Plover on Devils Bridge
I took up station at the very end for a bit of sea watching and within a few minutes sooty terns were passing – they were too distant to get anything other than record shots that confirmed the id. Also going past were some “white” terns that at the time I couldn’t id but now think are roseate terns. A few least terns also went past.
Sooty Tern and (assumed) Roseate Tern

After an hour or so I returned to the beach pool and found the green heron had returned and a superb yellow crowned night heron had turned up. This wandered around in broad daylight for ~ 30 minutes giving brilliant views.
Yellow Crowned Night Heron

To top it all one of the royal terns started fishing in the bay.
Royal Tern

 After that it was back to the room and off to breakfast.
The rest of the day was spent cooking in the sun and drinking ............

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