City birds of Antigua

[urbpan]

This street in St. Johns (Antigua's capitol, a small and dense city of 20,000 people) shows a central drainage ditch. The water ends up in a small brackish swamp in the harbor. The oily mud is full of fiddler crabs, and you can see lots of white herons in the bushes when you drive opposite that part of the harbor. Actually getting to that part was a little tricky, involving crossing two vacant lots and attracting strange looks. When I spoke my intention to get down there, my mother in law warned me "It's horrible!" Well, I've seen worse. I'm glad I went there, I saw...


A common gallinule, or moorhen. Gallinula chloropus




A Carib grackle stood nearby.


In the shallows where the drainage hit the harbor (presumably full of organic matter attracting fish and aquatic insects) many herons were hunting, including this tricolored heron. Egretta tricolor


I loved the difference between the resting pose and this, the hunting pose.


I'm pretty sure this is a young little blue heron (Egretta caerulea). They start out white. According to wikipedia, this is because they greater success hunting alongside snowy egrets than adult plumaged birds. It's possible this is a snowy egret, but something about the shape of this bird, especially its smooth head, makes me think it's a little blue.


We also walked around the town a bit. There seem to be a lot of places that are either in the process of being built, or in the process of falling apart.




I like the cute cottage style houses.




An Irish pub, of all things. I'll check it out next year maybe.


In a tiny park, we found several of these fast ground lizards. I am surprised to report that this is Ameiva griswoldi the Antiguan Ground Lizard, found only on Antigua and it's surrounding islands.

Comments

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

What beautiful birds...I love herons...:)
Those cottage houses are very cute, I live in a house similar to them right now! :)
That lizard is very cool looking...reminds me of the ground lizards we have here that are SO fast...:)

[ssorca19.livejournal.com]

No no, its an IRIS pub... for people who like um, flowers and beer?

[shellasaurusrex.livejournal.com]

this is wonderful! i'm so jealous!

[colinftm.livejournal.com]

Awesome pictures, thanks for sharing these with all of us.
I love herons too. :)

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Aww man, I LOVE herons and egrets! We only got egrets coming to Ireland recently and I saw my first ever little egret (or little egger, to give it its "cool" birder name) last year. I probably told you that already. Anyway, I've never seen the likes of that tricolour heron. It's cool looking.

Lol at O'Gradys.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

thanks for all the great photos, it has been my treat every morning to look at them!