Frigatebird (Magnificent)

The Frigatebird is a large species of sea-bird that has an enormous wingspan exceeding two meters in length. Males are most commonly known for their red throat pouch, which are inflated to attract females during the mating season.

Frigatebirds are sea-birds and have a meat-based carnivorous diet, primarily fish including flying fish, and crustaceans, and even small sea turtles.

the Frigatebird is unable to walk that well and cannot swim. Frigatebirds have to pluck their prey from the water without landing as they are unable to take-off from a flat surface such as water.

Photographed in Jamaica at Runaway Bay

Dove (Common Ground) Jamaica

 

Found in Jamaica and has a pale beak with males being very dark on the underbelly. The Common Ground Dove is a small bird that inhabits the Caribbean and is considered to be the smallest dove that inhabits the United States. As its name suggests the bird spends the majority of its time on the ground walking but still has the ability to fly.

 

The Common Ground Dove lives in open areas that have trees and bushes. They are also found in forests with sandy areas, farmlands, and savannahs and near human infrastructure. Common ground doves seem to hold territories but they are rarely aggressive when dealing with intruders.

 Photographed in Jamaica at Runaway Bay

Grassquit (Black-faced)

Black-faced Grassquit is a small tanager, very dark olive-gray with black head, breast, bill, legs and feet. Very common in the West Indies and feeds mainly on seeds, especially of grasses and weeds. The flight is weak, bouncy and fluttering. Alternates rapid wing beats with pulling wings to body.

The Grassquit were long considered sparrows, but recent molecular studies have placed them in the tanagers, closely related to Darwin’s “finches”. Casual visitor to South Florida.

 

Photographed at Rockland’s Bird Sanctuary, Jamaica

Heron (Yellow-crowned Night)

 

 

Yellow-crowned Night-Herons live in or near wetlands—on the coast along islands, mangroves, and barrier beaches; farther inland in wooded swamps, forested uplands, and lakes and rivers, sometimes near residential areas. They usually nest in small colonies, sometimes with other wading birds, and forage along tidal marshes, in tide pools and the shores of water bodies where crustaceans are abundant.

 

 

Adults are about 24 in long and weigh 22.0 oz. They have a white crown and back with the remainder of the body grayish, red eyes and short yellow legs. They have a white stripe below the eye. Juveniles resemble young Black-crowned Night-Herons, being mainly brown flecked with white or gray.

 

 

Photographed at Runaway Bay, Jamaica

 

 

 

Hummingbird (Jamaican Mango)

One of the 28 endemic birds of Jamaica, and are fairly common and widespread and only be found in that country. The Jamaican mango is the largest of the nation's hummingbirds. Its dark plumage may at first seem drab, but this hummer has spectacularly subtle beauty with a rainbow of iridescence in good light.

 

Jamaican mangos prefer less dense, lowland habitats that include plantations, forest edges, gardens and scrub areas, including more arid regions and backyards, though they are missing from the highest elevations of the Blue Mountains and John Crow Mountains

They do not strongly migrate but may drop to lower elevations in winter and populations can shift from the northern part of the country to the southern part seasonally, typically following the flowering season and the most abundant food sources.

 

Photographed at Rockland’s Bird Sanctuary, Jamaica

 

Hummingbird (Swallow-Tail) aka Dr Bird

The Doctor Bird is the common name for the Swallow-Tail Hummingbird, the national bird of Jamaica. The feathers have a shimmering emerald green and black colour, a trait which is peculiar to this family of birds. The bird is able to fly backwards, this causes the feathers to make a humming sound when it flies (giving this avian family its common name of the hummingbird).

The Doctor Bird is indigenous to Jamaica and is one of the most outstanding of the 320 species of humming birds. They are found mostly in closed forest wherever there is flowering plants. However, it can also be seen in gardens and parks. The bird's main source of nutrition is nectar from plants but it also eats spiders and insects. Doctor Birds tend to feed frequently during the day time and hibernate at night to conserve energy

 

Photographed at Rockland’s Bird Sanctuary,  Jamaica

 

Orangequit

The Orangequit is a Tanager that is endemic to Jamaica, where it occurs in a wide variety of habitats, from mountain evergreen forest to disturbed forest edge and secondary forest. The adult male Orangequit is very distinctive, with a cobalt blue body, a square orange patch on the throat, and a short, pointed, curved bill. Female The Orangequit have olive-gray upper parts, with dull yellow-olive under parts, and a gray head. Young males are similar to females, but often have small patches of colorful feathers, most commonly on the coverts, chest, or throat.

The Orangequit feeds on fruits and nectar, and is a common bird of forest canopy or edges, wherever there are fruits or flowers.  This species will travel in pairs or in mixed-species flocks of nectivores and insectivores, especially when feeding on flowering emergent trees.

 

 

Photographed at Rockland’s Bird Sanctuary, Jamaica

 

Oriole (Jamaican)

Jamaican Orioles species is common and widespread in Jamaica, where it is found in all types of forests, as well as in gardens. The birds sometimes roost communally. It is a long-tailed greenish-yellow bird, with black wings, relieved by extensive white in the coverts, and a paler black mask bib. The tail is also black, with white edges. Like most bird species in Jamaica, this oriole breeds in the austral spring, between March and June

It is found in Jamaica and on the Colombian island of San Andres. It formerly occurred on Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands but is now extinct there. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical moist montage forests, and heavily degraded former forest.

Photographed at Rockland’s bird sanctuary, Jamaica

Thrush (White-chinned)

The White-chinned Thrush is a fairly common resident of Jamaica, and is a habitat generalist at most elevations, inhabiting primary and secondary forest, and forest edge and scrub. 

The White-chinned Thrush is mostly dark slate-gray, with a small, white chin patch, a pale belly, red legs, and a red bill. Distinctive both standing and in flight is a white wing patch, created by white distal webs to the second and third from innermost greater secondary coverts. The distinctive, whistle call is given repeatedly, and this bird is shameless, spending ample time in the open, and foraging in fruiting trees and shrubs.

Photographed at Rockland’s bird sanctuary, Jamaica

Heron (Black-crowned Night)

Black-crowned Night-Herons do not fit the typical body form of the heron family. They are relatively stocky with shorter bills, legs and necks than their more familiar cousins the egrets and "day" herons.

Their resting posture is normally somewhat hunched but when hunting they extend their necks and look more like other wading birds.

Adult Black-crowned Night-Herons have black caps and backs, pale grey wings, white under parts, red eyes and yellow legs. Two or three long white plumes, erected in greeting and courtship displays, extend from the back of the head.

Photographed at Reid Zoo, Tucson, AZ
and in the wild in Etobicoke, ON
and at Black River, Jamaica