The temperature was really pleasant in our cottage from about 4am onwards, after we turned on the fan. It’s an open cottage (there’s no walls on the front half facing the ocean) and it was really windy, so I didn’t think we’d need the fan, but it made a difference.
Unfortunately we had to get up at 7am for our birdwatching trek today. (We’ll finally get to sleep in tomorrow for the first time on this vacation). Breakfast was super quick - we had fresh fruit, yoghurt, scrambled eggs and toast in about 30 minutes. It helped that we were the only guests.
We drove down the steep driveway which didn’t seem as scary today, now that we knew what to expect. We were meeting Dr Birdy at the Rubis gas station near the National Bank, a typical small-town direction. The bank is in the centre of Portsmouth which was lively at 9am. The popular Indian River cruise departs nearby and the parking folks tried to flag us into their parking lot.
Dr Birdy arrived a couple minutes after us. We followed his car to get out of Portsmouth, and then parked and joined him in his vehicle, along with a couple other folks on our excursion. Shane and Nya were from Florida and Shane was a serious birder.
We drove towards Syndicate National Trail. Once we turned off the main north-south road, Dr Birdy lowered the windows so he could hear the bird calls. We stopped a few times along the way to spot an endemic species or two.
Dr Birdy’s real name is Bertrand, and he is the foremost expert on birds in Dominica. He’s like royalty here - other guides would stop their car to get out and say hello to him. He’s super knowledgeable - we were lucky he had availability for the time we were here.
It was cool spotting the hummingbirds and other species. I was able to get some good pics, and then my battery died from all the zooming in. My spare was also dead :( I had charged the spares about a month ago but they tend to lose their charge over time even when not in use. Oh well. I could at least enjoy the birds without trying to take pics too.
We arrived at the trail head for Syndicate where there was a check for our passes (all four of us had a weekly pass). You need a pass to enter some of the National Parks here ($5 per park, or $12 for a weekly pass) but they’re not always sold at the checkpoints. If you know about the passes, it’s easy to buy beforehand (our hotel sold them for example).
Dr Birdy knew all the places to spot the various species. We had seen three of the four hummingbirds found in Dominica, and he knew where to stop to see the blue-headed hummingbird. Right on cue, and exactly where he had pointed his scope, a blue-headed hummingbird appeared. Dr Birdy said it’s its favourite perch after feeding on nectar. Shane was pleased to check that off his list.
We made our way further into the park, and to a viewpoint across a valley. We saw several red-necked amazon parrots fly by. We waited for about hour trying to spot the rarer imperial amazon parrot but to no avail. I think Shane would have waited out the afternoon, as any self-respecting serious birder would. The rest of us were more interested in lunch, and so eventually he gave in. An excuse for another trip he said.
We made our way back out, with both Dr Birdy and Shane on the lookout for a ruddy quail-dove which tend to scurry along the forest ground. Over the course of the morning we spotted 34 species of birds (at least Shane saw that many, our total could be lower).
It was about 2:30pm, and most lunch places recommended by Dr Birdy had closed, except for Infinity Restaurant so that’s where we headed. It appeared closed but the person outside said it was indeed open. So we parked and made our way into the restaurant. It was a nice setting overlooking a river. We both ordered a shrimp dish which came out almost immediately, and both were excellent!
Drove back to our hotel. Yesterday we had figured out how to cool the cottage down - lowering the blinds and opening the door for a cross-breeze. We also had a cool shower. Much better than our arrival yesterday!
Towards sunset we made our way down to the restaurant for a sundowner, followed by too much dinner :)
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