Bird Watching in Puerto Plata and North Coast

[vermontmark]

a local guy told me a couple years ago that the guys or people here would capture the wild birds and sell them to forigners thats why not many left now he said when he was young thats what you do to make some money thast why not many left hes like 50 so i guess he knows

That is unfortunately still common in other parts of the world. Not sure if it is here anymore though.

 

[Gadfly]

I would think cats aren’t helping either

 

[Florave]

The relative scarcity of gulls in the tropics is something that has not escaped the attention of ornithologists. It appears there is no clear-cut answer. A nice read on several hypotheses about the absence of gulls in tropics (you asked for it Northern Coast Diver! ): (https://ekroc.weebly.com/blog/a-world-of-laridae-gulls-in-the-tropics}. The most plausible hypothesis to me seems gulls can’t handle the heat, so they don’t like breeding here. The Laughing Gull is the only resident breeding gull here. The rest are just visitors, for now.



Field Guides I Use

Cornell Lab Merlin bird id app – Out in the field it is handy to be able to pull up bird songs and calls. Has photo and sound id capability which is rapidly improving. This has different bird packs you can load based on your location – Caribbean, US and Canada Continental, etc.

Princeton Field Guides: Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti - Steven Latta, et al.

Princeton Field Guides: Birds of the West Indies – Raffaele, et al.

The Sibley Guide to Birds – David Allen Sibley - This is a USA guide, but many species overlap. Super helpful with tricky migrant shorebirds, gulls, terns, and warblers. Illustrations are superb and detailed.



For all birders out there this Saturday, October 8 is Ebird’s worldwide bird counting day. Let’s represent. (https://ebird.org/news/october-big-...rs for October,birds to bring people together.)

Also Birds Caribbean has a write up about this event: https://www.birdscaribbean.org/2022/10/october-big-day-2022-is-september-8th-2022-join-us/

 

[Northern Coast Diver]

T

The relative scarcity of gulls in the tropics is something that has not escaped the attention of ornithologists. It appears there is no clear-cut answer. A nice read on several hypotheses about the absence of gulls in tropics (you asked for it Northern Coast Diver! ): (https://ekroc.weebly.com/blog/a-world-of-laridae-gulls-in-the-tropics}. The most plausible hypothesis to me seems gulls can’t handle the heat, so they don’t like breeding here. The Laughing Gull is the only resident breeding gull here. The rest are just visitors, for now.



Field Guides I Use

Cornell Lab Merlin bird id app – Out in the field it is handy to be able to pull up bird songs and calls. Has photo and sound id capability which is rapidly improving. This has different bird packs you can load based on your location – Caribbean, US and Canada Continental, etc.

Princeton Field Guides: Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti - Steven Latta, et al.

Princeton Field Guides: Birds of the West Indies – Raffaele, et al.

The Sibley Guide to Birds – David Allen Sibley - This is a USA guide, but many species overlap. Super helpful with tricky migrant shorebirds, gulls, terns, and warblers. Illustrations are superb and detailed.



For all birders out there this Saturday, October 8 is Ebird’s worldwide bird counting day. Let’s represent. (https://ebird.org/news/october-big-day-2022#:~:text=Mark your calendars for October,birds to bring people together.)

Also Birds Caribbean has a write up about this event: https://www.birdscaribbean.org/2022/10/october-big-day-2022-is-september-8th-2022-join-us/

Thanks for the link!!!

 

[chico bill]

I am on the water all the time. I have been seeing seagulls on the ocean here for more than 20 years. But it is rare to see them on shore. The gulls here don't seem to eat garbage like the ones back on Long Island.

Because the hot dogs here our indeed garbage, unfit for man or bird.