Saint Lucia Warbler during a Caribbean cruise

Saint Lucia Warbler, Millet Nature Reserve, St. Lucia, Mar 12, 2019

Saint Lucia Warbler, Millet Nature Reserve, St. Lucia, Mar 12, 2019

Saint Lucia Warbler, Millet Nature Reserve, St. Lucia, Mar 12, 2019

Saint Lucia Warbler, Millet Nature Reserve, St. Lucia, Mar 12, 2019

Mount Gimie (highest peak on the island), Millet Nature Reserve, St. Lucia, Mar 12, 2019

Central and southern mountains including the Pitons, St. Lucia, Mar 12, 2019

Back from a seven day cruise to the southern Caribbean that left out of San Juan on Sunday the 10th and returned there on the 17th. Our stops included Saint Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, Saint Thomas and Tortola. The original stops when we booked the cruise included Dominica where I hope to find Plumbeous Warbler but the cruise line changed the stops several months ago (I believe due to continued damage from the destructive hurricanes last year). Thankfully Saint Lucia was still on the schedule so I was able to see the endemic Saint Lucia Warbler despite a major snafu with the guide I reserved.  I have wanted to get down to Saint Lucia for years to not only see the Saint Lucia Warbler but to also see the island where the now almost certainly extinct Semper's Warbler once roamed.  There is still a slight chance the warbler survives in the most remote sections of the island and there are a number of articles that describe the search in greater detail including the follow: BirdsCaribbean article, Scott Weidensaul article.  With just several hours available on the island a search for the Semper's Warbler was not possible.  Now to the story of my day on Saint Lucia.  I booked a guide (Adams Tousaint) during the summer and confirmed again with him once it got to within a few weeks of the trip.  He then sent a message back that he would be out of the country but he set up a colleague of his (named Vision) that would meet me and gave me his phone number and exact directions on where to meet him.  I sent a message back to try to get his email too but never got a response back (the first warning sign).  Even though I would not have cell coverage I knew I could get someone to let me borrow their phone if needed.  I got off the ship as soon as the ship opened the doors and was at the spot to meet the guide before the 8AM meeting time.  After looking around I had no luck finding him but thought perhaps I was too early so I waited until eight and still no sign of him.  After it got to be 8:15 I borrowed a phone and called him and found out the number was wrong and I had no other way to contact the guide.  Once it got to be 8:40 with no sign of the guide I tried the number on another persons phone (just in case it got dialed wrong) and had the same result.  I had a less than ideal plan B which was to hire a taxi to take me into the mountains to try for at least some of the birds I wanted to see....which is exactly what I did.  I got up to the Millet Nature Reserve around 9:20 and spent the next three hours exploring the trails and got multiple views of Saint Lucia Warbler so all was not lost.  Despite all the problems of the day up until that point I was very happy to catch up with another new warbler species.

Prairie Warbler, McKinnon's Salt Pond, Antigua, Mar 14, 2019

Yellow Warbler, Fort James to McKinnon's Salt Pond area, Antigua, Mar 14, 2019

Yellow Warbler, Fort James to McKinnon's Salt Pond area, Antigua, Mar 14, 2019

Yellow Warbler, McKinnon's Salt Pond, Antigua, Mar 14, 2019

The only other true birding day was the stop in Antigua where we went to the beach and I was able to bird some nearby areas for a few hours where I turned up a Prairie Warbler near McKinnon's Salt Pond, which turned out to be quite a rare sighting for the island (no eBird records at all). There were also a number of Yellow Warblers around with quite a bit of singing and I got a video of one singing.  Although the nearby island of Barbuda (with its endemic Barbuda Warbler) was just a 90 minute boat ride away there was no way I could figure out how to make it there given the time constraints of our visit to Antigua.  I will have to make a special trip to Antigua in the future at some point to finally get the species.

Overall for the trip the warbler diversity was fairly low with just five species seen including Northern Waterthrush, Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, Prairie Warbler and Saint Lucia Warbler.  The highlight was of course the Saint Lucia Warbler which became a new warbler species for me, bringing my total to between 78 to 80 (depending on which list you use to determine species).