Cruise to Bahamas- Antillean Nighthawk, Red-legged Thrush & Bahama Woodstar

     This past week my wife and I took a cruise from New Jersey to the Bahamas.  Our ports of call were Port Canaveral, FL, Nassau and the cruise line’s private island in the Bahamas.  Prior to leaving I made a list of new birds I would like to see on the trip.  The list constituted new life birds that could be seen at those locations at this time of year.  In reality it was more of a wish list as I knew I would never get all 35 birds.  I would have been satisfied with one new bird, but I got three and happy.

We left Bayonne on Friday and arrived at central Florida on Sunday afternoon.  Before we left I became aware of a wayward Large-billed Tern that showed up in Brevard County.  Large-billed terns are a South American species and look kind of like our Royal Terns, but (of course) with an exceptionally large bill.  This mega rarity would have been a great score, but I had to take a pass.  It seemed too convenient as Port Canaveral is also located in Brevard County.  Unfortunately, as is often the case in Florida, Point A in County X to Point B in County X is usually over an hour drive each way.  Just the round trip cab ride to the bird’s general location would have taken most of our allotted time off the ship.  For the couple hours ashore there I managed a couple year birds: Magnificent Frigatebirds and Loggerhead Shrike.

Left, scalloped hammerhead shark swimming near the cruise ship before entering Port Canaveral harbor.  Right, Curly-tailed lizard in Cocoa Beach, FL.  © S. Weiss

The next afternoon we arrived at Nassau.  We spent our shore leave walking around the downtown area in the vicinity of the cruise port.  Here I picked up two of the three new birds: Antillean Nighthawk and Red-legged Thrush.  While standing on a street corner I noticed a bird flying erratically and bat-like over head.  I knew right away it was a nighthawk, but I could not get my camera to focus on the bird against the high sky before I lost sight of it.  Shortly afterwards, while walking down a side street I saw a bird foraging on the ground in an alley that we were passing.  I had never seen a red-legged thrush, yet it only took about a second until I realized that’s what it was.  It scampered behind a dumpster in the alley before I could take a photo.  An iron fence kept me from entering the alley to find the bird again.  My frustration did not last long as my wife saw the bird pop back out at the other side of the dumpster.  I managed a couple photos before it flew out the other end of the alley.  I added a few more year birds before returning to the ship:  White-crowned Pigeons and Common Ground Doves.

Red-legged thrush.  © S. Weiss

Left, common ground dove.  Right, white-crowned pigeon.  © S. Weiss

Gray kingbirds hitching a ride on cruise ship as it was arriving in Nassau.  © S. Weiss

The next morning, we arrived at our final destination, Coco Cay.  This is a small Bahama island owned by Royal Caribbean.  The cruise line turned the island into a tourist-friendly hotspot with beach-going partiers in mind.  It is well manicured and maintained with a water park, beach bars, food shacks and lagoons for swimming, but not exactly a birding hotspot.  We had most of the day ashore, so my wife excused me to explore the island a couple times to satisfy my fidgeting compulsion to find something.  In between, we relaxed on a beach under an umbrella, and snorkeled together in a lagoon.  As the day went on I saw many of the same birds I had seen at the other stops: gray kingbirds, ground doves and white-crowned pigeons.  I did pick up a new year bird, Banaquits.

Bananaquit.  © S. Weiss

Left, gray kingbird.  Right, magnificent frigatebird.  © S. Weiss

It was late in the morning, while on one of my self-guided walks, when someone asked me if I had seen anything good.  He must have noticed the camera and binoculars hanging about my chest.  I noticed the same about him.  Birders can recognize other birders in a crowd, but honestly, when everyone else on the island was dressed in swim shorts or bikini and only carrying an island style cocktail, spotting the birder is really not hard.  All I could share were the above-mentioned birds.  He saw much of the same, but also had seen Bahama Woodstars, one of the local hummingbird species, and Thick-billed Vireos..  He told me where he had seen them.  I had just been at that same spot minutes before, so I doubled back.  Within just a few minutes one woodstar appeared.  It stayed for awhile, giving me good looks as it foraged and perched and preened.  I could not find the vireos, but the woodstar made me happy. 

Female Bahama woodstar.  © S. Weiss

Left, a tropical needlefish near water's edge at Coco Cay.  Right, a Caribbean land hermit crab at Coco Cay.  © S. Weiss

Domestic red junglefowl roaming freely at Coco Cay.  © S. Weiss

  Left, hen with her chicks.  Right, probably the sire of the litter.

Green iguana at Coco Cay.  © S. Weiss

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On the cruise back to home port I noticed a distant blow spot out on the ocean and was able to get a few photographs before there was too much distance between the ship and the marine animal.  The blow spout initially looked too large for a dolphin.  Other than the spout there was not much else to see in my photos except a very low looking dorsal fin.  I figured it was some species of whale.  A little later in the day, my wife noticed two objects on the water close to the boat.  At first look, they appeared to be logs floating on the surface.  After a better look, I realized they were two whales.  One of them sank below the surface, but I was able to get some photos of one before they fell too far behind our passing ship.  For a while I scrutinized my photos and, based on the blow spout of the first animal, the dorsal fins of two of them and their floating posture, I was thinking they might have been Sperm Whales.

Sperm whale blow spout.  © S. Weiss

Some whales have a unique blow spout pattern.  The spout of a sperm whale is typically angled forward as in these photos.

One of two sperm whales alongside cruise ship.  © S. Weiss

The whales rest near the surface, called logging.  The dorsal fin (at the left end of the body) on a sperm whale is low and triangular.  

Left, tip of sperm whale tail (fluke).  Right, fluke of humpback whale.  © S. Weiss

The fluke of the sperm whale is wide and broad, compared to the narrower and pointer fluke of the humpback whale.

I had never seen a sperm whale before.  I did not see the heads of the animals which would have clinched the identification for me.  They are toothed whales with large blunt heads; unlike the more common baleen whales we see, such as humpback and fin whales.  Once I returned home, I sent my photos to a marine mammal biologist in Cape May.  My thoughts were confirmed, we saw three sperm whales.