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Snorkeling Tortola and Norman Island

On my first cruise out of San Juan in nearly a decade, I revisited mostly familiar islands—Barbados, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Saint Kitts—each still delivering its own distinct charms. But it was Tortola, the lone newcomer on the itinerary, that I most anticipated. I’d explored Saint Thomas and Saint John in the U.S. Virgin Islands before, but the British Virgin Islands had always remained just out of reach—lush silhouettes rising beyond turquoise channels, a short ferry ride from shores I already knew. Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Jost Van Dyke, and a scatter of smaller islets sit tightly grouped with their American neighbors in what many call the Caribbean’s most beautiful seascape. Tortola also promised some of the trip’s best snorkeling, so I booked an afternoon excursion to one reef-rich islet. Still, I wanted a feel for the island itself. So first thing after our cruise ship arrived, I hopped into a shared open-air taxi and crossed the island to Cane Garden Bay Beach, several miles from t...
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Extreme Antigua

We should have listened more carefully as we settled into our seats for our circumnavigation boat tour of Antigua.  But I was distracted—rattled by last-minute changes to the meeting spot, the start time, and a tense standoff over the condition of my American cash.  Yes, I knew there were supposed to be no rips in the bills I used to pay for the trip.  I just hadn’t noticed one when my husband and I pooled our money in our stateroom that morning.  So I missed the moment when the captain asked the group a question that would soon matter very much: Does anyone have back problems? Our friend Jackie had joined us on a seven-day Caribbean cruise out of San Juan.  For months, we’d planned excursions on each of the five islands we’d visit.  Jackie and I both love snorkeling, and she’s fond of recounting her kayaking adventures in Costa Rica and zip-lining triumphs in Roatan.  The tour I found sounded tailor-made for her: Adventure Antigua’s Extreme Circumnavi...
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The Saint Lucia Amazon and Other Island Endemics

On my first visit to the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia in almost ten years, it was easy to decide what to do on my cruise ship's nine-hour stop: find a Saint Lucia amazon.  The island is the only place this parrot lives, where only fifty years ago it faced near extinction due to habitat loss and hunting.  Even with a robust recovery in its population, Saint Lucia's national bird still only roams a small portion of its historic range - so I hired a guide to guarantee I found it. While most of my fellow passengers scattered towards thermal springs, beaches, gardens, and the majestic volcanic spires called the Pitons, my husband and I met Nestor on a busy street outside the cruise port in Castries.  In addition, two other birders from the ship also piled into our guide's well-worn 4Runner.  We made our way out of Saint Lucia's capital and largest city as lines of heavy traffic streamed in for work and school.  The mountainous landscape was mostly forested ...
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Guided Birdwatching near Puerto Vallarta

Encountering another dozen new bird species was exactly what I wanted to do on my single day off the Royal Princess cruise ship in Puerto Vallarta.  Of course I only dreamed that was what the day had in store for me when I booked Alejandro as a birdwatching guide almost two months earlier.  While planning the visit, I had let him know that I was hoping to see some tropical birds in Mexico's interior like trogons, parrots, motmots, and hummingbirds - with only one exception, that's exactly what I accomplished. On the same cruise a year earlier, I had visited the Vallarta Botanical Gardens where I encountered at least sixteen different bird species, eleven of them new-to-me tropical varieties like yellow-winged caciques and San Blas jays.  Only a half-hour drive southwest of the busy port city, the garden showcased a variety of cultivated plants in a mountainous forest preserve bisected by the  rainy season rapids of the Rio Los Horcones.  I was excited to explore...
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Birdwatching in Mazatlán's Parque Central

Ever since my last visit to Mazatlán a year ago, my thoughts were on a tufted jay, an endemic bird found in the Sierra Madre Mountains in Sinaloa and two neighboring Mexican states.  During that trip, the tour guide taking my ship's group to the mountains even saw one from our bus as we took a busy highway out of the bustling port city.  I never witnessed the bird myself, even when we stopped at several towns in rural communities like Concordia and Copala.   On my return to Mazatlán this month, I sought out the assistance of a birding guide to take me around the area in pursuit of the tufted jay and other endemic birds.  Unfortunately no one was available to escort me on the single day that my ship was in port.  However the tour company Birdwatching Mazatlán did offer me advice on where to go birding in the city.  As a result, for only a ten-dollar taxi ride, I found myself in the city's Parque Central, an extensive expanse of landscaped parkland withi...
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Band-tailed Pigeons, Finally

Four years ago I wrote about my determination to find a band-tailed pigeon in the wild, and until very recently I was still, sadly, failing in that endeavor.  But then this month my luck suddenly changed when I had two, or possibly even three, encounters.  And they demanded hardly any effort at all, just casual observations from the comfort of my Prescott home's deck.   In very early September, just beyond my front yard, I noticed a flock of doves take off together from a tall ponderosa pine and quickly fly away.  The birds appeared much larger than mourning doves, and I could see that their outspread tail feathers were broader than the pointy ones of doves.  But I wasn't sure about the namesake dark band stretching across their tails, which is why it always helps to catch a photograph of my subjects. I was luckier in my next encounter a few days later when I witnessed an especially large dove perched high in a pine tree in my front yard.  The bird gav...
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A First Lewis's Woodpecker in Prescott

I reliably see four different species of woodpeckers throughout the long summers I spend in Prescott.  In fact, every day I bear witness to the northern flickers, acorns, hairys, and ladderbacks that visit my yard's suet feeders.  The only other one I've seen on my property has been a red-naped, and that was during autumn several years ago, as the woodpecker foraged high in a ponderosa pine.  But then yesterday, on my only visit to Granite Basin Lake all summer, I encountered an entirely new species, the Lewis's.  The only other time I've seen a Lewis's woodpecker was just over a year ago, along the Animas River in Durango, Colorado.  I was struck by it's unique coloration, not exhibiting mostly black and white like almost all of its local kin but showing a unique greenish backside and a torso splashed with winey red.  And true to its reputation, the bird was acting more like a flycatcher as it made forays from a lamppost in its hunt for insects. At Granite...
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