Birding Grand Bahama Island |
Freeport and Lucaya are on Grand Bahama Island, the closest of the Bahama Islands to where I live.
A ferry will take you from Fort Lauderdale to Freeport for around $225 round trip. But hotels, taxis
and food are expensive everywhere on the islands. The three locations I've
visited are Taino Beach, Rand Nature Center and Garden of the Groves. All can be reached by taxi
or possibly by paying extra to a small bus. There are hotels on Taino Beach, and birding is done along
the road and some small trails at the beach parking lot. I think all three sites are roughly equal for
finding the birds listed below. I've spent about three days at each and have seen almost all species
listed below at all of the sites. Some birds seen on this trip (Spetember 2015) at Taino Beach:
Little Blue Heron
Magnificent Frigatebird
Ruddy Turnstone
Cuban Emerald
Northern Mockingbird
Hairy Woodpecker
Eurasian Collared Dove
Common Ground Dove
Red-legged Thrush
Ovenbird
Black-and-white Warbler
Greater Antillean Bullfinch (1F)
Thick-billed Vireo
Black-whiskered Vireo
White-crowned Pigeon
Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
American Kestrel
La Sagra's Flycatcher
Grey Kingbird
Red-winged Blackbird
Laughing Gull
Other birds seen at the Rand Nature Center (omitting any duplicates listed above)
Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Loggerhead Kingbird
Yellow-throated Warbler
Western Spindalis
Red-eyed Vireo
Prairie Warbler
and Garden of the Groves (omitting any duplicates listed above)
Cuban Pewee
Common Gallinule
Prothonotary Warbler
Bahama Woodstar (seen by Erika Gates)
All three sites have roughly the same species,
Erika Gates another birder named Woody allowed me to accompany them to a few locations
including the landfill and a pond, where we saw
Wood Stork (accidental/rare)
Roseate Spoonbill
Killdeer
Solitary Sandpiper
Black-crowned Night Heron
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Least Grebe
White-cheeked Pintail
Semipalmated Plover
Least Sandpiper
Northern Waterthrush
Barn Swallow
Snowy Egret
Green Heron
Some birds I had really wanted to see include
Bahama Yellowthroat
Bahama Warbler
Bahama Woodstar
Key West Quail Dove
Zenaida Dove
Olive-capped Warbler
Bahama Swallow
Brown-throated Nuthatch
and I gather many of those are best seen on other islands, or perhaps
the east side of Grand Bahama.
Other species such as the Bahama Parrot and West Indian Woodpecker are
only on Abaco.