Photo Gallery
Photos by Rich Hoyer
Jamaica is a magical place, full of birds like this endemic Red-billed Streamertail, the iconic “Doctor Bird” of Jamaican lore.
To many, the core of our tour is a stay at Marshall’s Pen, a Jamaican “Great House” and home to conservation biologist Ann Sutton. It’s a fabulous place, and many of Jamaica’s endemics can be seen from the outdoor breakfast table…
…a Jamaican Tody, for example…
…or a Jamaican Oriole.
We venture away from Marshall’s Pen to the “Cockpit Country,” where limestone hills rise and fall like the inside of an egg carton…
…or to unassuming local spots like this little marsh…
…where one year we found more than 40 Masked Ducks…
…or to a pond hosting West Indian Whistling-Ducks.
Other areas we visit include the glorious Blue Mountains, looming in the distance here…
…where the little-known endemic Jamaican Blackbird occurs, a shy species that pokes quietly into epiphytes in the forest canopy.
This spot on Jamaica’s coral-fringed coast is home to a small breeding population of White-tailed Tropicbirds…
…while Loggerhead Kingbird—a sub-canopy species, unlike most other kingbirds—can be found island-wide.
On the tour, we look at everything related to natural history: a male Jamaican Turquoise Anole…
…or a fascinating euphorbia relative Phyllanthus, with terminal branchlets that look like leaves…
…the endemic Thersites Swallowtail…
…or the endemic Jamaican Flasher.
Jamaica has many grand aspects, but it’s often something small that one remembers most. Here a Vervain Hummingbird, the world’s second-smallest bird, surveys his world in a rainshower.