Olive-Throated Parakeet

On the flight home from Jamaica I wondered if I had a photograph of an olive-throated parakeet? I thought I might have one from Rocklands Bird Sanctuary, but while Fritz was talking to me at the time nothing he was saying made any sense as I was focusing on the bird, so I wasn't sure if it was perhaps a yellow-billed parrot or even if I had a decent photo as it was walking about in a tree. It turns out it was the parakeet and that a number of photos I took in Hope Botanical Gardens thinking that they were yellow or black-billed parrots also turned out to be olive-throated parakeets. So ironically, I got more photos of parakeets than parrots! I think part of the issue for me is that I view a parakeet as a tiny bird because of the budgies which we call parakeets in the U.S. which are very small. The olive-throated parakeet is the size of what I think of as a parrot. 

The photos in this series were all taken at Hope Botanical Gardens. The clue that should have alerted me to them being parakeets is the long tail. 

The olive-throated parakeet, also known as the olive-throated conure, is a species of parrot and is found in Jamaica, Mexico and Central America. It has also been introduced to Hispaniola. Several birding authorities have recommended splitting the Jamaican bird as a separate species and calling it the Jamaican parakeet and calling the Mexican and Central American version the Aztec parakeet, also as a separate species. 

Like the yellow-billed and black-billed parrot, it is mostly green and has a fleshy white eye-ring. It has orange eyes, which I can see in at least one of my photos and a brownish throat, although none I saw were as pronounced as the photos I'd seen before going to Jamaica. 

This does have a brownish throat. 

I'm now reading that it nests in termite nests found in trees of at least medium size. As I think back, I think Fritz was talking to me about termite nests at the time I was trying to photograph it. 

Yellow-Billed Parrot

The yellow-billed parrot, also known as the Jamaican amazon, or yellow-billed amazon, is endemic to Jamaica. I'd read that a group of them lived in the Hope Botanical Garden in Kingston and desired to get some good photos of them there. Despite hearing lots of them, squawking in large tree full of leaves, they were hard to see and I only got a few photos. I was also hoping to see the black-billed parrot which is much less plentiful, but also found there. I got some photos that I thought were the black-billed, but it turned out that they were either yellow-billeds or olive-throated parakeets. So I was happy to get some photos, but much fewer than what I thought I had. 

It is mostly green with pink over the throat, upper breast and sides of the neck. It has blue in the larger wing feathers and feathers over the ears that are dark blue-green.  It has bare white eye-rings surrounded by a narrow rim of white plumage which continues as a narrow band of white over the forehead. It also has plumage over the lores and fore-crown which is blue. The beak is yellow, the legs are pink and the irises in the eyes are brown. Males and females have the same outer appearance. 

I originally thought this was a black-billed parrot, but identifiers on iNaturalist indicate it is a yellow-billed parrot. 

These parrots are most abundant in the John Crow Mountains; on Mount Diablo, which is on the main road from Kingston to the north shore and south of Ocho Rios; and in the Cockpit Country (southeast of Montego Bay and south of Falmouth). 

Jamaican Woodpecker

The Jamaican woodpecker was another bird high on my list of "want-to-sees." It is endemic to Jamaica and found all over the island. I saw one at each of: (a) Rocklands Bird Sanctuary outside of Montego Bay; (b) at Hotel Mockingbird Hill, in Drapers, east of Port Antonio; and (c) in San San, just east of Drapers, along the road behind the police station. 

This male was seen in San San. 

Males and females look similar, except for their head pattern. Males have a white to buff forehead and red from the forecrown to hindneck. Females have a white to buff forehead, a gray crown and red only on the hindcrown and hindneck. The cheeks, chin and throat are white, the bill is long and black and the iris of the eye is red and bare skin around the eye is gray to brown. Their upperparts are black with thin white bars and sometimes with a greenish tinge. Flight feathers are black with narrow white bars and the tail is black with white bars on the central feathers and and white spots on the outer feathers.  and the underparts are olive-buff with yellowish to reddish on the central belly. The lower flanks and undertail coverts are black with white bars. 

This female was seen at Rocklands Bird Sanctuary. 

Black-Billed Streamertail (Hummingbird)

I did a post on the red-billed streamertail yesterday, which is endemic to Jamaica and its national bird. Before we left for Jamaica I was aware of the very similar black-billed streamertail, which is also endemic, but did not realize that they inhabit different parts of Jamaica. At Rocklands Bird Sanctuary I asked Fritz, the caretaker, if they had the black-billed's there. He said, "no, they are found in the eastern end of the island." 

This is the range map (from Wikipedia) for the black-billed streamertail. Being endemic to Jamaica is one thing, but being endemic to just a small part of the island is another. 

The black-billed and red-billed are treated as separate species by the International Ornithological Committee and other birding organizations, but the North American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society treats them both as subspecies of the streamertail. They only are found together in a very narrow zone in Jamaica and they do interbreed. In the two photos below of the same hummingbird, note the difference on the neck, the effect of different light. 

The description for the red-billed is pretty much the same as for the black-billed, except that the bill is black instead of red. 

We saw the black-billed streamertail at Hotel Mockingbird Hill in Drapers, east of Port Antonio, on the northeast end of Jamaica. There were no feeders set up for them there, but we saw many of them. 

Despite its limited range it is treated as a species of Least Concern by the IUCN. The fact that it readily inhabits man-made habitats makes habitat loss less of a concern for it. 

Red-Billed Streamertail (Hummingbird)

One of the birds I really looked forward to seeing in Jamaica was the red-billed streamertail, a hummingbird that is the national bird of Jamaica and endemic to it. It is also known as the doctor bird or scissor-tail hummingbird. 

I saw many of them at Rocklands Bird Sanctuary outside of Montego Bay where they have been habituated to humans by 40 to 50 years of feeding them. I sat and watched them for a while near several feeding stations and had several fly within inches of my nose, hovering in front of my face, while we walked the grounds. We also saw at least one in the Blue Mountains.

It is found all over Jamaica except for the extreme eastern end where the very similar black-billed streamertail is found, an area of mangroves and arid highlands (Hotel Mockingbird Hill outside Port Antonio is part of that area where we saw the black-billed streamertail). 

This is the red-billed streamertail we saw in the Blue Mountains. The other photos are all from Rocklands Bird Sanctuary. 

The male has 3.9 to 5.1 inch long black tail streamers with a green to bronzy green gloss. It has a coral red bill with a black tip, a black to blue-black crown and the nape of its neck is velvety black. The rest of the upper parts are a bright metallic green and the face and underparts are a metallic yellowish-green. The female's bill is duller red, has upperparts that are metallic bronze green that is duller on the crown and does not have the long tail streamers. 

Ring-Tailed Pigeon

The ring-tailed pigeon is endemic to Jamaica and most common in the John Crow Mountains, eastern Blue Mountains and the Cockpit Country, which is a 500 square mile area southeast of Montego Bay of limestone with steep hollows separated by conical hills and ridges. The ring-tailed pigeon was initially rated as critically endangered by the IUCN, but has been upgraded to vulnerable. 

This blurry photo was at Hotel Mockingbird Hill. 

The adult male has reddish to pinkish head, neck and underparts and an orange eye surrounded by bare red skin. It has a patch of bronze or metallic green on its hindneck and a gray tail with a slate band across the middle. The female has redder underparts, a less metallic hindneck and an olive or brown cast to the wings. It is so similar in appearance and other characteristics with the band-tailed pigeon (that we have around our home) and the Chilean pigeon that the may form a superspecies. 

This pigeon was in the Blue Mountains and shows the band on the tail and the blue metallic patch on the hindneck. 

I saw three ring-tailed pigeons, but was not able to get good photos. The first was on the grounds at Hotel Mockingbird Hill in Drapers, east of Port Antonio. The second was nearby in San San along the road behind the police station. The third was in the Blue Mountains on the Kingston side about halfway down. 

The pigeon seen in San San. Note the metallic blue patch on the neck. 

Zenaida Dove

The Zenaida dove is found throughout the Caribbean and on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. I have seen one previously on Antigua when we took a Caribbean cruise in 2017. It looks similar to the mourning dove, but is smaller, has a shorter and more rounded tail and is a little darker. 

I saw quite a few zenaida doves at Hope Botanical Gardens in Kingston, Jamaica.