Many islands, of a certain size, possess several species of birds that are found nowhere else. The geography of islands of the Greater Antilles place them in the Goldilocks Zone of the Caribbean, in terms of hosting endemic bird species. They are large enough to contain a variety of habitats, including a variation of elevation, and distant enough from neighboring islands to allow the isolation necessary to permit the evolution of new species. Puerto Rico is a fine example of this, hosting seventeen endemic bird species, in an area that is small enough to make seeking them out a little easier. Easier, but not always easy, since several of these species can be very challenging to see, whether because of rarity, as with the Puerto Rican Parrot, or restricted habitats, in the case of the Elfin Woods Warbler, among other reasons. Therefore, I knew that I would not be able to see all of the Puerto Rican endemics, but I would do the best that I could to see as many as possible, as well as any other interesting species that might be in the area.

As it turned out, that would be made more difficult by the passing of Tropical Storm Dorian, which forced me to abandon one day of my visit, and significantly curtailed birding efforts for the next two days as well. I was also unsure what the effects on the bird population of the island had been from the more catastrophic hurricanes of two years earlier. After having a look around for a number of days, the one group that I think may have been adversely affected by those storms was the hummingbirds. Even though there were flowers blooming all around my route, I only saw one hummer during my time on the island, which seemed odd to me. Despite the challenges, I did fairly well, observing eight of the seventeen endemics, and ten species overall.

The first was Caribbean Martin which were performing aerobatics around El Morro in San Juan…

…and later that evening I picked up Scaly-Naped Pigeon.

The one particularly good hotspot I was able to get to, with enough time to patiently search for birds, was El Yunque National Forest. Nice birds appeared right away, such as Puerto Rican Oriole. I missed similar species in the Bahamas and Dominican Republic, so it was nice to finally see one of the region’s orioles.

Moments later came another excellent sighting, Puerto Rican Tody. I will have only seen two out of five Tody species, which feels a little lacking, but since I had never seen any at all before two weeks ago, I certainly can’t complain.

After a strong start that day, things then settled down a little, but I was able to add Puerto Rican Emerald, Puerto Rican Vireo, Puerto Rican Flycatcher, and an annoyingly brief flyby view of Puerto Rican Bullfinch.

After the delay caused by Dorian, I was getting worried that I might miss my number one target, but luck intervened in that case. I was riding along the next morning, just before the afternoon deluge, using quiet, narrow rural roads, but wasn’t seeing any interesting birds. At one point, when I wasn’t paying enough attention to my route, I missed an intended turn, and wound up on an alternate road. It was a few kilometers down that road that I heard the sounds I was hoping for, and moments later saw a nice group of Puerto Rican Woodpecker, another fine example from the genus Melanerpes. A little further along that same road I added, Puerto Rican Spindalis, though I only saw the relatively drab females of that species.

If there had not been a Tropical Storm, I possibly could have added three or four more species, but perhaps not, so I am fairly satisfied with a tally of ten after an essentially short visit.