SOUTHEASTERN CARIBBEAN BIRDS PHOTO GALLERY

Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists' Club         Southeastern Caribbean Bird Alert         Trinidad and Tobago Rare Bird Committee

VIRGIN ISLANDS

Bay-breasted Warbler (Dendroica castanea)

A                                                                                           B

C                                                                                           D

Immature female at Magens Bay, St. Thomas, 12 November 2002. Photos © by Floyd Hayes. First record for St. Thomas and fourth for the Virgin Islands. Found by Floyd Hayes and Brett Hayes on 11 November 2002, this bird foraged primarily on black berries in a tree with four Blackpoll Warblers (D. striata) and an immature male Cape May Warbler (D. tigrina); all six birds were present both days. In comparison with a Blackpoll Warbler photographed in the same tree (see photo E below), note the creamy buff colouration and faint streaking on the breast (A-D; more yellow and boldly streaked in Blackpoll), the creamy buff flanks and undertail coverts contrasting with the white belly (A and D; whiter in Blackpoll), and the entirely dark legs and feet (C and D; paler in Blackpoll). The only previous records of Bay-breasted Warbler from the Virgin Islands include specimens collected at St. Croix on 5 May 1935 (United States National Museum, Washington, DC) and 23 October 1940 (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Pashley, D. N. 1988. Warblers of the West Indies. I. The Virgin Islands. Caribbean Journal of Science 24:11-22), and an adult female or immature male seen at Bordeaux Mountain Road, St. John, on 13 October 2002 by Floyd Hayes and Brett Hayes.

E

Blackpoll Warbler (for comparison) accompanying the Bay-breasted Warbler at Magens Bay, St. Thomas, 12 November 2002. Photo © by Floyd Hayes.