Jamaica

From Trinidad it was a short and comfortable trip to Kingston, Jamaica. Even from the air it wasn't what we expected, a long green hill/mountain chain with the population spread along the coasts. Kingston itself is a big city. We were collected and taken to our accommodation on the North East Coast.

Booked in 2019 we had the best room in the place, thankfully, but the food and refreshments were rationed, cheap and completely lacking in imagination. It's one of the few holidays we've lost weight on and that was even leaving with an impressive bar bill! That said the gardens held a lot of wildlife.

The gardens supported some fantastic species of bird including the Jamaican Mango:

And the national bird a Red-billed Streamertail, stunning hummingbird and full of energy and noise.

We undertook two major trips from the grounds, the first to Ecclesdown, walking along the road, up the hill. Given how obviously poor the majority of the population of Jamaica is there are many ruined properties about.

The forest delivered a number of butterfly species including this Zebra:

A Malachite:

And a funky looking spider with a face on it:

Jamaican Tody were surprisingly common:

This apparently is a Sad Flycatcher, looked quite cheerful to me!

Our second trip was up into the Blue Mountains in search of both birds and coffee! We arrived just as one of the passing rain systems was clearing from the hills:

Almost immediately we saw a Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo one of the birds we'd really wanted to see:

We also had good views of the Jamaican Spindalis:

and the Jamaican Woodpecker:

As well as the near ubiquitous White-chinned Thrush (with a song a blend between the Song Thrush and Blackbird of home). We did find some coffee - a ganja smoking rasta sealed the bag of beans with his lighter, a new but effective approach (glad the aroma had worn off by the time we ran the border force gauntlet back in Gatwick!).

The weather was very hit and miss, this was the sunrise on our last morning clearing out a day and a half of rain. We saw 55 new species on Trinidad and Tobago and 33 on Jamaica including 27 of their 28 Endemic species and a couple of races that will be probably be declared full species in the not-so-distant future. Great to be travelling again, despite all the paperwork, and hopefully with many more adventures and experiences ahead.