Grey Kingbird

10 January 2014. Sosua, Dominican Republic. There must be a million stories about the Great January Freeze-up; mine is that I missed it. Instead I was on the sub-tropical island of Hispaniola, investigating opportunities for Rotary to finance a sewage system which will be the starting point for a much improved standard of living for a community now living in conditions that can be described as medieval at best.
Hispaniola is a beautiful island with a nasty history of slavery and sugar, and while you’d like to think the worst of all of that is forgotten and forgiven, uncountable thousands continue to live in shocking conditions.
So although my days are taken up with Rotary ‘business’ (and what better time of year to be doing this) there are always birds around somewhere; binoculars and field guides are must-pack items for me.
Frankly I haven’t seen very many species. Staying at an all-inclusive resort doesn’t leave much room for wildlife and when I’m not there I’m visiting villages where conditions and our agenda don’t allow for much relaxation. Still, all of that aside I’ve been looking.
Northern Mockingbirds and White-winged Doves are common almost everywhere. Antillian Palm Swifts fly in busy insect-chasing swarms but only it seems in the early morning or evening – or just after a rain. one evening, sitting on my balcony trying not to notice the extraordinarily repetitive selection of latin dance music from the all-you-can-drink/swallow/drain bar below, I caught movement in the tops of a tree close by. Binoculars always ready I found a pair of Hispaniolan Woodpeckers, they are closely related to our familiar Red-bellied Woodpecker. I had seen one earlier and even managed to get a photograph although it worked hard to stay on the wrong side of the palm tree.
I see Turkey Vultures wheeling around although not very many, which seems out of character for a bird that’s so ubiquitous throughout the Americas. And then there are Bananaquits, cute little finch-like birds that seem to play the role of chickadee, inquisitive and sometimes endearing.
Bird of the Day every day is the Grey Kingbird. It’s a close relative to our familiar Eastern Kingbird and the Tropical Kingbird that I enjoyed a year ago in Mexico. These birds, all of them, leave no doubt who’s in charge. The Grey Kingbirds here fly around from pillar to post asserting their dominance chittering loudly as they go. Funny how the sun-worshipers don’t seem to care all that much.