With some borders still closed and social distancing the new norm around the world, today’s guest author, Peter-Paul Schets, proves that one can still enjoy birding on Bonaire, even though miles away!  Here’s his story on how to enjoy long-distance Bonaire birding by monitoring rare bird sightings!

Long-distance Bonaire Birding from 4832 miles away.

Over the past four years, I was in the enviable circumstances that I could visit the Caribbean region three, four, or even five times a year. I love traveling and, apart from my great job, my work trips each time enabled me to spend at least some hours birding on Bonaire. After almost 20 of these trips, Bonaire feels like my second home. I am always looking forward to visiting the island.

So I was rather excited and was ready to leave for the Caribbean in March and again in May of this year. But then we got these COVID-19 problems, with misery, and distress all over the world. Within a short period of time, everything changed and all travel plans were off the table.

Striated Heron, Purple Gallinule, Gull-billed Tern, and Black Vulture

Over the first six months of the year, some very nice birds, such as the Striated Heron, Purple Gallinule, Gull-billed Tern, and even a Black Vulture, were recorded with repeated sightings.

Wilson’s Phalarope

In the last week of March, local birder Sipke Stapert found a female Wilson’s Phalarope in breeding plumage in a mixed shorebird grouping of Stilt Sandpipers and Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs in the solar salt works.  Both Steve Schnoll and Susan Davis were able to confirm the sighting as well as get some images.  This sighting was an omen of the good things to come in the next months of spring migration.

I personally have seen two of these birds at the very same location in February 2016, but these birds were still in their dull greyish winter plumage. I also observed another (pictured here) in winter plumage in October 2016 at Gotomeer.

This 2020 bird was a female in summer plumage,  which, in phalaropes, is more colorful than the male.  The female was a very pretty bird.  Here you can see the difference between the male and the more colorful female.

Caribbean  Martin and Common Swift

And then the month of May began.  In my opinion, and with the exception of October, May is the best birding month for the Caribbean region.  Sadly, I have never had the opportunity to do any serious birding on Bonaire during the month of May.

Yellow-throated Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Red-eyed Vireo

And this was just the beginning. Only a few days later, Steve took pictures of a very rare warbler, the Yellow-throated Warbler, at Bonaire’s waste-water treatment ponds. This was only the third record, and the first images, of this one for the ABC islands.  Note this bird is not even listed in the Birds of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao (by Wells and Wells) and has never been recorded on Aruba or Curaçao so far.

Roseate Tern

Also on June 9th, Susan was down south by the solar salt works and spotted and photographed an immature tern.  She thought this tern was unusual, in that it didn’t appear to be similar to other, more common, immature terns.  She asked for assistance with identification, and even the experts were puzzled by this immature tern.  After much discussion, the bird was finally identified as an immature Roseate Tern.

White-winged Tern

Just a few days later, there was another stunning discovery on Bonaire.  On June 12, Steve found a small black tern with white wings at the waste-water treatment ponds.  There wasn’t any discussion needed to identify this vagrant: a White-winged Tern! Congratulations go to Steve for once more finding another new bird for the ABC islands. This beauty stayed for a week and Susan was also able to capture great images of it. This tern has a wide range in the Old World (Europe, Africa, and Asia) but records in North-America are quite rare. I actually saw several this year near my home in Gouda (The Netherlands), but seeing it on Bonaire is, of course, something very different when the bird is so far from its home range.

Masked Booby

Only a week later Steve again had a great find, an adult Masked Booby on the cliffs of Washington Slagbaai National Park, together with more than 100 Brown Boobies. The majority of records in the region of this bird are from cruise ships, seen offshore while at sea.  Steve’s great images of this bird resting on the rocks on shore are simply spectacular.