St Lucia birding: March summary.

African pygmy-goose at wetland close to St Lucia

The Wetlands close to St Lucia have been covered with a beautiful carpet of water lilies and one such wetland has been holding 2 pairs of African Pygmy-goose. Other birds commonly seen at/around the Wetlands this month include African jacana, White-backed duck, White-faced whistling duck, Spur-winged goose, Wooly-necked stork, Black crake, African snipe, Rufous-winged cisticola, Striated heron, Great white egret, Intermediate egret, Red-billed teal and Wood sandpiper. The Rufous-bellied heron has been showing erratically at Nsombiza pan again this month.

Wetland edges are holding Senegal lapwing and Collared pratincole. 

Raptor viewing on the Eastern shores has been great with regular sightings of Southern-banded, Brown and Black-chested snake-eagle, African crowned eagle, Martial eagle, African goshawk, Common buzzard, African cuckoo-hawk and African harrier-hawk. 

Many of the summer visitors have left and others such as Amur falcon, Blue-cheeked bee-eater and Barn swallow have started gathering for their journey Northwards.

Birding in the forest has been more challenging  with the arrival of Autumn and subsequent lull in activity and song but  fruitful nonetheless with regular sightings of Green malkoha, Narina trogon, Woodward’s batis, Rudd’s apalis, Brown scrub-robin, Blue-mantled crested flycatcher, Grey sunbird, Livingstone’s turaco, Purple-banded sunbird.  Activity in the forest has been centered around the late-fruiting Large-leaved fig trees with nice bird parties to be found in their vicinity.

The tern roost at the estuary mouth area has been rather erratic this month but usually held a few (sometimes all)of its usual assortment of terns (Greater crested, Lesser crested, Common, Little, Sandwich and Caspian) tern. These have been complimented with Grey plover, Sanderling, Common whimbrel, Western osprey, Purple heron to name a few. 

Nocturnal birding has been good with consistent sightings of Swamp nightjar, European nightjar, Fiery-necked nightjar, Spotted eagle owl and African Wood-owl

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