Audubon Center of Haiti: Camp Louise mangroves

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Camp Louise mangroves – Trips 1 & 2

Site 2 - Main monitoring site

In early 2019 Wilnise and I went with our birding group (Mike, etc.) to do a survey along the road that goes to the Camp Louise beach (edit: Actually the stretch of mangroves between St. Michel and Camp Louise). We stopped at the mangroves and surveyed from the road. Wilnise and I returned a month later and the fields and mangroves were dry – we were able to walk pretty far into the mangroves and saw warblers. I was awarded funding from BirdsCaribbean to continue monitoring this area, train other birders, and have a bird workshop for the children in the area. These are my notes for this work. Bird lists are uploaded to eBird.

19 Feb. 2020 Mini-foray at mangrove next to beach

I did a stationary survey by myself after a swim at the beach. Very small patch of trees, No remarkable birds, cattle and snowy egrets in wet area next to it. Brown pelican flew by on beach.

7 Mar. 2020 First trip to train others

Two trusted motorcycle drivers took Wilnise and me to the mangroves to commence monitoring this year. Our first stop along irrigation canals became muddy so we weren’t able to get in a great spot, but did see both yellowlegs species and some black-necked stilts and killdeer. We moved to a new location that will be our long-term monitoring spot for this mangrove. Rice fields run along it and they are full of water now (previous week had rain almost the entire week).

We then went to the small mangrove that I previously surveyed next to the beach, and saw a green heron perched on top of a bush. Then walked north along the beach to a rocky tip. A remnant mangrove runs along the beach, we recorded the clear song of a yellow warbler. We saw 2 spotted sandpipers bobbing their tails along the ocean shore. In the back area of the mangrove where trees were cut so now it’s only a mudflat, we saw 2 Wilson’s plovers chasing little crabs. The motorcycle drivers Wid and Carlo took to spotting the birds, and I think are candidates for training to be guides. Wilnise asked the men in the snack shacks along the beach who to contact for arranging a kids bird camp.