March 21-28, 2026 with Marcelo Barreiros & Doug Hitchcox & Dwayne Swaby
Jamaica is an amazing island, full of culture, great food, very nice hotels, and, of course, nice birds to see. This was a private tour for the Maine Audubon group, organized by Doug Hitchcox. Starting around Kingston, we went to Hellshire Hills, a dry forest area by the coast, home to a rare bird in Jamaica, the Bahama Mockingbird, and we were very lucky to park the car and hear at least three individuals singing near the road, and we saw them in the scope very well right away. Also along the trail, we found our first Vervain Hummingbird, Jamaican Mango, lots of Turkey Vultures looking for food, a few Antillean Palm Swifts flying over our heads, and a pair of Stolid Flycatchers seen on the way back to our car. Not too far away, we made another brief stop at Greater Portmore Sewage Ponds for some waterbirds like Purple Gallinule and Spotted Sandpiper, and small species such as Saffron Finch and both Tricolored and Scaly-breasted munias (both introduced species in Jamaica). From there, we drove to the Hope Botanical Gardens, a great place for birding, recently added to our itinerary, and that was the place where we had great moments with a pair of Jamaican Euphonias, Jamaican Woodpecker, a nice group of Yellow-billed Parrots, and thanks to Doug, we saw a Northern Potoo at its nest with the chick. We also saw Olive-throated Parakeet (Jamaican), Black-and-white Warbler, and Dwayne showed us a Jamaican Owl roosting. After all of that, we were hungry to have a great local lunch before driving to Goblin Hill lodge.
We stayed a few days at the Goblin Hill hotel, and from there we visited great birding areas like John Crow Mountains, where we had a wet, but very productive morning, with Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo, the gorgeous Jamaican Tody, great looks at both Yellow-billed and Black-billed amazons, good numbers of Jamaican Crows, a male Jamaican Becard, a few Greater Antillean Bullfinches, Blue Mountain Vireo, two individuals of Jamaican Lizard-Cuckoo, and our first looks at Crested Quail-Dove. We also went to spend a full day birding along the roads in the Blue Mountain area, maybe the best area for birding in Jamaica, including the rare Jamaican Blackbird, seen foraging by the road this time, a pair of Jamaican Elaenia, a very nice Rufous-throated Solitaire singing by the road, two gorgeous Crested Quail-Doves, a few Jamaican Spindalis, and a Red-tailed Hawk. Not too far from our lodge, we visited the cliffs to see the Red-billed Tropicbird in its very elegant flight, and a pair of Peregrine Falcons were also seen performing courtship flights right over our heads. Our last birding stop was San San Reserve, a lowland forest area very good for seeing the White-eyed Thrush, the endemic Arrow-headed Warbler and another roosting Jamaican Owl.
Driving to the western part of the island, the Montego Bay area was, unfortunately, severely affected by the last big hurricane, and in some of the birding areas like Stewart Town and Rockland, it was easy to notice how strong the storm had been. Despite that, we had a chance to spend some good time around Rockland, a very good place where people were able to feed birds like the stunning Red-billed Streamertail and Yellow-faced Grassquit, and also take a closer look at Jamaican Woodpecker, Orangequit and Caribbean Dove. We still had time to stop at the Montego Bay Sewage Ponds to get a few new ones, like Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Duck and Blue-winged Teal.
Another critter we saw was: Small Indian Mongoose.
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/496418
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/jam26pTRIPLIST.pdf
-- Marcelo Barreiros