Birds of the Blue Mountains

Jamaica has one of the highest concentrations of endemic birds of any Caribbean island, and many of them live in or near the Blue Mountains. Species such as the Jamaican tody, the red-billed streamertail, the Jamaican blackbird and the crested quail-dove range from garden feeders to deep cloud forest, including the coffee country in between.

How many bird species are endemic to Jamaica?

Sources give slightly different counts. Wikipedia's list of Jamaica's birds puts the endemic total at 28 species; a separate Wikipedia summary of the island's wildlife gives 27 species out of roughly 289 recorded on the island, a difference that likely comes down to how a handful of borderline taxa are classified rather than any real disagreement about the birds themselves. Either figure is high for an island of Jamaica's size, and it reflects the long isolation of its mountain forests.

The Jamaican tody

The Jamaican tody is a tiny, brightly colored insect-eater found only on the island, related to kingfishers but built for gleaning insects from leaves rather than diving for fish. It nests in burrows it digs into limestone soil with its bill, laying one to four white eggs between December and July, and it lives across a wide range of forest types, from limestone woodland to montane forest and shaded coffee plantations, according to Wikipedia. On Blue Mountain coffee farms it ranks among the five most frequently recorded birds, and it feeds heavily on insects, including the coffee berry borer, a pest of the coffee cherry. The IUCN lists it as Least Concern. See shade trees on Blue Mountain coffee farms for more on birds and coffee land.

The red-billed streamertail, Jamaica's doctor bird

Jamaica's national bird is the red-billed streamertail, popularly called the doctor bird for the long, trailing tail feathers of the male. It is found across most of the island except the extreme east, where it is replaced by the closely related black-billed streamertail, according to Wikipedia. It favors evergreen montane forest, lowland forest and secondary growth from sea level up to about 1,500 meters, well within Blue Mountain coffee country, and it readily takes to gardens and other human-altered ground, feeding mainly on nectar and small insects.

The Jamaican blackbird

The Jamaican blackbird is a duller, less conspicuous endemic, dark all over and easy to overlook. It lives only in wet montane forest, including elfin and mist forest, above roughly 575 meters, where it probes bark, moss and bromeliads for insects and other small prey using an unusually strong bill and long claws, according to Wikipedia. Its range covers Cockpit Country, parts of the central interior and the Blue and John Crow Mountains, and the IUCN lists it as Endangered, chiefly because it depends on large, epiphyte-covered trees that are lost to bauxite mining, charcoal production, forestry, farming and development. Most of its Blue Mountains population is protected inside the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park.

The crested quail-dove

The crested quail-dove is a shy, ground-dwelling pigeon of Jamaica's mid-level and montane forests, found in the Blue and John Crow Mountains, the Mount Diablo area and Cockpit Country, at elevations from about 100 to 1,800 meters. It avoids lowland, dry and already-cultivated woodland, according to Wikipedia, which makes it a bird of standing forest rather than farmland, coffee included. The IUCN lists it as Near Threatened, with habitat loss from agricultural expansion and development cited as the main pressure on its population.

Birding in coffee country

Several of Jamaica's endemics turn up around, rather than deep inside, working coffee land. The tody and the streamertail are both regularly seen on and around Blue Mountain farms, and the orangequit, a Jamaican honeycreeper, is found in both humid forest and shade coffee, with a particular association with the Newcastle and Hardwar Gap area, according to the account on Holywell and Hardwar Gap. Hardwar Gap also carries a sadder distinction for birders: the last confirmed sighting of Jamaica's golden swallow, a now-extinct subspecies, was three birds seen there on 8 June 1989.

Where to see Blue Mountain birds

Holywell, the national park's main recreation area near Hardwar Gap, is the most accessible base for birding in cloud forest, with marked trails through habitat that supports the blackbird and quail-dove alongside commoner species. Lower down, coffee farms and the roads that run through them offer reliable views of the tody and the streamertail. As with any wildlife-watching trip in the park, current trail conditions are best confirmed with the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust before setting out.