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Besides my 3rd grade teacher, I had never encountered a witch before. That is until a recent Nikon’s BATV film trip to Jamaica revealed a unique avian femme fatale, the Crested Quail-dove – also known colloquially as the mountain witch. Widely regarded as the toughest of the 28 Jamaican endemic birds to find, this charismatic [...]

Ecclesdown Road, a steep track that cuts through Jamaica’s lush John Crow Mountains, boasts some of the best birding in the country. On my visit there in the jolly company of John Fletcher, expert on island avifauna and president of BirdLife Jamaica, I beheld amazing endemics like Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo, Rufous-tailed Flycatcher, and both Yellow-billed and [...]

With its wealth of endemic avifauna and varied microclimates, Jamaica may offer the best bird watching in the Caribbean. In Jamaica, the birding may very well be best in Portland Parish, the northeastern corner of this gorgeous island. Narrowing our focus even further, the best birding in Portland is reputed to be found on Ecclesdown [...]