My 13 year old son and I stayed at the beautiful Green Castle Estate located in the decidedly untouristy northeast coast community of Robins Bay, St. Mary’s Parish, on the historical site of a 18th century colonial era plantation (several ruins included to explore). It is now a 1600 acre mixed habitat multiuse property that combines ecolodge with several forested nature trails, agriculture including cattle, goats, orchid cultivation and a beach front for snorkeling etc. It was beautiful, secluded, safe, natural, steeped in genuine local Jamaican flavor and full of the warm, welcoming hospitality at the real heart of Jamaica. From the minute my son and I arrived at the airport, we were taken care of like family. From the capable, accommodating care provided by the managers, Angie and Joe Dickson to the generous, friendly service provided by the whole staff, to the great traditional meals served up by Miss Rose and Miss Tanya there were “no worries” and no complaints.
My immediate after trip thoughts are that this is the perfect place if you are a birder interested in getting the many Jamaican endemics and you want to include your family or want to avoid the expense and narrow focus of the usual tour companies. The logistics were easy. I never felt unsafe and we managed to get 25 of 28 endemics with relative ease and little expense birding the grounds of the estate and one other trip to the famous (to birders) Ecclesdown Road.
We were very lucky to be hooked up with 2 Peace corps volunteer working in Robins Bay, Bob and Adrienne Lockett. They are both birders and believe it or not they were able to swing an assignment helping to develop locally beneficial and sustainable ecotourism in the area. Part of their job is to take visitors birding and they were excellent birding buddies. They are also teaming up with the Green Castle Estate in this effort and helping to train local Jamaicans as bird guides. All this means they took me birding for free except for the cost of a driver to Ecclesdown (Peace corps volunteers are not allowed to drive while on assignment) and I was happy to donate an unneeded pair of binoculars (put to immediate use by one of the guides in training) and in lieu of a fee I made a donation to the Green Castle Tropical Studies Center. Think of it, you can bird Jamaica, support non-exploitive tourism, and have a great vacation with you family at the same time. There is one catch. Bob and Adrienne are only there for one more year and although the owners of green castle are generally supportive of the ecolodge concept they also are realistic and are considering more traditional high end tourist development if the place is running in the red. Now would be the time to make this trip if you want to have the most impact on the future of this wonderful place.
Birding highlights:
Two brief stops on the way from the airport:
A shopping center on the outskirts of Kinston to pick up JA dollars and refreshments provided the only looks at Antillean Palm Swift.
A pleasant walk through Castleton Gardens yielded Jamaican Crow, White-eyed and White-chinned Thrushes. These three were seen later, but can be easy to miss, so the stop is a good idea.
Endemics seen at Green Castle Estate grounds:
Caribbean Coot
Jamaican Owl (heard)
Jamaican Mango
Red-billed Streamertail (doctor bird)
Vervain Hummingbird
Jamaican Tody
Jamaican Woodpecker
Jamaican Elaenia
Sad Flycatcher
Rufous-tailed Flycatcher
Jamaican Becard
Jamaican Vireo
Jamaican Euphonia
Jamaican Spindalis
Yellow-shouldered Grassquit
Orangequit
Jamaican Oriole
Other non-endemic highlights seen on estate grounds:
Least Grebe
Wilson’s Snipe
White-crowned Pigeon
Zenaida Dove
Olive-throated Parakeet
Green-rumped Parrotlet
White-collared Swift
Bananaquit
Yellow-faced Grassquit
Black-faced Grassquit
All the other Jamaican endemics are possible at Ecclesdown Road in the John Crow Mountains, a 1-2 hour drive east of the Robins Bay through Anotto Bay, Port Antonio and up into the mountains. This was the only “serious” birding day of the trip and my 13yo son Lucas humored me and went along. He saw some good birds and has a good time, especially when we stopped on the way back and he got to play Dominos with our Jamaican Guide in training, Fairweather while waiting for a late lunch, enjoying the Bob Marley tunes and taking in the ocean view at the Chill Out Café.
As it turned out we were able to get almost all the other endemics except three. We missed Jamaican Blackbird which is always a tough bird and requires a more difficult trip to the Blue Mountains to spots with old growth high elevation forest if you simply must have it. Just bad luck and a bit of late morning rain prevented the quite gettable Yellow-billed Parrot from showing and Jamaican Owl which was heard on the estate and common throughout the island but like most Owls requires a bit of work and luck.
The highlights of birds seen on Ecclesdown Road include the additional endemics:
Ring-tailed Pigeon
Crested Quail-Dove – (bird of the trip as far as I am concerned. Beautiful, secretive and the most bizarre strutting walk, waving its butt in the air to the slow reggae beat in its head)
Black-billed Parrot
Jamaican Lizard-Cuckoo
Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo
Jamaican Pewee
Blue Mountain Vireo
Arrow-headed Warbler
Other highlight of the Ecclesdown trip included numerous wintering warblers, Greater Antillean Bullfinch, Merlin and second looks at several of the endemics seen at the estate.