With apologies if this post is considered inappropriate for this venue.

We just returned from a first ever week in St Martin (Caribbean).
This is a small (34 sq mi) mountainous, tropical island (18 deg N latitude).
Many salt ponds, no fresh water.  Cactus, palms, many assorted trees.
Brought our binoculars and saw 30 species of birds while not
relaxing at the beach.  Mix of birds seen and not seen in Ohio.

"Ohio" birds seen:

great egret - abundant
snowy egret - many
Eurasian collared dove - many
rock dove - many
black crowned night heron - a few
common gallinule - a few
ruddy turnstone - 5
sanderling - 3
great blue heron - 2
kestrel - 1
coot - 1
killdeer - 1
yellow warbler - 1
glossy ibis - 1

non-Ohio birds:

brown pelican - ubiquitous
Zenaida dove - ubiquitous
magnificent frigatebird - abundant
bananaquit - abundant
Carib grackle - abundant
gray kingbird - many
brown booby - several
royal tern - several
white cheeked pintail - 3
common ground dove - 2
black faced grassquit - 2
green throated Carib hummingbird - 2
American oystercatcher - 1
Lesser Antillean bullfinch - 1

plus many chickens roaming wild, and
1 unidentified large white goose/swan-like bird
(in the distance) with 3 fuzzy yellowish young.

Among those species not seen:
gulls, crows, sparrows.

The breadth and narrowness of range of various birds is amazing.

- the Cohens

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