Emperor moth garden visit

I woke this morning to let the dog out and to my surprise noticed something on the steps. Soon realised it was a large moth and followed by a google search found it to be an Emperor moth. With lock down at the moment and some time on my hands, I thought what better time to create a stage to show this lovely moth in all its glory.

After short time photographing the moth I got some pleasing results and released the moth unharmed 

Dominican republic last but not least

 gray kingbird on the golf cause

 hispaniolan lizard cuckoo and very large

 northern mocking bird

 nutmeg mannikin

 palm chat

smooth billed ani and what a bill

I nearly forgot this one
broad-billed tody
after finding one / hearing one
they where fairly common

Dominican Republic Hummingbirds

Hummingbird was a lifer for me and after going Mexico last year with no luck I was more than happy to see one on the first day

After that every day but then trying to photograph them was a altogether not so easy

But sure was fun trying 

Starting off with a Vervain Hummingbird which is the second smallest bird in the world

And it was a tiny 60mm

I think this is a Hispaniolan Hummingbird and nearly twice the size at 10cm

Antillean Mango I think and bigger still a 13cm

 Look at the projection on them wings

No wonder they can fly backwards

Dominican Republic Herons

One new heron ( yellow-crowned night heron ) for me this holiday 

We visited the Island of Saona where the chocolate bounty advent was filmed all them years ago

Which is where I found a single yellow-crowned night-heron in some fantastic surroundings

Later on a second bird I found was in the grounds of the hotel typical

Also green heron and cattle egret where common sites

 The heron is under the palm tree at the waters edge

The next images where taken in the grounds of the hotel just as it was getting dark

 green heron taken on the golf cause

fly over cattle egret

Dominican Republic Killdeer

I have just been on a 2 week family holiday to Dominican Republic and what a fantastic time we had.

Plenty of photo opportunities for me and many new birds that I haven't seen before

With killdeer being one of them and maybe the most photographed

I found these birds on a local golf cause and found them very approachable as you can see from the photos below

The local Juv red necked grebe

As the news of a local red necked grebe in Roding valley meadows NR come out

Not many local birders could resist 

And who could blame them ,what a great looking bird and although it could of been closer I was more than happy to see it .