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In 2016, I wrote an article here at BirdWatchingDaily about the potential expansion of an endemic Puerto Rican bird – Adelaide’s Warbler – into the U.S. Virgin Islands. Several individuals had been seen on both St. Thomas and St. John, and they were the subject of two scientific papers.
However, it has been unclear whether these pioneers survived the Category 5 hurricanes of 2017. In late May 2018, however, birder Stephen McCullers of Atlanta submitted four eBird checklists (one of which included an audio recording) that listed up to five Adelaide’s Warblers. All the checklists were from locations within Virgin Islands National Park on St. John, including on Lamshur Bay Trail, where the warblers had been observed before the hurricanes. Thus, it appears that Adelaide’s Warbler maintains a toehold in the U.S. Virgin Islands even after Hurricanes Irma and Maria. — Jason A. Crotty
Read our 2016 article:
Real-time colonization: Puerto Rican warbler expands to U.S. Virgin Islands
Jason A. Crotty is an attorney from Portland, Oregon. He also wrote about El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, Hotspot Near You No. 247, and Virgin Islands National Park (No. 255). For BirdWatchingDaily.com, he has written about warblers that winter in Puerto Rico, the designation of Elfin-woods Warbler as endangered, bird populations in western Great Lakes forests, and what the greatly expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument means for birds. Most recently, he written about a milestone for Laysan Albatross in Hawaii and the potential reintroduction of California Condors in the Pacific Northwest.
Originally Published
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