Cuban Gnatcatcher

[Bill Dix]

I was prompted to go back into my files and dig up this image from 4 years ago, after seeing this species named in an article about birds that might have been affected by Hurricane Irma. This bird is endemic to Cuba, and is concentrated primarily on the cayos along the north coast which were ravaged by the hurricane. It is fairly common, so not considered in danger of extinction despite threats to its habitat by coastal development. Hopefully the birds were able to move inland where the storm was not so severe.

D7000, 80-400 VR @ 370mm, ISO 500, 1/1000s @ f/7.1 manual.

Considerably more threatened is the Barbuda Warbler, a beautiful little bird that I had never heard of and will probably never see. It is a "single-island-endemic" of Barbuda, which was devastated by Irma. Its population prior to the storm numbered between 1000 and 2000 birds. Apparently it is equally at home in trees (most of which were probably flattened) and low thorny shrubs which might have offered some protection. Lets hope so.

[annmpacheco]

Thanks for your post and information Bill, fingers crossed of course. I love all the detail and the separated tail feathers that are upright as I'm sure this is helpful for their "twitchiness!" Thanks for sharing this

[Glenn Pure]

Interesting little bird, well captured Bill. I do like smaller birds even though they are harder to photograph well. The light looks really good here and you've handled the tones and colours beautifully. As usual, the clarity is excellent. I'm unsure about the crop on this one. Just as I like to give birds room to look into and move into, I also like to leave room for them to articulate their body parts. In this case, I feel the tail needs room to move into the left of the frame. A minor point though - thanks for digging this one up.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Cute bird, and you got it in a pretty neat pose. I love the small tree it is perched on. I can even live with the branch crossing the bill here. The oof one crossing behind the neck is unfortunate, but overall the image works well. Hopefully the population of these species were not decimated too much, if at all.