TomKal foto

The Dominican Republic – at last the first trip since the Covid –19 pandemic began! The pandemic restrictions were indeed a nuisance. Wearing a mask for almost 20 hours is a great discomfort but I have to admit all travellers were very much disciplined in this regard. Pandemic discipline was also noticeable in the Dominican Republic itself. This country is quite a peculiar place for birdwatching. At first I thought there should be an abundance of species at this latitude. Costa Rica, located at a more or less similar latitude, is roughly as big as the Dominican Republic and has about 900 species of birds on its list (the same as the whole of Australia, the area of ​​which is about 150 times larger than the area of ​​Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic). Surprisingly the total number of species in the Dominican Republic is only about 300 bird species. If we subtract a few dozen species that were just one-time encounters, then in reality you can find a little over 200 species of birds there, including 31 endemic species. Not too many considering big expectations connected with this latitude. It could be that it results from the insular nature of this place. The other factor is perhaps the amount of rainfall. Costa Rica receives about 6 times more rainfall than the Dominican Republic. Part of its area is semi-arid where large cacti grow. This kind of environment does not invite such an abundance of species as in Costa Rica. We were taking photos for 9 days at 25-34 degrees Celsius heat and only once had an occasional shower at night. In the mountains in the morning the temperature dropped to 15 degrees but only after 2-3 hours it went back to 20. And the third reason, in my opinion, of the birds scarcity and shyness is hunting. It is not forbidden there. I guess that's why I failed to take pictures of pigeons, except for Santo Domingo - where I took photos of the city pigeon. There are several other species of pigeons in the Dominican Republic but they flew away in panic at the sight of humans. Birds in general were very skittish and hidden among the bushes at a considerable distance. Another factor which makes photographing in the Dominican Republic difficult is the structure of the forest. This is where we mainly operated, in a mountainous terrain near the border with Haiti (southern part). You can't just enter this forest. Its compact structure makes it impossible to go in, not to mention the lack of light for photographing inside. So you have to lure the birds to the edge of the forest to take a photo. Without attracting birds and knowing the terrain photographing birds in the Dominican Republic is ineffective or simply a misunderstanding. We had an organized trip with an agency that specializes in such trips. We found competent and kind guides who were supported by local guides and bird watchers who knew the birds had to be lured – still the photographic result was quite poor, although for the Dominican Republic it was quite sensational (list below / a collection of links). If we assume that in the Dominican Republic you can actually see a little over 200 species then in 9 days we managed to photograph a third of the bird species that can actually be found there or a quarter of all formally included in the fauna list of this country (77 new galleries and changes in the existing ones). Bird watchers would probably be talking about one hundred species encountered. This is quite a great achievement. I must note that we made an effective use of our time from dawn to dusk and it was very intense and exhausting when we had to march with heavy equipment in 30 degrees heat (November). So much for the quantitative statistics, as for the quality of the pictures, well, it wasn’t easy.  Despite the long lenses and converters it was hard to take good photos with birds filling most of the frame. In the end the photos had to be framed for the gallery anyway. That’s why not many galleries in my website received a very good quality status and many of them contain only single photos. Similarly with newly created galleries, they often do not have a large amount of content, but they had to be set up due to the fact that the bird is endemic and its population is scarce. I managed to photograph 26 endemic birds but the quality of pictures varies. We also managed to record voices of 20 birds. The agency which organized our trip specializes in bird watching tours rather than trips for photographers so bird watchers would be more satisfied than we were. There were numerous situations where the guide pointed at a tiny bird at the crown of a tree (at a distance of 20-30 meters from us). Of course, no one even pressed the shutter to have a black outline of a bird that is  difficult to identify on the basis of such a photo, even after strong framing against the sky. We quickly explained how to change the attitude of the guides, how and where to lure the birds and finally we could take better quality photos. Galleries with such documentary content will not appear on my Dominican website and will only be kept in my computer. Of course, this does not apply to the endemic species of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is a safe country in terms of animals found there. There are neither poisonous snakes nor dangerous mammals there. You can always get out of the car and start taking photos, unlike in Africa. There is one exception however, although it may refer to our emotions rather than the real threat. A little before dawn when we were preparing the equipment to go out into the field a spider entered our room and it was bigger than an adult male’s palm. Apparently it was not dangerous but when you are dealing with little birds weighing several grams for a week a huge spider near your leg makes a stunning impression. Not to forget this meeting I added a photo in the spider gallery (the only one with artificial light). When in the Dominican Republic you must remember that it is not safe to drink tap water. You have to buy bottled water that is easily available. When writing about the Dominican Republic it is impossible not to mention the Dominicans. They are nice and very friendly. This also applies to the army people who patrol the roads. It often happened that a tall man armed with a machine gun approached the car and ordered us to wind down the window. At the sight of tourists they smiled widely, showed friendly gestures (thumbs up) and the atmosphere was nice and friendly in general. These inspections are probably connected with migration of Haitians to the Dominican Republic. The per capita income in Haiti is 10 times lower than in the Dominican Republic which is considered to be poor. It must also be said that the Haitian skin complexion is very, very dark. So, after opening the car window, they could see immediately that we were not Haitians and the inspection was over. I must say all Dominicans were so friendly. It is a fact that a car or a scooter must have a steering wheel, an engine and wheels. But without the horn it seems to be incomplete in the Dominican Republic. Honking has a different character and meaning there than in Europe. Apart from the traditional function it is also a form of greeting or a friendly gesture of respect. Imagine this. Four guys are standing by a field road and waiting in silence for a bird. Long lens cameras on tripods make it clear what they are doing. And suddenly a car passes by and you can hear four horns, one for every one of us, democratically. Additionally clouds of dust from the road guarantee a break from shooting.You have to be careful on the roads in the Dominican Republic, especially in the cities. If there are speed bumps on the roads, you shouldn’t just slow down, you have to literally stop because otherwise you will damage your  car - so large and effective they are.They also effectively and considerably slow us down when travelling from one photoshooting point to another. Sudden switches of a comfortable road into cobble stones and grovel and then back to an asphalt road are another way of making drivers slow down. Most often there is a military control point is located there. In the Dominican Republic you have to keep your eyes on the road all the time if you want to get to your destination. As I said before, we photographed west of Santa Domingo on the border with Haiti but also to the north of Santo Domingo. My observations refer to this area only. You can find the introductory text in the broad-billed tody gallery, not in the palmchat one. We managed to see the palmchat, the Dominican national bird, quite often. Sometimes the whole flocks flew over our heads. They were very shy and difficult to lure in November. Interesting to watch but there was no opportunity to take good photos and the very few I managed to shoot initiated a gallery of this very important to me species. Commercial resorts in the Dominican Republic have clean, well-kept beaches with luxurious hotels. This is where we didn’t have a chance to stay. Our hotels were located in poor provinces and they didn’t even deserve to be named hotels. As a rule there was no hot water and to talk about any standard was a misunderstanding. Toilets were as bad. The word hotel is generally overused so when you are not planning to stay in regular beach resorts you’d better check carefully what you will find there. We travelled several hundred kilometres in the Dominican Republic, probably less than 1,000 and one thing that stands out is rubbish, omnipresent plastic that slowly covers this beautiful picturesque country. You can find it on the beaches, along the roads, and sometimes you can see illegal dumping grounds from which the smelly smoke of burnt garbage is rising. This is a big problem in the Dominican Republic. It is a pity because among colourfully painted buildings, thousands of beautiful murals and countless monuments you can hear loud music and see kind, smiling people who are surrounded by ever growing mountains of rubbish ...

You can find the introductory text in the broad-billed tody gallery, not in the palmchat one. We managed to see the palmchat, the Dominican national bird, quite often. Sometimes the whole flocks flew over our heads. They were very shy and difficult to lure in November. Interesting to watch but there was no opportunity to take good photos and the very few I managed to shoot initiated a gallery of this very important to me species.The first one is the national bird of the Dominican Republic, the other one is yet another of the endemic species inhabiting the country. I didn’t have too many interesting photos to build a gallery so I decided to concentrate on a beautiful, colourful broad-billed tody which I have a great sentiment for. It is really  tiny and it always made us smile. I added one photo to the gallery at the very end to illustrate the scale and show how difficult it is to photograph this bird. I took a photo of the forest with my mobile phone from the place where the tripod with the camera and lens was standing. I photographed with a 600 lens camera with a converter from a distance of about 10 meters birds which are about 10-11 centimeters long from the beak to the tail and weigh about 7-9 grams. They are that tiny. I am writing using plural here because there are two kinds of todies in the Dominican Republic: Broad-billed tody (9 grams) and Narrow-billed tody (7 grams). Broad-billed tody was quite common in several places where we photographed so we had a chance to meet a few times and a gallery of this Dominican endemic bird was created with its own soundtrack. It must be noted that there are 5 species of todies in the world and all of them are endemic species. In Cuba I managed to photograph the Cuban tody, in the Dominican Republic  the broad-billed tody and the narrow-billed tody. So there are still two left to take photos of -  the Jamaican Tody and the Puerto Rican Tody.

You can find a list and links to all newly created galleries on my website and those that have been rebuilt as a result of adding new photos taken in the Dominican Republic. The letter "T" in brackets after a name means that there is a text with information added, "V" means a recording of the bird's voice, "E" stands for an endemic Dominican species and "PL" - a species belonging to the fauna of Poland - there were three of them.