Third graders from Gift Hill School had a chance to check out summer seabirds congregating around Congo Cay, Lovango and Carvel Rock through a V.I. Audubon Society program supporting education about local birds. The school bird program just began this year and is expected to soon include classes in other grades and schools.
Last summer the third-grade teacher, Mrs. Wallace, attended a Birds Sleuth training course offered by the BirdsCaribbean network and then put together a curriculum plan appropriate for her students.
V.I. Audubon board member Laurel Brannick was the trip leader. Laurel served as a National Park Ranger on St. John for 30 years before retiring, and now offers regular Friday morning bird walks at Francis Bay, as well as Thursday evening slide shows at Cinnamon Bay Campgrounds.
I went along on the boat trip to try to get photos of the migratory birds that come to the small islands off St. John during the summer months to make their nests.
In April, we usually start seeing Laughing Gulls arriving along the beaches of St. John from other areas in the Caribbean. They are attracted by the abundance of small fry fish at this time of year, and the relative safety of the uninhabited offshore islands for nesting.

In May, the gulls are joined by flocks of graceful Roseate Terns with mostly black bills.

Sometimes the Laughing Gulls and Roseate Terns hang out together to fish along St. John shorelines.

Soon, however, both types of birds start thinking about nesting, and then the Roseate Terns try to stay away from the Laughing Gulls, concerned about attacks on their chicks.

Close to the top of Carvel Rock we also spotted other related nesting seabirds I hadn’t seen before – Bridled Terns.

The highlight of the trip for me was when Laurel pointed out a couple of birds flying way up in the clouds and said she thought they were tropicbirds. These have been sort of mythical birds for me because I had never seen them on St. John, even though some people have reported seeing them from boats or flying around the rocky cliffs.
The birds Laurel pointed out looked like large terns with just the slightest trace of the long ribbon-like tails the tropicbirds are known for. I took a couple of shots with my telephoto lens, but didn’t have high hopes for good results given their distance from us, the cloudiness of the day and the rocking boat. Still, I did manage to get an image of what seemed to be a Red-billed Tropicbird, which made my day.

I probably enjoyed the boat trip more than anyone, because I was able to use my camera lens to zoom in on the birds. But the students did get a chance to see the remote places where seabirds hang out around St. John, and maybe will want to learn more about what the birds are doing out there. One of the students remarked on the beauty of the undeveloped cliffs along Congo Cay, and Laurel emphasized how important it is to preserve at least some spaces just for birds and other wildlife.
Gail Karlsson is the author of a photo book Looking for Birds on St. John, as well as two other books about nature in the Virgin Islands – The Wild Life in an Island House, and Learning About Trees and Plants – A Project of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of St. John. Follow her on Instagram @gailkarlsson and at gvkarlsson.blogspot.com.