Bienvenidos a San Juan! Upon arrival, please find your way to our hotel, DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel San Juan (in El Condado), which should be about a $25 taxi ride from the airport. Meet in the lobby at 6pm, and we’ll go to dinner and discuss our plan for the week, and for tomorrow, our first day birding in Puerto Rico. Night in San Juan.

A combo of birding and driving today, we head out early this morning, angling west from San Juan. Winding our way through the limestone karst region of the northern part of the island, we’ll bird the haystack hills and “mogotes” with our first planned birding stop at Rio Abajo. There amongst all the kapok and algarrobo trees are rarer plants too, including a mint (Cornutia obovata), once down to only seven known plants remaining (in 1988). It remains critically endangered, but there’s another critically endangered species here… This is the best known spot today for encountering the “Iguaca”, as it was known among the Taino, or the Puerto Rican Parrot. Some 700 remain, and of those only about 250 are free-flying (not in captivity). We’ll need luck to connect with it, but there will be much else to keep our binoculars busy. Many of the island's endemics are here, including Puerto Rican Lizard-Cuckoo, Puerto Rican Tody, Puerto Rican Woodpecker & others. After an afternoon drive, we’ll reach our home for the next three nights. Night in La Parguera.

Departing early again we’ll drive about 90 minutes, and aim to be up in the Maricao Highlands soon after dawn. Primary among our targets is the spritely little Elfin Woods Warbler. Flying under the radar until 1968, and then formally described in 1972, this dapper warbler dressed in black and white is the primary target for any birder visiting Puerto Rico. Like any warbler, we’ll need the bird to its part for us to see it, but this area is arguably the most productive for quality sightings. It’s also an area that hosts some of the very few remaining Puerto Rican Sharp-shinned Hawks. Perhaps less than 30 remain now, and recent genetic work suggests that it is likely a species, rather than a subspecies. Apart from these rarer birds, we should have good chances for migratory warblers, familiar from home, as well as perhaps the island’s most taxonomically distinct bird, the monotypic Puerto Rican Tanager. Night in La Parguera.

We’ll take stock of how we did yesterday, and could return to the Maricao Highlands should we need to. Otherwise we could enjoy a more relaxed day birding the coast of the southwest. This is the only region for the endemic Yellow-shouldered Blackbird, and also a good area for migrant shorebirds, for unexpected vagrants from off-island, and for finding birds like West Indian Whistling-Duck, Masked Duck, and dare we hope for it, Yellow-breasted Crake. Each of these will take some luck, but other birds around might include Puerto Rican Tody, Caribbean Elaenia, Venezuelan Troupials, Least Bitterns, and more. Night in La Parguera.

After perhaps a last bit of birding around the southwest, we’ll head for the east end of the island. Undertaking a drive of 3-4 hours, we’ll end up in the highlands of the East and at the only tropical rainforest within the U.S. National Forest system. Our lodging is located just a ten minute walk from the famous El Yunque National Forest. Around the grounds of the hotel we can hope to find the Puerto Rican Screech-Owl, migrant songbirds, and various other species too. Night upslope from Rio Blanco.

Objectives today include locating a couple of hummingbirds such as Green-throated Carib and Antillean Crested Hummingbird, along with checking coastal spots for Brown Booby and shorebirds, before ascending up into El Yunque to enjoy seeing this unique forest and its birds. By now, probably few targets may remain for us from a birding perspective, so we’ll assess things, and weigh how best to spend our last full day here on the islands. We’ll enjoy a farewell dinner together tonight, listening to the coqui frogs, and maybe the screech-owl too. Night upslope from Rio Blanco.

After breakfast and a brief bit of birding around our lodge, we’ll aim to head for the airport to arrive there by 11am for folks catching afternoon flights back to the US. If you wish to explore Old San Juan, this might be a good time for that. Drop-off is at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU) by 11am. Hasta pronto amigos!