Jamaica

Tours that take the strain out of enjoying Europe’s flora and fauna! Tours under this banner will be based in just a couple of good quality hotels, and will have direct flights. And most importantly field trips will be kept to a maximum of six or so hours giving you plenty of time to relax before and after.

In the fabled Blue Mountains Columnea hirsuta’s long red blooms attract the Jamaican Mango and two fantastic Streamertails, Black-billed and Red-billed, both gorgeous hummingbirds, with shimmering green plumage and two tail feathers streaming far beyond the rest of the tail. There are twenty-eight bird species found only on Jamaica, many of them colourful birds such as Jamaican Tody, Jamaican Spindalis and Green-rumped Parrotlet! Garish Gesnerias, varied Begonias, elegant yellow-tube flowered Lisianthius longifolius and Passiflora lancifolia attract butterflies such as Jamaican Harlequin and the Jamaican Kite Swallowtail. At Strawberry Hills we can watch the impressive swallowtail Papilio andraemon a butterfly about the same size as the diminutive Vervain Hummingbird, both visiting the same flowers. Nearby streams fall through broadleaf forests in pretty waterfalls as we admire Greater Antillean Bullfinch and Jamaican Oriole, whilst noisy Olive-throated Parakeets fly overhead. The brilliant green anole lizard Anolis garmani has a lemon yellow dewlap, and of a similar hue is the impressively large and common Malachite butterfly. Terrestrial orchids with sprays of yellow flowers decorate the track edge where we’ll find the Antillean Mapwing and the endemic swallowtail Papilio thersites. Upland forest on the Hardwar Gap is draped with lichens, ferns and bromeliads and here are Jamaican Lizard Cuckoo and the even more impressive Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo. Small harbours throng with Brown Pelicans, Royal Terns and Laughing Gulls, the distinctive silhouettes of Magnificent Frigatebirds ever above us. Zebra Heliconids flutter about the gardens of Goblin Hills whilst offshore is some great snorkelling and you’ll have as much opportunity to get your masks and fins on as you wish. The waters are clear and there’s good coral and a rich assortment of fish here. Nearby is forest where both Yellow-billed and Black-billed Parrots fly back and forth and where we’ll find the neatly coiffured Crested Quail-Dove.