Sites - Important Bird Areas (IBAs)

General characteristics 

The three main islands of this Secondary Area, lying c.50km off the north-west coast of Venezuela (see map, p.182), are (from west to east) Aruba (175km²), an overseas territory of the Netherlands, and Curaao (425km²) and Bonaire (272km²), part of the Netherlands Antilles. The islands are generally covered (to a greater or lesser extent) in xerophytic vegetation, in which a wealth of cacti and thorny Acacia predominate, and the avifauna comprises fewer than 150 species of which c.40% are migratory non-breeders (Hummelinck 1957). Two restricted-range species are present: the threatened Yellow-shouldered Amazon Amazona barbadensis (Vulnerable, and occurring also in the adjacent mainland, EBA 035) and Pearly-eyed Thrasher Margarops fuscatus (found throughout much of the Caribbean). A. barbadensis is now, in this Secondary Area, confined to Bonaire (where there are c.400 birds), and became extinct on Aruba (probably) during the 1940s (Collar et al. 1992); it is uncertain whether this parrot ever occurred on Curaao or not. M. fuscatus is represented by an endemic subspecies, bonairensis, which appears to be almost exclusively confined to the vicinity of Fontein plantation on Bonaire, although it has occurred (but is now apparently extinct) on the Venezuelan island of La Horquilla of the Hermanos Islands (which lie north of Margarita Island and c.350km east of Bonaire) (Hummelinck 1957).

Important Bird Areas (IBAs)

Recommended citation  BirdLife International (2013) Endemic Bird Area factsheet: Netherlands Antilles. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 23/05/2013

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