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While on a primarily social holiday in St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, in March of 2004, in connected with Adam Brown and Natalia
Collier of Environmental Protection In the Caribbean, or EPIC. Adam and Natalia are two young American ornithologists who had a family connection that brought them to St. Maarten, and EPIC
is devoted to primarily ornithological study and education in the eastern Caribbean, much of which has been largely overlooked by conservationists. I joined EPIC this particular March to help with
a bird banding operation in the mangrove swamps of French St. Martin. Largely by virtue of the fact that they are the first organization to seriously research migrating birds in the region, EPIC has added
many species to the bird lists of several islands, especially St. Maarten. On this day we found nothing out of the ordinary, but we did net the Green-throated Carib pictured here, offering wonderful close range study of this beautiful, widespread
Caribbean hummingbird.
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