The second most sought after species on Grand Cayman is the West Indies Whistling Duck. We had read that access to an area favored by the ducks was available through a large farm in the northeast part of the island. In spite of our taxi drivers skepticism, she took us to the farm and even fine tuned our directions with a local Jamaican farm worker. Just walk down this trail and turn right at the hog pens. It seemed simple enough. At first we thought the hog pens were empty. We couldn't see any hogs, and there wasn't any terrible odor. It turned out that the hogs were sleeping, and they weren't in pens. They were in individual concrete cubicles and were kept remarkably clean. They were also gigantic! Just as we discovered the hogs I saw two birds on the ground that I mistakenly took for small Cranes of some kind. Carrie and I headed for the back of the property to get a better look. Unfortunately she walked around the back of a huge cart and I walked around the front of it. While keeping my eyes fixed firmly on what I now recognized as our target ducks I slammed into the iron fitting on the front of the cart. The trailer hitch. For a terrible moment I thought I was going straight over it to a face implant into hog dung but I somehow managed to stay verticle. I recouped my two bruised shins, regained my composure and got a great shot!
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