Progne dominicensis
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~30%
The Caribbean martin or white-bellied martin (Progne dominicensis) is a large swallow. It has at various times been considered alternatively as a race of the purple martin, Progne subis. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Caribbean martin in the second volume of his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola. He used the French name L'hirondelle de S. Dominigue and the Latin name Hirundo Dominicensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. The Caribbean martin was subsequently described by the French polymath, the Comte de Buffon, in 1779 and by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1783. Latham used the English name "St Dominico swallow" but neither Buffon nor Latham introduced a scientific name.
The German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin included the Caribbean martin when he revised and expanded Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae in 1789. He placed it with the swallows in the genus Hirundo and coined the binomial name Hirundo... Wikipedia →
Flight call0:12
St Lucia · 2005
© Simon Elliott · XC591010 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Song?0:09
Puerto Rico · 2009
© Daniel Lane · XC33710 · CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Recording0:04
Puerto Rico · 2024
© Omar Monzon Carmona · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Main Ridge Forest Reserve | 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago | |
| 2 | Los Haitises National Park | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic | |
| 3 | Jaragua National Park | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santo Domingo | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Caribbean Martin sighting in Jaragua National Park on a given day, based on 15 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 72nd most-seen of the 92 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Caribbean Martin in Jaragua National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March–April and October–January, the lowest months. June to September have too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Caribbean Martin sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 3
Of the 3 parks where we can rate Caribbean Martin sightings, Jaragua National Park ranks 3rd at about 10%. The best odds are in Main Ridge Forest Reserve (Trinidad and Tobago, about 20%) and Los Haitises National Park (Dominican Republic, about 10%).
Same family: Hirundinidae
The closest relatives of the Caribbean Martin that you can see in Jaragua National Park (family Hirundinidae, Swallows and Martins) are Barn Swallow (about 10%) and Cave Swallow (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Caribbean Martin is recorded against all the birds logged in Jaragua National Park (15 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
