Doran and I spent the first week of February in the Dominican Republic to escape the bitter cold and freezing rain in Ottawa. I hired a bird guide (Manny from Explora Ecotours) for one outing only, and got to see some of the birds of the National Park of the East (or Parque Nacional Del Este). We also did one non-birding excursion to Catalina Island followed by a riverboat ride up the Chavon Rio. The weather was beautiful (though we did have a 5.3 earthquake on February 4th which I felt from the balcony of our third-floor room). However, there were plenty of birds to see on the resort itself, in large part because of the swamp that runs between the security gate and the main entrance.