Suriname Oct 14—29, 2007
Posted by Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty
Steve Hilty is the senior author of A Guide to the Birds of Colombia, and the recently published Birds of Venezuela, both by Princeton University Press. Other credits inclu...Related Trips
Because there is more undisturbed rainforest left in Suriname than remains in all of Central America, birders and naturalists have lionized this tiny country as a birding mecca—a place where adjectives like "big" and "spectacular" have become commonplace. Our bird list reflects this observation. Imagine Black Curassows and Gray-winged Trumpeters parading in roads; an Ornate Hawk-Eagle on the ground at point-blank range; Capuchinbirds growling; Guianan Cocks-of-the-rock displaying; and toucans, parrots, macaws, puffbirds, colorful cotingas, woodpeckers, and shy antbirds scattered through the forests. Other highlights included a rare Crimson Fruitcrow; watching obligate, army ant-following antbirds at four separate ant swarms; quality time with a lovely White-fronted Manakin; and listening to all of the great sounds of the forest, from the "whoops" of wood frogs to tiny "fibber-magee" voices of Tiny Tyrant-Manakins, and the almost ethereal sounds of Musician Wrens.
Suriname is vintage tropical America—one of the last remaining outposts in the American Tropics where you truly feel you have stepped back in time. Paramaribo, its capital city which, not insignificantly, is home to 70 percent of all the people in the country (another 25 percent live along the narrow coastal strip) seems weary of the heat and humidity, the old Dutch-style wooden buildings beg for paint and attention, people move slowly, stores open late and close early, or at unpredictable hours, and the luxuriant rainforests poised to the very edge of town seem forever ready to overwhelm this sleepy tropical capital at the first unguarded moment. We found many birds living in the botanical garden in town, and in the vast forest reserves of the interior, the entire food chain—from top predators to the smallest life forms—seemed present. To experience something like this is increasingly rare; it just isn't possible to do this in many places on planet earth anymore.
Suriname is, in fact, something of a forgotten corner of the world. It is a blend of races and skin colors unlike any other. It is a country isolated by languages (whom might we encounter outside of Suriname that speaks "Suriname tongue," or even much Dutch for that matter), an ethnicity that looks inward, and a climate that slows the pace of life to a crawl. Suriname is, in most respects, the quintessential, Third World, tropical rainforest experience—the smells, the sights, the sounds, and the people all blending into a kind of timelessness—yesterday, today, and tomorrow all become one. And, all around them the forest, like a great aspirating engine, ebbs and flows with life. Spider monkeys call—long melancholy cries to communicate with distant brethren. Dawns are filled with the lamenting calls of forest falcons and a cacophony of bird song as individuals strive to communicate for mates. Above it all the great monoliths of Voltzberg and Potihill tower—weathered, smoothed, and silent. Suriname is primeval planet earth, the forests, the rivers, and the stars as they have always been. We are reassured and humbled. Somehow, for all our wealth and sophisticated technology, it is tiny forgotten Suriname that shows us who we really are.
For those who want a glimpse of vintage Suriname, Paramaribo, and a camp on the Coppename, read part three of Ivan T. Sanderson's Caribbean Treasure, 1939, Viking. Republished in paperback in 1963 by Pyramid Books.