Trinidad and Tobago Mar 01—07, 2010
Posted by David Ascanio
David Ascanio
David Ascanio, a Venezuelan birder and naturalist, has spent the last 26 years guiding birding tours throughout his native country, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, the Amazo...Related Trips
It is always difficult to summarize the highlights of our Trinidad & Tobago tour. It is tempting to write, at length, about the geography of both islands—Trinidad linked with South America with Tobago drifting away as a true island. Also fascinating are the consequences of this geography—the avifauna in Trinidad being rich in bird families, but poor in number of species per family, while the avifauna in Tobago has relict populations of species that are not found in Trinidad, but are found in northeastern Venezuela. However, I think I'll begin by mentioning the number of aquamarine-blue bird species, the fluttering tail of the Red-billed Tropicbird, and the fan-like ornaments of the Tufted Coquette when perched on a bush next to some of the rooms at Asa Wright Nature Centre. The best way to describe our trip is to say that we birded Trinidad and Tobago, and learned slowly but steadily about the avifauna of South America and the Caribbean. What a trip!
We started on the island of Trinidad where the veranda of Asa Wright Nature Centre served as our welcome to the Tropics—a great way to begin! From the first minute we were exposed to motmots, tanagers, hummingbirds, honeycreepers, and oropendolas. Later in the day we enjoyed Oilbirds and Bearded Bellbirds, and learned about some of the forces that might have shaped the foraging and mating behaviors of these bizarre species.
The Nariva Swamp was drier than during any other tour I have led to the island, while the Aripo Station was very rich in birds. In Aripo we were rewarded with great views of Grassland Yellow-Finch and Tropical Screech-Owl. That night we realized that we might have been the very last to visit the Station for the season; a huge fire in the afternoon wiped out all the grasslands where the yellow-finches were foraging and probably nesting. Later in the week we visited Waterloo Bay and the Caroni Swamp where we might have been the first ever to notice the presence of the orinocensis race of Northern Scrub-Flycatcher, while enjoying the sparkling colors of Scarlet Ibis flying in to roost.
From the land of hummingbirds, tanagers, Oilbirds, herons, tyrant-flycatchers, and birds of prey, we moved to smaller and less diverse Tobago where the drier forest is home to some relict species not found in Trinidad. Here, we were surprised with an excellent view of Purple Heron, the second ever for the island!
Trinidad and Tobago is a great country. Altogether we enjoyed a potpourri of incredible and contrasting species. Several remarkable memories remain from our trip, including:
* Tanagers, honeycreepers, motmots, and thrushes at the bird feeders in Trinidad.
* Ruby-topaz Hummingbird actively defending the hummingbird feeders in Tobago.
* Short-tailed Hawk soaring nicely overhead.
* Thousands of Scarlet Ibis coming to roost at the Caroni Swamp.
* 13 species of birds of prey seen in a single day!
* 13 species of hummingbirds for the trip.
On our tour we reported 223 species represented in 60 families, 12 of which were found only in Trinidad, while some species were restricted to Tobago (Red-crowned Woodpecker, Rufous-vented Chachalaca, White-tailed Sabrewing, and Blue-backed Manakin).
I hope to see you again on one of our Relaxed and Easy tours—covering habitats from cloud forest to extensive seasonal flood plains, or on our tour to the tepuis in southeast Venezuela—a more demanding tour high in endemism with beautiful scenery, or aboard a cruise ship on the Amazon River—visiting its tributaries where many species of antbirds, tanagers, and birds of prey can be found. The American Tropics are home to the largest number of bird species on the planet, and I hope this introduction to South America will encourage you to continue visiting these wonderful ecosystems.