DAY 3
The next morning, Debbie and I took a walk with Molly on
another trail to look for the third reason bird watchers visit Asa Wright:
Bearded Bellbirds. These birds are part
of a group called cotingas. There are
some bellbirds which do make a noise that sounds like the ringing tone of a
bell. The Bearded Bellbird, however,
does not sound like that. It sounds more
like “kong”, although it is extremely loud!
I had looked for them on my own the day before, and heard plenty but got
not even a glimpse of them. When I told
Molly this, she gave a coy look and said she thought we could probably find
one. Later she told us there are a few
on the property which have favored perches and are slam-dunks to get a look at! In fact, the old one has been there so long
and so consistently they have named him George.
Here’s one, you can see the wattles of his “beard” hanging
down:
Along the way, we stopped by a lek of Golden-headed
Manakins. A lek is a place where male birds gather to compete for female
attention. Leks are persistent for long
periods of time, sometimes many years.
Rather than express aggression to one another, males try to outperform
each other, whether that be “dancing” or whatever. Notice these two guys here are very
distinctively not looking at each
other.
Back around the main building, there were a few other birds
to be found, like this Cocoa Thrush belting it out:
And this Bananaquit.
The illustrated guide I have for the birds of T&T says that
Bananaquits may be the most abundant species on the two islands. I would agree, these guys were everywhere! Colorful, noisy and gregarious, watching them
never gets old. This one is eating
berries off a tobacco tree, which were very sweet and delicious :)
Agoutis were fairly common around the veranda. They are tropical rodents about the size of a
raccoon. These two were playing grabass
one morning:
In the afternoon,
David picked us up again and we drove the opposite direction from Matura Beach,
this time heading for Caroni Swamp, a large expanse of brackish mangroves. Before we got there, we stopped off at the
Trincity Sewage Ponds. For those of you
who aren’t birdwatchers, you’re wondering why a person would stop at a place
like that. Because the rule of thumb is
the worse a place smells, the better it is for birding. There are lots of nutrients available at a
sewage plant and therefore an abundant food chain. Here’s a Yellow-hooded Blackbird, one of the
better shots I got there:
From there we continued on to Caroni Swamp. Once there we got on board a good-sized
flat-bottom boat and rode out through channels in the mangroves, looking for
birds and other wildlife along the way.
Here’s a view of the mangroves up close, with
their roots up above the water so they can breathe:
One of the coolest
birds we saw was this pair of Tropical Screech-owls at their daytime
roost. The boat pilot knew where they
like to hang out and was able to drive the boat right up under them so we could
get a look. A unexpected treat for us:
While these guys and all the other birds we saw were really
fun, the main reason people go to Caroni Swamp is to see the Scarlet
Ibises. These guys are the national bird
of Trinidad and one of the two birds found on the national seal. They are big and bright RED! Every evening they return to the mangroves in
Caroni to spend the night. During the
non-breeding season, they come into the roost site by the thousands right at
sunset. We were there during the
breeding season, so most of the birds go to an unaccessible part of the swamp
to nest, but we still saw a few hundred.
It was pretty special
to sit out there and enjoy the sunset with these guys flying in. On the return trip, I was able to snap this
photo. Those are more mangroves at the
water’s edge and the mountains in the background is where we were staying:
DAY 4
Our first stop was to
Old Mexico Road, we had lots of good birds here, including this Striped Cuckoo
(closely related to our Roadrunners in the States):
And Black-crested Antshrikes (this is a female here):
Here is a glittering Rufous-tailed Jacamar, which is most
closely related to the bee-eaters of Africa and Europe:
A pair of Orange-winged Parrots flew in to check us
out. We saw lots of these, but almost
always they were flying high overhead, so it was fun to get such good
looks. You can see the orange patch on
the wing for which the bird is named:
After enjoying a lot of good stuff there, we headed over to the Aripo Agricultural Station, where the government works on agricultural experiments, particularly with cattle. We saw a lot of additional cool birds there, including killer looks at this Savannah Hawk:
Here’s a Pinnated Bittern in classic hunting position. There are several species of bitterns (a type
of heron), and their eyes are positioned such that they can look down while
their bills are pointed up in the air.
Add in cryptic body markings, and you get a bird that prefers to “be the
grass” and ambush prey:
Here’s another view
of him or her taking a walk. Debbie
rehabilitated an American Bittern one time and reports they are mean nasty
creatures.
Me and David:
One of the latest experiments at the ag station, this is a
Buffalypso. It is a hybrid of Brahman
cattle and Indian water buffalo. The
name is a combination of buffalo and calypso, the national music of
T&T. David reports that this breed
has proven to have an excellent combination of characteristics for producing
lots of meat but being highly tolerant of tropical heat and humidity.
After this, David brought us back to Asa Wright and it was
with no small degree of disappointment that we bid him farewell. I should mention one thing he did for
us. On a prior trip to the British
Virgin Islands, I was able to eat tree-ripened bananas. If you ever get one, you will understand the
bananas we get in the US are worthless in comparison. Debbie never had the benefit of this
wonderfulness. Well, after mentioning
this to David, he produced some for us!
And they were damn good too!
Early on in our visit, I noticed this very odd
insect nest on the main building of Asa Wright, with large gnat-looking insects
flying around it:
While I was showing this to Debbie, a gentleman named Peter
O’Connor stepped out of the office that is just left of this nest. He explained to us this was a nest of
stingless bees (they’re black and, as bees go, tiny). Further, he told us at night they close up
that opening at the bottom. We checked
it one evening, and sure enough they did have it closed up! Peter asked us what we did back in the
States, and we explained that Debbie is a master falconer and had managed a
wildlife rehabilitation center for many years.
Peter stopped cold at that point and said he had someone we needed to
meet.
Peter knew a family on the other side of the Northern Range
in the village of Brasso Seco who had been given a baby hawk. They were doing their best to raise it and
had the intention to release it back to the wild. Having never done this sort of thing before,
they wanted advice and frankly there isn’t anyone in Trinidad who can give that
advice. And then came along these two
Americans brim-full of experience and advice!
So after getting back from the lowlands, we hopped in
Peter’s SUV and took off for Brasso Seco.
As we drove higher and higher up, he explained to us that although
Trinidad is separated by the Caribbean Sea the Northern Range is really the northern-most
extension of the Andes Mountains. Along
the way, we nearly ran into a truck and had to slam on the brakes. Then Peter and the other driver started
yelling at each other loudly and then both laughed! It turns out that was Peter’s brother Rory,
headed to the same place we were!
A few minutes later we got to the home of Carl
and Kelly who along with their three kids were raising Mortimer the hawk. For having never done it before, they were
doing a great job. We had a really good
visit with them and Debbie was able to give some good information to guide
them. Here’s a shot that Peter took of
Debbie giving Mortimer a once-over, I guess now she can claim to be an
international rehabilitator :)
Once we finished up there, Carl jumped in the car with us
and we continued uphill until we were literally at the end of the road, looking
at two houses. Peter explained to us
that he borrowed one of the houses when he was looking for a place to get away,
and that Rory was borrowing the other house at the moment. The view was expansive, and the spot was
very, very quiet, the sort of place one would go to ponder things.
We joined Rory in his cottage where he mixed up some rum
punch for all of us, except Peter who said he prefers his rum on the rocks. While at Asa Wright, they had complimentary
rum punch every night, which I thought was pretty good. Until I had the concoction expertly mixed by
Rory. I can only describe it as dangerous! There was a fair bit of rum in there, and yet
the mixture of sugar and lemon juice masked it completely. Wickedly smooth, and the second glass was
smoother than the first ;).
We sat out on the deck and told jokes and chatted while a
toucan flew over. The deck was made of
teak 1x4’s! That amount of teak in the
US would be worth a fortune! However,
teak is one of the few woods that can be safely used in the tropics. Most woods are attacked by termites and
rendered structurally unsafe within months.
Teak on the other hand is so hard you have to drill out the holes before
you can drive nails, and too hard for termites to eat. So it is used for a lot of things, although
most buildings are made of block or poured concrete.
We got to experience a lot of things while we were in
T&T and carry a lot of memories back from our trip. But of all the things we did, the time we
spent with Peter, Rory and Carl kicking back on the deck was the tip top
highlight for me. It was unplanned and
unexpected. As Peter told us, lots of
people visit Asa Wright, but not very many get to go to his hangout spot above
Brasso Seco. For those few brief hours
we were able to step away from the planned tourist itinerary and not be served
or solicited to, but to just hang out and experience something genuine.
DAY 5
With only a couple of hours remaining at Asa Wright before
we departed for Tobago, I set out again for the gardens below the veranda at
sunrise. I was finally able to get a
half-decent shot of a male Rufous-crested Coquette. This is a tiny, colorful hummingbird which
does not visit the feeders, but works the nearby flowering bushes. This male was particularly consistent early
in the morning:
After that, it was off to the airport to get over to Tobago.
More to come in Part 3, which you can see by clicking HERE
