Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Scarlet Ibis

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Mon 5 Oct 2009 22:59

The Birds of Trinidad and Tobago

A total of four hundred and sixty nine species of birds have been recorded on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.

There are few places in the world where so many bird species can be seen in such a small area, many of them unique, very rare, or of particular interest. They range from the many species of hummingbird to the cave-dwelling oilbird (which uses echo-location to fly in the dark) and the spectacular and my personal favourite the Scarlet Ibis. A big wish was to photograph this unique, brightly coloured bird before leaving these shores in search of the Frigate bird nesting on Barbuda. The islands are within a few miles of Venezuela, and the species are therefore typical of tropical South America. However, the number of species is relatively impoverished compared to the mainland, as would be expected with small islands. The resident breeding birds are augmented in the northern winter by migrants from North America, although the range of migrant passerines is very limited compared to Central America. Species in the list occur on both islands except where indicated. Tobago has only about half the number of bird species of Trinidad, but 22 birds have occurred only on the smaller island, including 12 breeding species. Some of the smaller islands off Tobago, such as Little Tobago, have important seabird breeding colonies.　

The Incredible List of Birds to look out for

Non-passerines: Tinamous. Grebes. Shearwaters and petrels. Storm-petrels. Tropicbirds. Pelicans. Boobies and gannets. Cormorants. Darters. Frigatebirds. Bitterns, herons and egrets.Ibises and spoonbills. Storks. Screamers. Ducks and geese. New World vultures. Ospreys. Hawks, kites and eagles. Caracaras and falcons. Chachalacas, guans and curassows. Limpkins. Rails, crakes, gallinules and coots. Sungrebes. Jacanas. Oystercatchers. Avocets and stilts. Thick-knees. Plovers and lapwings. Sandpipers and allies. Skuas. Gulls. Terns. Skimmers. Pigeons and doves. Parrots, macaws and allies. Cuckoos and anis. Barn Owls. Typical owls. Oilbirds. Potoos. Nightjars. Swifts. Hummingbirds. Trogons. Kingfishers. Motmots. Jacamars. Toucans. Woodpeckers and allies.

Passerines: Ovenbirds. Woodcreepers. Typical antbirds. Antthrushes and antpittas. Cotingas. Manakins. Tyrant flycatchers. Swallows and martins. Wagtails and pipits. Wrens. Mockingbirds and thrashers. Thrushes and allies. Gnatcatchers. Vireos. New World warblers. Bananaquits. Tanagers. Buntings, sparrows, seedeaters and allies. Saltators, cardinals and allies. Troupials and allies. Siskins, crossbills and allies.

And another wish is to picture my / our first toucan in the wild.

The end of the visit to the Asa Wright Centre is to then go to the Caroni Swamp. The Caroni River is the largest river in T&T, running for twenty eight miles from its origins in the Northern Range on the island of Trinidad, through the northern lowlands of the Caroni Plains and enters the Gulf of Paria (real pirate territory, the reason we cannot sail to Venezuela, unless you give it an incredibly wide berth and in the company of others) at the Caroni Swamp. The Caroni and its tributaries drain one of the most densely populated part of Trinidad, the "East-West Corridor", and also provides most of its drinking water through the Caroni-Arena Dam. Point and non-point pollution is thus a major concern, as is the deforestation of its watershed on the southern slopes of the Northern Range. The banks of the Caroni River are one of the two main sites for Hindu cremations.

Before we got to the swamp Jessie stopped and bought us all "doubles". Patties of corn bread with spiced, stewed chickpeas or curried chickpeas. We tasted our very first doubles. Very tasty but a bit messy to eat as we got aboard the boat for the trip with Shaun. Born and bred in the area - he is well known as the local expert. His grandfather started the business, followed by Shaun's dad, at the age of twenty one his knowledge of the wildlife and where to find them was quite extraordinary.

The first creature Shaun pointed out was a dozing Cook's Tree Boa. This non venomous snake didn't take too kindly to a Canadian woman rudely awakening him and started to waggle his tongue, needless to say the tourist then sat quietly.

Next was a spectacled caiman.

The spectacled (white) caiman (Caiman crocodilus) is a crocadilian reptile found in much of Central and South America. It lives in a range of lowland wetland and riverine habitat types and can tolerate salt water as well as fresh; due in part to this adaptability it is the most common of all crocodilian species. Males of the species are generally between two and two and a half metres, while females are smaller, usually around one and a half metres. The species' common name comes from a bony ridge between the eyes, which gives the appearance of a pair of spectacles. We would never have spotted him hiding - it took Shaun to show us where to look.

The real stars of our show. Luckily we saw these, the only ones sitting in a tree on our route. The bulk are in protected nesting grounds and as it is breeding season we were forbidden to go near them.

The Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber), sometimes also referred to as "Out of Gamut Ibis", is a species of ibis that inhabits tropical South America and also Trinidad and Tobago. It is the national bird of Trinidad and is featured on the Trinidad and Tobago coat of arms along with Tobago's national bird, the Rufous-vented Chachalaca. Adults are 56–61 cm long and weigh 650g. They are completely scarlet, except for black wing-tips. They nest in trees, laying two to four eggs. Their diet is fish, frogs, reptiles and crustaceans.

First we saw a couple and got really excited, then some more in the distance.

Then many hundreds

A juvenile Scarlet Ibis is dark grey, sometimes black and white; as it grows the ingestion of red crabs in the tropical swamps gradually produces the characteristic scarlet plumage. The birds leave the roosts and go off feeding for the day, must ask Jesse if he can organise a trip for us to watch them during the day. The life span of Scarlet Ibis is approximately fifteen years in the wild and twenty years in captivity. This species is very closely related to the American white ibis and is sometimes considered conspecific with it. While the species may have occurred as a natural vagrant in southern Florida in the late 1800's, all recent reports of the species in North America have been of introduced or escaped birds. Eggs from Trinidad were placed in White Ibis nests in Hialeah Park in 1962, and the resulting population hybridised with the native ibis, producing "pink ibises" that are still occasionally seen.