Rainforest, lowland lakes and a riverside walk to the Falls

[Cathy] We had a wonderful trip to the rainforest with Peter Cox, a really enthusiastic and knowledgeable bird guide, and another couple from Turtle Beach Resort nearby, who were also keen birdwatchers. We drove up the winding coast on the west of the island, stopping to admire spectacular views or to see birds on the edge of the road. When we eventually reached the road that crosses from west to east through the rain-forest we stopped every mile or so at spots where Peter knew we would see birds that were endemic to this area. It made both me and Shirley a bit car-sick, getting in and out so often, but it was worth it for all the birds we saw. Later on we hired short rubber boots and ventured along the trails into the rain-forest, which seemed high and dense to us, with lots of low shrubs and lianas. In fact this is fairly new growth for a rain-forest as most of it was decimated during a rare hurricane in the 1960s. Bird highlights were the white-tailed sabrewing hummingbird, red-legged honeycreeper, and blue-black manakins (who we observed lecking, a dance so spectacular that it featured in David Attenborough's Life on Earth - several males jump up and down on a bare branch in a clearing, jumping over each other and making a distinctive clicking sound with their wings). We glimpsed a white-throated Spadebill, which Peter was very excited about as it is a real rarity.
On our return we stopped to photograph a rare pink orchid, flowering in the branches oa a tree beside the road, and then drove back along the eastern Atlantic Coast, windier with real rollers on the beach - better for surfing and less good for snorkeling than the side we have been on. We saw a cayman (small crocodile) basking at the mouth of a little river. A really great day, though very tiring!

[Samuel] On Saturday night, Cathy cooked some Callalloo which is a local dish - a soup made of leaves and Okra. This was excellent. She also prepared a fruit salad from the oranges and grapefruit in the gardens around the villas.

We haven't been able to bear to leave this paradise - instead of moving up the coast to Castara as we'd planned we are staying on here. Cathy is up at 6.00 every morning birdwatching for two hours or more in the 12 acres of grounds, though she has some difficulty avoiding the three dogs joining her, and has to plot to creep past them or pretend she is leaving the premises to avoid them scaring the birds! She has now seen all but seven of the 41 birds that are resident on the Eco farm, and is getting more confident at identification, and even some calls.

We booked a guide on Saturday to take us to the Lowlands, south west of Scarborough, the main town in the south. There are several lakes in the hotel grounds, which a guide can take you to. The wildlife on each lake was very varied - Anhingas (cormorant-like) and herons on the deepest, cayman (but we didn’t see any), and wattled jacana, pied-billed grebe and sora with Southern lapwing on the banks in the next reed-filled pools, one of which (perhaps both) were sewage farms. Finally our elderly guide took us along a boardwalk through the mangrove swamps - as it was low tide no herons were visible, and sadly we failed to see the mangrove cuckoo that had been seen earlier in the day. [Samuel]The mangroves were very spectacular, but we did not see any crabs, only their holes, due to the tide.

[Cath]On Sunday a young local man who used to work at the Eco farm but is not a professional guide led us on a walk along the Courland river to the Highland Waterfalls. The walk was lovely and led through a tree-covered valley rising steeply above the river, completely deserted. We had planned to walk this by ourselves, but our host was concerned that we might get lost and that it was a bit out of the way to wander unaccompanied, so recommended our guide, who was able to tell us lots about the plants and trees, though less about the birds, but when we saw the two different species of kingfisher to be founed on Tobago there wasn't much doubt which was which. The afternoon was really magical, peaceful and relatively cool, and the falls were lovely. Our guide used to go and swim there as a boy, but we didn't go in.

Follow that turtle!

[Samuel]Today we spent on a nearby beach in a secluded cove with a reef across most of the mouth so it was fairly calm. Here there is some slightly degraded coral going quite close to the water's edge, with fan corals and nice formations in the deeper areas plus quite a few fish.
The high spot was seeing a turtle (I think only one but we cannot be sure). Both Cathy and I saw it, and it was possible to get quite close. However the turtle soon decided that it did not want any company, and headed off at a rate I could not match even with fins. It was quite small and therefore presumably a young one. Its shell was very striking. Turtles breed (lay their eggs) on beaches here and there is a program to protect them, as the eggs are vulnerable to damage (and to lizards and iguanas).
[Cathy] It was only the second time I have ever snorkelled (the first time ws on Sunday at Buccoo reef) and I was quite nervous, as there was no-one to keep an eye on me, as Samuel had done last time. But in fact it was so absorbing watching the fish and all the strange coral formations that I hardly noticed time passing. i particularly enjoyed swimminf for some time above a shoal of grey-blue and fluorescent blue fish, which someone later told me were called Blue Tans. They appeared to be browsing on the coral and were a tight knit family group.
Back at our lovely Adventure Eco Farm I spent the evening wandering through the dense trees in the valley below our cabin, and saw several Blue creested motmots perched on lowish branches, unbothered by my proximity. This morning we saw a great flock of orange-winge Amazon parrots in the trees above us as we breakfasted outside - so a little bit of paradise here, I feel!
Tomorrow we are going on a trip through the rain-forest, further north.









Tomorrow we go on a rain forest bird watching trip.

Beach, birds, bats and snorkling on the coral reefs

We arrived in Tobago on Thursday, and spent the first two days quite close to the airport where there are mangrove swamps that are good for birds. The hotel was in a residential area behind which are swamps, so we found that we could see quite a variety of birds just walking the streets nearby in this quiet area.The sea is nearby so the first evening we had supper in a a bar and watched the sunset over the sea and the brown pelicans fishing, diving into the sea at an angle, surfacing and lifting their beaks as they swallowed their catch.

The next day we went to Store Bay, a beach near the airport and swam, and sorted out a mobile phone that would work near the airport, as my phone decided it didn't like making calls, though texts were fortunately fine.

The following day we moved on to a place called Buccoo, which is on a bay with a reef extending across the mouth. The first day we walked up one side along the sand and then headed inland through more mangrove swamps to a coral sand beach, Golden Grove, and had another swim - this time I tried snorkelling but I did have a slight altercation with a glass bottomed boat that came past whose captain did not seem to think I should have been there at all (but I think he was not looking - and got a shock when he saw me splashing). I was keeping a good lookout myslf as this is one of the hazards of snorkling, and I was able to get out of this way, but we kept closer to the beach after that! In the water, there was not much to see - a few small fish. Later on when we had walked back to the beach by the village, Cathy tried snorkelling and got some help from a Canadian couple we had previously met, as she was nervous about this.Poor Samuel got badly bitten by sandflies lying on the sand while she swam. Cathy was more fortunate, thoough at the time she was cross that she couldn't rest - two boisterous beach dogs prevented her sitting down at all!

The next day we went for an excursion in a glass bottomed boat to see the reef. The view of the reef through the glass bottom was not very spectacular, however we were taken to a place to swim with snorkels and this was a different story - the reef seen like this is most spectacular and there are many varieties of fish and coral, though I did not find the coral as spectacular as some places I have been to. Cathy did very well to snorkel with very little preparation, and agreed it was well worth it.

We also swam at a clear water area nearby where you could find shellfish and small fish in the sand. On the way back we (apparently) passed a turtle, but it was only visible as a dark shape in the water.

Later on, we went for a walk to a bird sanctuary but this took a bit too long, and although we saw a few varieties of birds, we were too tired to really apprciate it.

In the evening, there was a event called "Sunday school" where there is a steel band, food stalls, drinking and dancing. The event went on till quite late and we had to retire well before the end, but it was great fun, though I did not sleep quite as well as normal as the festivities were dimly audible for some time.

The next day, Monday, we moved on to an eco villa on a bird sanctuary (Adventure Eco Farm and nature reserve) just beyond Plymouth on the Carribean coast. It is from here that I am making the firt proper entry on the blog.
There is an amazing variety of humming birds here as well as other birds, such as the Blue-crowned Motmot, which is a bird with a blue head and a raquet tail (when mature), and many other species.
The hummingbirds are attracted by feeders. At dusk the hummingbirds vanished and were replaced by bats clustering around the feeders. I have never seen so many bats close up - and there are several varieties, though so far we've not investigated the species and their habits.

It has been a rather busy start to our trip, so we expect to stay here for a few days and relax, though we have booked a rain forest tour for Wednesday with a guide. The Eco Farm site is covered with tall trees, under which fruit trees such as oranges and mangoes grow in a wild sort of garden or rather wilderness with frogs lurking in the long grass. It is called "Adventure Eco Villas" and is also described as a organic farm, though it does not seem to be farmed in the normal sense as fruit is left to lie on the ground, but some must be picked up as we have just been given a bowl of friut salad grown here (for our desert) and marmalade is made and sold. We were asked to create a new template for the marmalade labels,a way of thanking the owner for free access to the internet.The fruit is eaten by birds and other animals as Cathy saw parrots taking grapefruit in their beaks and then walking down the tree to eat them on the ground.

We have everything pretty well ready. I hope it stops raining in Tobago by the time we set off!