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.