Main Ridge Forest Reserve, Tobago

Tobago is a very small island, and the most interesting birds live in the densest rainforest which occurs on the slopes of the main ridge at the north-east end of the island, the Main Ridge Forest Reserve. This protected area has several excellent trails through it, most accessed from the Roxborough to Bloody Bay road. Seeing as we didn't have a car, and largely didn't have a clue, we decided to employ a guide. Note that I said "we" - yup, Mrs L came too, incredible! Pre-trip research indicated that the best guide was a guy called Newton George, so I made sure to send him an email several months before we travelled. He got back with options very quickly, and the costs (US$60 each for a half-day) seemed reasonable-enough for top-quality guiding. Newton worked for many years as a ranger in the reserve and knows it better than anyone - this proved not to be a boast - he was excellent, and, as I had hoped, picked up all the good stuff on call, which as tourists we simply could not do. We agreed we would sort out precise dates when we arrived, and then I didn't hear from Newton again! Not to worry though, as I left a message for him at the desk of our hotel - much of his business comes from the Blue Waters Inn, and sure enough, one afternoon as I was stood on our balcony in my underpants, he popped round to work out the finer details.

So a couple of days later we met him in the carpark at 6am with a packed lunch and lots of optics, and headed off to Roxborough, seeing a few birds on the way, such as our first Green Heron of the holiday. We turned north at Roxborough and the road began to wind slowly upwards, and the abandoned cocoa plantations gave way to thicker forest. We were the only car on the road, and the order of the day was to make frequent stops either because Newton had seen something, or simply because it was a promising area in which he had previously seen something. In this way we added a stack of new birds to the list, and got views of Collared Trogon that I had scarcely believed possible, and it was Mrs L who found it!! Tropical and Grey Kingbirds were everywhere, pairs of Orange-winged Parrots (O-w Amazon) flew overhead making a variety of noises, and we had several Rufous-tailed Jacamar - a fabulous Bee-eater-like creation.

Rufous-tailed Jacamar

Tropical Kingbird

Further stops gained us the sought-after Venezualan Flycatcher, Ochre-bellied and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, as well as Olivaceous Woodcreeper and Golden-Olive Woodpecker. Working the forest edge is the easiest way to see birds, and so we spent much of the morning gradually we birding our way up to the best trail in the area, Gilpin Trace - a wonderful track that winds down a valley beside a stream deep into the forest. This is where we saw the star bird - the White-tailed Sabrewing, Tobago's largest Hummingbird. Photos from this particular trip are fairly thin on the groud as at this point I had not DISCOVERED FLASH but I'll try and give a quick impression of what it was like.

Trinidad Motmot

How Newton picked up all the stuff in the forest I will never know, but I guess he might experience (a lesser version of) the same if he came round Wanstead Flats with me - that said he has been to the UK a lot, usually for the bird fair, so perhaps not, and I might have to pay him here too! We got almost all the target birds and saw them well, the only real miss was the White-throated Spadebill which we heard but never saw. Guess I'll have to go back....

 

Here's the list from the day:

Main Ridge Forest Reserve
Rufous-vented Chachalaca
Broad-winged Hawk
Great Black Hawk
Orange-winged Parrot
White-throated Jacobin
Rufous-breasted Hermit
White-tailed Sabrewing
Copper-rumped Hummingbird
Collared Trogon (we saw five in the end)
Trinidad Motmot
Rufous-tailed Jacamar
Golden-Olive Woodpecker
Red-crowned Woodpecker
Stripe-breasted Spinetail
Plain Brown Woodcreeper
Olivaceous Woodcreeper
Barred Antshrike
Plain Antvireo
Yellow-breasted Flycatcher
Ochre-bellied Flycatcher
Yellow-bellied Elaenia
Fuscous Flycatcher
Tropical Kingbird
Grey Kingbird
Venezualan Flycatcher
Blue-backed Manakin
Scrub Greenlet
House Wren
Rufous-breasted Wren
Yellow-legged Thrush
White-necked Thrush
Tropical Mockingbird
Blue-grey Tanager
White-lined Tanager
Palm Tanager
Bananaquit
Black-faced Grassquit
Giant Cowbird

plus these on the way

Green Heron
Cattle Egret
Little Blue Heron

Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll in Suffolk

Finally, some birding, and a day out! Started with an early morning and high tide wader count at Rainham - just one segment of a count undertaken by several people to try and simultaeneously survey all of the roost sites along the Thames with the aim of preserving the disused piers they like to get on. Rainham wasn't a great success in ecological terms, with one Dunlin, two Black-tailed Godwits, and a Snipe. I recommend building houses on it.

Once done with the wader, err sorry, waders, Nick, Bradders and I headed off to filthily twitch the Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll in Suffolk, as the title of this post suggests. As expected, a brilliant bird and a complete star. Diagnostic features included a complete and utter disregard for any birder or photographer, no matter how close they were, although it took exception to one particular birder with an earring and white socks, and gave him a thorough going over.

Death by Redpoll

Oh, sorry, you were expecting photos of the bird? Oh go on then...... By the way, I am struggling hugely with getting photos to display at the right width on this blog. I'm a big fan of big photos, photos that look nice. I hate little itty bitty photos that you can't see what they are. In my enthusiasm for super-sizing, it's become apparent that sometimes you, the reader, only see a tiny tiny fraction of the photo, the rest being cut off. For instance in the photo above you might only get the birders on the left and completely miss Lee flat on his face after being floored by a large Redpoll. Rest assured I am trying to fix this, but being pretty unsavvy in all matters html, am struggling rather - this evening for instance the wonderfully informative sidebar has disappeared to the bottom of this blog.... I'm trying to get it back. Oh, the Redpoll? Er, yeah. Here.

Blue Waters Inn, Tobago

Old news, old news, but the next few posts, added together, are going to form a trip report, that you can access from my Trips Page. Anyway, it's not as if I've seen any birds here - in fact I've barely been out of the house other than to go to work.

So, Tobago. Wonderful. Go. Go now. Actually, scratch that. Don't go now, go next November, for right about now the prices tend to skyrocket, such that a week in January costs 2.5x what a week in November costs. This is apparently the distinction between the wet and the dry season, though for the first six days of our stay we had approximately 40 minutes of rain. Perhaps we were just lucky, but it made our holiday seem like a complete bargain. We flew British Airways (the choices of airline are fairly limited, and it's only a weekly flight, via Antigua), and also booked our hotel, the Blue Waters Inn, via their website. The morning flight, from Gatwick, was pretty long, made longer by the enforced stop in Antigua, and by the time we got to ANR Robinson Airport at Crown Point on Tobago, it was 5.30 in the evening and basically dark - the time difference is four hours. But it was WARM, and as we stepped out onto the pavement, rum punch in hand, a steel band was playing. Holiday mode was immediately engaged! We had prebooked a transfer to the Blue Waters Inn, just over an hours drive away, but in doing so paid well over the odds. It was nice to have no hassle immediately upon arrival, but  the actual fare is $50, or 300 local dollars, known as TT.

The first thing you notice about Tobago is that everybody knows everybody, and the common way of saying "Hi" is to hoot your horn. So, one arm out of the window, the other on the horn - essentially constantly, leaving, er, no hands for the wheel....and the roads to Tobago once you get past the capital, Scarborough, become quite bendy. Lucky then that it was dark. Needless to say, we made it one piece and by 9pm local time were sitting in the Shipwreck Bar of the Blue Waters Inn drinking the second of many rum punches. I had chosen this place for several reasons - the primary one being the location. It sits just north of the small village of Speyside at the eastern end of the island in the secluded Batteaux Bay. This end of the island is the hilly part, with secondary forest coming right down to the shore. The western end, where the airport and the main tourist district are, is the flat part. There are birds there of course, but let's just say there is a reason why all birders stay in Speyside! The second reason was that the hotel was lowrise, and small, just 38 rooms, all of which were right on the beach. I'm not a fan of big hotels with gazillions of guests. This hotel had it's own beach, own jetty, secluded basically. Oh, and it was where the boats to the Red-billed Tropicbird colony on Little Tobago go from.... Many months after I had booked the holiday I asked various birding associates if they had ever been to Tobago - those that had been had all stayed, and I mean 100% of them, at the Blue Waters Inn. Curried Shrimp and a beer later and we were ready to hit the sack.





Bananquit

We awoke at 4am to the sound of birds. Unknown birds. Naturally I leapt out of bed and tried to identify them in the dark. Turns out the first one to start off is the Tropical Mockingbird, followed shortly afterwards by the uniquitous Bananaquit, which sounds like a cross between a hyperactive Dunnock and a Firecrest. Once you've had about a quarter of an hour of duet of those two, the very noisy Rufous-vented Chachalacas start up, a kind of small turkey-like fowl - the national bird of Tobago.





Rufous-vented Chachalaca

It got light before six, and so we started to explore our surroundings. The hotel is literally on the beach - a couple of bungalows and then two small groupings of rooms separated by the bar, restaurant and pool. I estimate that the distance from my bed to the water was easily under six metres, and were it not for the low wall I reckon I could have got from one to the other in under five seconds. As it was, twenty seconds was about the norm, though everything happens much more slowly than you would expect on Tobago. This is both a good and a bad thing. Good in that you cannot help but relax, but bad in that anyone who that you might expect is there to see to your holiday needs is in fact much more relaxed than you are, and consequently - and despite your advanced state of relaxation - you cannot help but get frustrated at just how long it takes for a beer to get from the bar to your table.

We went for our first swim before breakfast, and it was delicious. The warter is properly warm. Not quite bath warm, but warm enough that any testicular fears you may have evaporate instantly. Over the course of the week I spent many happy hours simple floating on my back (I have excellent natural buoyancy....)  watching Magnificent Frigatebirds floating over. My list of birds seen whilst swimming was pretty good. Frigates easily the most common, but regular Red-billed Tropicbirds in the distance, Brown Pelicans and Osprey overhead, Great Black Hawk, Peregrine, Orange-winged Parrots and quite a few others.

Breakfast was a leisurely affair, a buffet of fruits and so on, endless coffee, and then hot food if you felt like it. And all with a brilliant view of a sandy beach - complete with the friendliest Turnstones in the world, Spotted Sandpiper, and Yellow-crowned Night Heron - and verdant scenery down to the water's edge. There was a lot of happy sighing.




Trinidad (Blue-crowned) Motmot

I mentioned that this wasn't a birding holiday - indeed it wasn't. Much time was spent sitting around. Swimming, reading, snoozing, outright dozing in fact. My biggest downfall was the presence of Hummingbird feeders between the rooms and the beach - and there a great deal of time was spent, as I have already shown here. A non-photographer could have had a much more sedentary week. Of the seven days we spent on Tobago, five and half were spent no more than fifty yards from our hotel room - it was that kind of holiday. Tthe grounds of the hotel encompassed several acres, and the manicured areas quickly gave way to wilder habitat, and it was this edge that was probably the most productive. Is it time for a list? I think it is!

Blue Waters Inn
Rufous-vented Chachalaca
Magnificent Frigatebird
Red-billed Tropicbird
Brown Pelican
Brown Booby
Magnificent Frigatebird
Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Little Blue Heron
Osprey
Great Black Hawk
Yellow-headed Caracara
Peregrine
Turnstone
Spotted Sandpiper
White-tipped Dove
Pale-vented Pigeon
Orange-winged Parrot
Smooth-billed Ani
Grey-rumped Swift
Rufous-breasted Hermit
Copper-rumped Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Trinidad Motmot
Red-crowned Woodpecker
Barred Antshrike
White-fringed Antwren
Yellow-breasted Elaenia
Ochre-bellied Flycatcher
Tropical Kingbird
Grey Kingbird
Scrub Greenlet
Tropical Mockingbird
Blue-grey Tanager
Bananaquit
Blue-black Grassquit
Crested Oropendola
Great Cowbird

I've no idea how many that is, but whilst a few birds were omnipresent, you had to go looking for many of them, and so in the quiet hours before the hotel was up, that's what I did. This quickly became the routine - a spot of birding before a swim and a leisurely breakfast, another swim, a quick photo-session before lunch (all photos in this post taken no more than twenty seconds away from our room), lunch, beer, more swimming etc. Fairly strenuous really, I don't know how I coped.

A few thoughts on the hotel - fabulous surroundings, all I thought it would be on paper. Slightly let down by largely indifferent cooking - if you stuck to the daily grilled fish you were largely OK, but overall we thought it was pretty average. Not that we went there for the gourmet experience you understand, but top-quality nosh is always appreciated and this wasn't. Similarly the cocktails were all standard pub-style cocktails, ie not very good, or at least not versus what a real cocktail ought to be - half the time they had no limes, which is ridiculous as I found a lime tree in the grounds whilst birding! My guess is the staff were just too relaxed to go and pick them - and this was probably the most annoying thing. I can relax up there with the best of them, but there are limits, especially when you're working in a service environment. Then again, perhaps I shouldn't attempt to apply western european standards to the Caribbean, and this is what it is like all the time and if you go often you just expect it. So in summary, setting great, birds great, room great, food, drink and service mostly average. Nothing to warrant complaining about, but equally nothing to write home about either. Like I said, I went there for the former rather than the latter, so no real worries. And when you have Bananquits sat on railings as you eat lunch, who cares?

 

Ultra-orthodox Advent Calendar

And Lo! an Advent Calendar was purchased for the children residing in Chateau L, a fancy-ass pop-up book Advent Calendar, and one utterly bereft of chocolate. And so it came to pass that a couple of days ago, the third-born child didst open the door marked "1". And there was much rejoicing.

"Oh look Daddy, it's a book."

OK, perhaps not that much rejoicing. In fact there was something approaching downright apathy. In the absence of chocolate, the greatest Advent Calendar desires of children are generally crackers, yule logs, jolly Santas and Christmas-themed penguins. Not books. But - and although the child in question was completely unaware of the significance - this was no ordinary book. No, if you looked closely there ran the following inscription. Holy Bible. Rubbish. That's no way to start an Advent Calendar is it? Suck them in, make them eager for number two!? Well, only perhaps in the sense than it cannot possibly be more boring.

Yesterday came, the second-born's moment had arrived.

Anti-climax.

"Daddy, it's a man banging a table." This statement had a certain air of finality about it, and indeed there was little opportunity for follow-up.

"Err, yes, so it is."

Whilst my religious knowledge is negligible, stemming mainly from a complete lack of interest, a closer inspection confirmed that this latter-day iconography of Man Banging Table was probably Joseph the Carpenter. I didn't bother attempting to explain, as subsequent days could very easily surpass my knowledge of the Christmas Story. Whaddya mean there are no penguins??!

Nonetheless, there are perverse and highly cynical feelings of intrigue circulating amongst the older residents of Chateau L as to what gems of quasi-fact further days may bring. Might we, for instance, get the full heavenly host and the immaculate conception? Or just the Donkey? Or perhaps a crude mixture of the two, the Mary that we never knew about? We can but hope. I can't fault the design, it's pretty cool. But the message? Come on! Christmas is about gazillions of presents, excessive materiality, and the gross consumption of food and alcoholic beverages - everybody knows that. Anything else is pure heresy.

Back to Reality

Blue-backed Manakin

I love that feeling you get when you step off a plane and into your new climate - in Tobago a wall of warmth hit me as soon as I emerged from the door. In the same way that I love that particular sensation, I hate the opposite. Having spent a week in that warmth, coming back was very difficult - and the weather the day we came back was atrocious. Cold, driving rain.
This weekend has been nicer, cold and crisp, but having just been away for over a week, I didn't feel it was right to immediately bugger off birding, so it has been a quiet one of lego and eating, domestic bliss basically. I managed a very short wander round Bush Wood - our Firecrest has returned - and found a few Goldcrests. The lack of Hummingbirds and Motmots was a disappointment, but I actually found this return to the patch less depressing than, say, having just come back off Shetland. I don't know why this should be, but it wasn't actually so bad. Perhaps it was because I had my flash and imagined myself in the rainforest again?

I met Nick in Bush Wood, also looking for Firecrests. We agreed that we were both just waiting for January 1st again, going through the motions. There are certain points in the year - for me the start of February and right now - that patch birding becomes a complete chore, and frankly I would rather be indoors, warm, and drinking tea or something stronger. It's not as if I've got nothing to do - there is heaps. I have to write a section of the 2010 LBR, I have to try and gather a pile of photos together for it (what do you mean you didn't hear about the Staines Res Tropicbird?), and I also have a million photos from Tobago still to edit, in addition to needing to think about Christmas and stuff. Oh, and work.

I need a holiday.

Hummingbirds

I am still in full-on photo-editing mode, so here's another very photo-heavy post over at www.justbirdphotos.com. Normal service about seeing nothing on Wanstead Flats should be resumed shortly, though there is a whiff of Scaup in the air, and Waxwing is surely on the cards before too long. Tobago was wonderful, magical, and I am going to do a full trip report in due course. I've put a Steel Band CD on my iPod, and this makes the Central Line a little more bearable, but essentially I cannot believe that the trip is over and that the warm turquoise sea is now but a memory. This lay about ten feet from my hotel bedroom door - about the distance I sit from a lady called Michele in the office. She too recently returned from a holiday that she would still much rather be on, though I don't know how far away warm water was for her. But if you ever find yourself booking a holiday to Tobago, do go stay at the Blue Waters Inn. Barring any serious incidents, the sea I'm talking about should still be there, and you will have Hummingbirds and Bananaquits quarraling over the feeders two feet from you all day long, and be woken up by Tropical Mockingbirds and Rufous-vented Chachalacas while it is still dark.

Red-billed Tropicbirds

No visit to Tobago would be complete (for a birder, or a birder's wife) without a visit to the tiny island of Little Tobago just off the coast from the village of Speyside. This is where the Red-billed Tropicbirds nest, and it's a fabulous experience. If you have not tried walking up a steep hill carrying a ton of gear in temperatures of 30 degrees and around 85% humidity, then frankly you haven't lived. It's all worthwhile once you get to the top is all I can say. Here is a taster, with a lot more here.