sbrasuel said:I'll be going to Tobago Nov 20. Can anyone recommend a good field guide? Also, any helpful advice would be appreciated.
njlarsen said:There is a book called A Birders guide to Trinidad and Tobago, which is due to come out in a new version soon. Your local Audobon might have a copy of the old version that you can look at for site information.
Niels
sbrasuel said:Bill,
Thanks for the update on the latest books available. I'm arriving in Tobago Nov.21. We are staying at Blue Waters Inn in Speyside. What birding areas are close by? Do you recommend a guide (if so, can you recommend someone?) or is hiking on my own good enough? Since our main focus is diving I will only have a few days to bird so I want to make the most of those few days.
Thanks for responding to my inquiry. I'll see if I can get a copy of the latest
A Birdwatcher's Guide to Trinidad and Tobago from ABA. I hope they can get it to me in time.
Summer
murph3000 said:Neils, you are correct. The third edition of A Birdwatcher's Guide to Trinidad and Tobago, which I first produced in 1986, was published in August by Prion Ltd. of Norfolk, U.K. It's being sold by Natural History Book Service in the U.K. -- check out http://www.nhbs.com/xbscripts/bkfsrch?search=124159 -- and in the U.S. by American Birding Association Sales -- http://americanbirding.org/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ASBS&Product_Code=744.
Bill Murphy, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
The Great Corn Desert
rka said:Hi Bill,
Does your book have trail information or directions to the most popular birding locations?
murph3000 said:Hi... What's your name?! You're from Chaguanas? I go through there sometimes when I'm birding the rice fields. To answer your question, yes. All de bes', mon!
--Bill
rka said:Hi Bill,
I'm Rashid Ali ... yes I'm from Chaguanas. I don't think the rice fields are too accessible again but there are better options for seeing moorhens, gallinules etc. in a small freshwater marsh area bordered by Sumaria Trace. This is about two-three miles south of the main entrance to the Caroni Swamp.
In December I'm on vacation and will be exploring Trinidad further to find new birding areas.
Yes, I know them. Whenever they organise birding field trips with the T&T Field Naturalist Club, I tag along. Also, from time to time I meet Martyn in the field.murph3000 said:Happy to make your acquaintance, Rashid. Three of my friends bird extensively in your area -- Martyn Kenefick, Courtenay Rooks, and Graham White. If you don't know them, perhaps you could give them a ring and meet them. We're all on the T&T Rare Bird Committee, a motley crew indeed.
murph3000 said:Hello Summer,
You might also contact Natural History Book Service and see how long it would take to get the book from them.
The Blue Waters Inn is as famous for underwater life as it is above-water life if not more so. The world’s largest brain coral lies not far offshore, and it’s not at all uncommon to find sea turtles. By private email I’ll send you the address of a friend of mine who started out birding at the BWI but has now spent more time scuba diving there than birding. He thinks it’s outstanding. I’ve had nothing but excellent trips using Wordsworth Frank’s boats. He has a small office in the car park at BWI, just as you get to the bottom of the hill.
You don't need a bird guide for the area immediate to the BWI, but I'd highly recommend at least one day with a guide along the Roxborough-Bloody Bay Road, which takes in the Main Ridge Reserve, the oldest nature preserve in the Western Hemisphere. Birding guides aren’t abundant on Tobago, but among the ones I’ve found to be excellent are Adolphus and Gladwyn James, Newton George, and Peter Cox. Newton lives in Speyside, only two or three km from the Blue Waters Inn, so probably he would be the most convenient. The other guides live much farther south, at least an hour away.
The BWI is a bit confined in that you’re in your own paradise, formed by high hills to the north, west, and south and the ocean to the east. That makes birding a bit of a climb unless you’re going to sea. In the immediate area there’s one place I always check – a dripping pipe behind a staff building directly across the lane from the kitchen area. Sometimes migrants from North America line up for a drink and a bath. I’ve seen quite a lot of Northern Waterthrushes there.
The best birding outside the complex is along a trail that runs from the highest point along the driveway, near the cannon, up through the scrub and back around to the old waterwheel at the entrance to the driveway. You can also walk from the cannon northeast along a dirt track that follows the hills for a long way. I won’t even try to describe the breathtaking scenery that awaits you there.
A bit farther afield (you'll need to catch a ride) but even better for birding, Murchison Trace runs basically east from the you-can't-miss-it lookout along the road way above Speyside. Newton George has had White-winged Becards there.
Here are a few shots -- BWI from the sea, showing the trail along the hillside; Wordsworth Frank and his boat; and a view from the hillside above the BWI.