Susan and David's Excellent Adventure
or
A 20th Anniversary in Trinidad and Tobago

We spent our 20th wedding anniversary visiting the islands of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, in the West Indies. We stayed at the Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad and at the Blue Waters Inn on Tobago. Here are a few scenes from our visit:

A view of our cabin at Asa Wright - we had a Tufted Coquette (hummingbird) feeding on the flowers just outside.

Here is the view from the veranda of the main building at Asa Wright.

The various feeders just outside the veranda can get quite active. The scene below includes Banaquits, male and female White-lined Tanagers, male Green Honeycreepers, and male and female Purple Honeycreepers.

At times the action can get very intense. They have something of a Banaquit overpopulation situation.

We loved the honeycreepers. Check out the bright yellow legs on the male Purple Honeycreepers!

The feeders also attract the large and raucous Crested Oropendolas

and lots of hummingbirds, including this White-necked Jacobin.

Trinidad has 60 species of bats and the feeders attracted some of these too.

Spilled food under the feeders attracted Agoutis

and Tegus.

Other birds we saw on the Asa Wright property included this Common Potoo, trying to mimic a dead branch as a daytime roost

and these Oilbirds. Oilbirds are the only nocturnal, fruit-eating birds in the world. They roost and nest in caves. Very peculiar birds. This photo was taken using flashlight illumination.

One of the few snakes we saw was this tree boa sleeping in a mangrove.

On Tobago, we stayed at the Blue Waters Inn

right on the beach at Batteaux Bay.

On the beach there were crabs like this one cleaning out his burrow.

Aside from eating, swimming, and snorkeling, we (of course) did some birding. The emblem of the Inn is the Blue-crowned Motmot, a bird that is common on both islands.

On one of our excursions, we got great looks at a male Collared Trogon

and a Southern Lapwing.

Of course, there were plenty of birds in the vicinity of the Inn, including Ruddy Turnstones running around in the bar,

the Blue and Yellow Macaw that lives on the property (sadly, extirpated in the wild),

and the noisy and plentiful Rufous-vented Chachalacas.

We had a great time, saw over 140 species of birds, and returned happy and healthy and reasonably relaxed. We can hardly wait to go back.

 

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