|
Trinidad: The Ultimate Eco-Tour
BY JENNIFER LANE
(continued)
At 1:30 p.m. we set out for our next “expedition,” a boat trip through the Caroni Mangrove Swamp on Trinidad’s northwest coast. The swamp harbors the Caroni Bird Sanctuary, home to 130 species of birds, including pelicans, spoonbills, flamingoes, egrets, and scarlet ibis, and is a haven for bird watchers, some of whom come from as far away as England and Australia.
After a one-hour drive down the mountains from the Asa Wright Centre, the van turns into a narrow dirt road alongside a river—and stops. Everyone piles out, heading for a large lean-to with benches, beyond which awaits a flotilla of green-painted wooden boats. When two more vans full of birdwatchers have arrived, we’re ready to begin our journey into the swamp.
Our guide, a naturalist from the sanctuary, is very knowledgeable. Although
bird watching can sometimes seem akin to solving a particularly difficult “Where’s Waldo” puzzle, the guide quickly spots a red-capped cardinal perched in a nearby tree—and as it turns out, this is only the beginning of our sightings. The group of birdwatchers from Ohio (many of whom are “life-listers,” who keep a running tally of every species they’ve seen over the years) are thrilled.
About half a mile (and ten species) further ahead, the river takes a turn to the left and empties into a vast lake, its surface mirror-smooth, reflecting the intensely blue sky and white clouds. The guide stops the boat’s motor and the birdwatchers pass around a large red and white plastic Thermos—it’s 6 p.m., time for the afternoon rum punch break, an (apparently portable) Asa Wright tradition.
Ten minutes later we take up the binoculars again and are rewarded when a flash of red against the clouds turns out to be what we’ve all been looking for: the scarlet ibis, national bird of Trinidad and Tobago and highlight of our tour. Everyone becomes silent as a V-shaped formation of the crimson birds passes overhead, and we then continue to watch, spellbound, as flock after brilliantly-colored flock lights up the sky like fireworks. This is what we came to see—nature at its most spectacular. Cameras click wildly until the show seems to be at an end. The motor of our boat whirrs and we slowly turn and make our way out of the lake and back onto the river as the last flocks of ibis fade into the twilight. Before our boat docks, the guide points out a Cook’s Tree Boa coiled on an overhanging branch, and then a large-billed tern, an osprey, and a night heron.
Back at Asa Wright, dinner consists of barbecued chicken, spinach crepes, and dasheen (a local vegetable), which we enjoy at a communal table, sharing stories and travel adventures. Afterward there is a video on Trinidad’s wildlife in the Lodge’s sitting room, and after this we venture out on a nighttime nature walk.
We’re looking for Peripatus, the velvet worm—a small invertebrate that belongs to its own phylum, the Onychophora, distantly related to arthropods. Resembling a cross between a caterpillar and a slug, with a long, segmented, wormlike body, paired caterpillar-like legs, and soft slug-like antennae, Peripatus is predatory, feeding mainly on crickets and other insects. We’ve heard it is a rare find even here. We search along the muddy embankments of the roadway. It should be a good night for finding the little guys—it’s humid, and rained a bit during dinner.
To our immense surprise, we find one, and it’s beautiful—a long, red, caterpillar-like body, fleshy footpads, long antennae, and a yellow “collar.” I pick it up and let it crawl across my hand. This is a creature whose ancestors date back at least to the Cambrian period, 544 million years ago, when its extinct relative Ayshaeia inhabited the seas of what is now British Columbia. It’s a striking find.
* * *
I wake up at 7:20 am on a cool but humid morning to prepare for a long day trip—a visit to the freshwater Nariva Swamp, whose inhabitants include native red howler monkeys and white capuchins (the latter unique to Trinidad), manatee, alligators, anaconda, and the Suriname toad, as well as the four-eyed fish and a variety of birds and butterflies. The swamp is located on Trinidad’s east coast, and is an internationally-known wildlife site and protected habitat, with the island’s last wild population of red-bellied macaws.
It’s a two-hour drive in the van from the Centre, followed by a long boat trip through the Nariva swamp to Bush Bush Island. We trek through dense forest, spotting iridescent Caligo Blue butterflies and another butterfly species, the black-and-red-striped Red Anartia. Ramdas, our guide, directs our attention upwards, where we see large, brownish-red balls of fur wedged high in the tree tops. They’re the red howlers we’ve come to see (and in case we are in any doubt, a moment later the forest reverberates with noise), and we’ve found a family of three of them.
Soon it begins to rain heavily. The guide has brought an umbrella, which we share among us as we hike along the forest trail. He informs us to watch out for venomous
fer-de-lance snakes, but we don’t see any. We pass a tree on which large, bowling-ball-like seeds hang from vines, which Ramdas says is called a “cannonball tree.” We smell, but don’t see, a porcupine.
After our rainforest hike, as the boat returns through the swamp, we spot a variety of birds—great kiskadee, smooth-billed ani, yellow-crowned night heron, a savannah hawk, numerous red-bellied macaws and orange-winged parrots—and another highlight of Trinidadian nature, the beautiful blue morpho butterfly, with its iridescent blue wings fringed with black.
Later, as we drive back from Nariva swamp, we stop along the shore on Manzanilla Bay (north of the swamp, on Trinidad’s east coast) and eat the picnic lunch the Centre staff have packed for us, a very tasty tuna casserole with salad and cake (which we share with a few stray dogs), while keeping an eye out for manatees. Ramdas tells us they are sometimes seen from the beach, and also further up the brackish-water streams nearby, as far south as Point Radix, past Nariva and halfway down the east coast. No manatees today, but we don’t stay very long.
Our guide drives us around the island’s northwest coast, pointing out more of the wildlife, and I find myself slowly becoming addicted to bird-watching. Like stamp-collecting, it can easily become habit-forming—somehow, the urge to put a little “check-mark” next to every species in the book begins to take over. “Ruby-Topaz hummingbird! Scaled Pigeon!” our guide points out. “yee-ha!” I think quietly, checking off yet another page.
|
|
