The verandah is one of the Caribbean's most civilized institutions. Neither inside nor out, you are sheltered there from the sun and rain and yet you have the best of the breeze and the view. It is the natural gathering place in the cool of the evening, when islanders indulge that other great West Indian institution, the rum punch.
Perhaps the finest veranda in the Caribbean is the one at the Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad. It is sixty feet long by twenty, so wide that it needs supporting columns, and scattered around it stained wooden floor are low wooden tables and armchairs. It is attached to a superb creole house, reached through full-length louvred wooden doors, which was originally built in 1907 as a cocoa and coffee plantation house (and as a wedding present), but which is now better known as a bird-watcher's haven and ornithological research station.
The verandah looks out onto a magnificent, steep-sided valley which stretches into the hazy distance, its flanks swathed in green, much of it primary forest. When we arrived it was flecked with the blooms of the madre de cacao, a tree planted as shade for the cocoa trees which turns bright orange early in the year. But of course it is the foreground which interests visitors. The flowers and bushes in the immensely fertile garden attract a stunning number of birds. They say that you can reliably expect to see thirty-five species before breakfast
People were already out soon after six, lined on stools at the veranda's balustrade--"is best to be out before the hibiscus flowers open...", said one of the guides who help guests with spotting and interpretation. There was an air of study and concentration as they pored through their binoculars, a quiet murmur of chat and an occasional movement as they pointed to one another where to look.
Directly beneath the veranda a honey-creeper flew in to the powder-puff bush (where little pink and white fans stood among the leaves), hopped from branch to branch, and then departed; a white chested emerald (hummingbird) ranged into view, covering the little shrimp-like flowers of the zebra-plant, flitting and holding still, wings beating with alarming speed. More heavy concentration as a woman trained her massive 800 millimetre lens like some sort of futuristic weapon. A silver-beaked tanager twittered about, doing its thing.
A couple of tables have been placed beneath the verandah and fruit peelings are left out to attract the birds. A violaceous euphonia hopped up in a glorious streak of iridescent blue and a yellow-breasted bananaquit appeared--these are known widely around the Caribbean and are often cheeky enough to steal the sugar from your breakfast table. An orange flambeau butterfly passed across the veranda. Occasionally animals will come within view of the house. An agouti, a small rodent a bit like a guinea pig which is nearly extinct in many Caribbean islands, crept around in search of pickings.
A guide suddenly raised a finger and pointed to the taller trees in the middle distance. A bell-bird had just arrived and was calling occasionally: boing... boing. A quiet chorus of "good spotting" ran around the veranda and all binoculars turned skywards; there was some conferring and then a volley of tiny ecstatic gasps. A flash of yellow shot by fifty yards off, with a whirr like a miniature plane struggling to keep aloft. It was an oro pendula (called so because it builds a hanging nest, like a cannonball in a stocking). The guide continued to point out and to explain things to peole who asked: parrots, gregarious, fly by in squeeking and squawking groups: channel-billed toucans can be recognized by their multi-coloured plumage and roller-coaster flight. Hawk eagles call with a 'hee-hee-hee' and giant cowbirds are brood parasites; they nip into the oro pendula's nest and lay an egg. The stories are limitless.
Birding is the main activity at the Asa Wright Centre of course, but it is interesting even for the ornithologically uninitiated. There are guided walks around the estate, following the narrow old roads of the plantation years: among other things you can see a lek, where male mannikins, true to their name, spend about 90 per cent of their lives displaying, turning somersaults and leap-frogging each other in their keenness to impress passing females.
But of course it is the verandah that is the focal point of life at Asa Wright. People gather there again before lunch, at tea-time, and then again before dusk as the birds fly in to feed at the flowers beneath. And of course they return at six for a rum punch and to swap birding war stories from the day's activities.
Birds in Tobago
The Arnos Vale area of Tobago is well known to birders. The bird list below, and images above, were supplied by Hugh Baker from Top O' Tobago:
Blue Grey Tanager
Bananaquit
Red Crowned Woodpecker
Rufous Vented Chachacalaca
Blue Crowned Mot-Mot (King of the Woods)
Tropical Mockingbird
Eared Dove
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
Green Rumped Hummingbird
Ruby-Topaz Hummingbird
Black-throated Mango
Tobago Emerald
Glossy Cowbird
White-shouldered Tanagers
Tobago White-barred Bush Strikes
Tobago House Wren
Allied Ant Wren
Glossy Grassquit
Yellowtail Cornbird
Rufous-tailed Jacamar owl
