Trinidad / Special Interests / Birdwatching

Trinidad has earned a justifiable global reputation for the range and accessibility of its birdlife, founded on a geological association with Venezuela and South America and a wide variety of habitat and vegetation within a relatively small land mass.

Trinidad's topography veers from montane rainforest and flat savannahs to littoral woodland, marsh and wetland, river valley and rugged beachscapes, harbouring 430 species, rare flagship endemics like the oilbird and piping guan, and an astounding 16 hummingbirds. Favoured locations for birding are the Northern Mountain Range, including the renowned Asa Wright Nature Centre and Pax Guest House at Mt.St.Benedict, Las Lapas ridge, Morne Bleu, Paria Junction , Morne La Croix and the Marianne river estuary, all near Blanchisseuse on the north coast, Chacachacare island off  NW Trinidad, the Caroni and Nariva swamps, Galera Point in the north east, Manzanilla and Cocos Bay in the east, and around the Aripo agricultural research station in the central region.

One evening your correspondent pulled into a bright neon lit gas station at midnight in the second city of San Fernando. The place was busy, cars and people coming and coming, yet as I alighted it caught my eye clear as day—a beautiful adult barn owl sat atop a pump, nonchalantly surveying the forecourt for rodents, perfectly at ease and inscrutable in this unusual environment—yet no one seemed to have noticed. I checked its credentials: “an uncommon resident, nocturnal and crepuscular, favouring open scrubby areas, grasslands and water meadows.”  So, this individual was way out of its alleged comfort zone though it was hardly apparent--like life in Trinidad, so with birding—expect the unexpected.

Richard  Ffrench’s seminal book “A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad & Tobago" is only surpassed by the more recent superbly illustrated Helm Field Guide by Martyn Kenefick, Robin Restall and Floyd Hayes which is particularly good on bird biology and identification and an indispensable modern companion.